301–310 of 344 posts
Episode 926: So, Should We Recycle? - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id2907834...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>My mother-in-law would run the cans and bottles through the dishwasher before putting them in the rcycle bin. That seems to be the issue, not the recycling program. > Just driving the truck around the neighborhood to pick up the bins is a cost in diesel, human resources (which translate to carbon at some level). The same truck would still drive arround though if you didn't have recycling program, it will just be a b…
> That seems to be the issue, not the recycling program. The recycling program requires the cans be clean, so someone, somewhere is washing them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the previous poster, but it seems "black" represents garbage truck whilst "green" represents recycling. The argument they were making is if your garbage weren't going to a recycling plant, it would be going to a landfill. Either way, the same amount of waste has to be transported from your home, so the same number of trucks would still be driving around.
Recycling is a trivial number of trucks. And far as I know, they don't crush the material. Also they keep it separate (paper/glass/metal) and the sections probably never fill evenly. So a pretty inefficient operation is my guess.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually they just burn it on-site through generators in containers. It’s too dirty to put in the natural gas grid.
Ah, thanks for the correction, I didn't realize that. Still seems like it's not a bad way to generate electricity though.
I looked up the numbers, in the US, it’s something like 70% burn on-site for electricity, 20% burn in some nearby use (e.g. process steam or greenhouse warming) and 10% was cleaned up enough to pipe into the natural gas grid.
That’s by facility count, not BTUs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of reduction. What do you mean by "promotes growth" here? You pay for your recycling just like your trash. Why would any company like it more than reducing overall waste?
One is buried into the earth ‘forever’. The other is a raw materials subsidy for manufacturing paid by the taxpayer.
Municipal recycling programs are often a profit center for the municipalities running them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization ... I think you got it backwards. Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization arrived, just like defecating wherever you find convenient, hunting animals for dinner, or riding hoses on whatever side of road you like. The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that it's no longer…
The tragedy of it is that we are technologically better placed than ever to make and mend items which will last a lifetime, and beyond, but consumerism and never-ending economic growth mean that instead we have planned obsolescence, and almost everything made as cheaply as possible, with consequent reduction in quality and less satisfaction overall.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
those people were moving to the west in search for a place to live. they moved because they couldn't live where they were. if they could afford to throw stuff away they probably would not have moved in the first place
To outfit a wagon to go West with all the supplies necessary cost the inflation adjusted equivalent of about $100K. Wagons, livestock, supplies to live on while travelling and when homesteading before the first harvest came in were not cheap. That’s without considering the materiel you’d need to set up a farm when you got to your homestead. North America was labour scarce compared to Europe from 1492 on. There was al…
What deflator was used to make this calculation?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>when you really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go shopping. There's a Danish study[1] that concluded that reusable bags require 50+ uses before breaking even with disposable plastic bags. And that's for one use. If you reuse the disposable bag once (to line your garbage bin, for example), the break even point is now 100+ uses. If you factor in cleaning costs for the reusable bags, I'd be…
That is a very selective interpretation of that paper. The study found that some types of reusable bag needed many uses before being a better environmental option than thin plastic bags (e.g. cotton). Other bags, such as sturdier plastic bags designed for reuse were much better options, needing only a few uses to break even, environmentally speaking. Anyway, 50+ (or 100+) uses - a year or two of weekly shopping - doe…
"a few uses" is only true when you're only considering climate change. it's 50+ when you consider all factors.
>Anyway, 50+ (or 100+) uses - a year or two of weekly shopping - does not seem unreasonable for a cotton bag.
The issue here is that at 1 shopping trip per week, it's a little under 2 years to break even with disposable bags plastic bags (assuming you reuse the disposable bag once). To actually make a 50% reduction, you'd need to use it for 4 years. That's a lot of hassle (remembering to bring along the bags, storing it, etc.) for very little benefit (in absolute terms), considering how little materials are in each plastic bag. For instance, according to the table on page 55, each bag has greenhouse effect equivalent to 0.11kg of co2. Over 400 uses with 50% savings, that's 22kg of co2 saved. With the current market price for carbon offset credits (quick search puts it at $25/ton), that's $0.55 saved over 4 years. You might be able to scale that out to 10 bags, but that's still pretty low.
- what can be recycled? - what state can that material be in (cleanliness, prewashing)? - is it being recycled or just being shipped off to china or burned? - what efficiencies are involved in the various materials?
This seems to change on a year-by-year basis (for example, china stopped taking our trash, uh recycling).
Currently I desperately try to turn single use plastics to double-use. Plastic bags and covering can be used as poop bags, wrap for trash that could drip, and to hold more trash.
I try to use used paper towels for washing dishes and wiping up counters, and also for gross trash.
Most plastic containers of food from stores and takeout can be reused a few times for leftover storage and other purposes.
Best thing about double-use is that it usually helps ensure the single use plastic stays in the landfill by weighing it down.
>>> Almost all of the litter that escapes into nature, especially the sea, comes from poorer riverine countries with bad rubbish collection practices, such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Rich countries like the UK or US have rubbish collection rates approaching 100% and are responsible for almost no new waste reaching the oceans. ... Yea, b/c the developed nations of the world don't send their trash to "poo…
It's not clear that this article makes a relevant point. The existence of trash isn't under dispute in the article, only a very specific route for trash to reach the ocean. It's not clear that somehow exporting trash, alone, implicates western countries in its reaching the ocean. Is it mismanaged trash collecting companies in developing countries that dump in the ocean? Is that the route? Or is it dumping in rivers,…