Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated • Hacker News Board

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#341

Post by stretchwithme » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 2:32 AM UTC

b_tterc_p wrote: post #131

pedalpete wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this what Wall-E was all about?

Nah Wall-E was solar powered and was just supposed to compact trash for incineration. https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/WALL•E_(character)

There are a lot of elements in that story that don't quite make sense to me.

Taking care of the best planet around is always going to be easier and better than packing everybody off to some other planet, even one that's just as good.

They way I see it, it's even going to be possible to even collect all the mercury out of the ocean and clean up other seemingly impossible messes.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#342

Post by tomstoms » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:19 AM UTC

C4stor wrote: post #340

tomstoms wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an economic system, a product will be sold at the highest price possible, so if advertising it as using recycled materials nets you higher profit, than you will do that. So even if non-recycled is more expensive to produce, it will be cheaper if people are not willing to pay as much for it.

There a lot of cases of the exact same product being sold at different price tags under different names/brands. In an economic system, a product tries to be sold at the highest price possible _for each potential buyer_, not as a whole.

I should have added “all else being equal”. In context of the question I was trying to answer this still holds.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#343

Post by angry_octet » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 7:45 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #126

angry_octet wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Container deposit for aluminum works pretty well. Steel is relatively easy to extract from trash with magnets. Separating methane producing non-toxic waste might be meaningful too. But having people wash/transport/sort plastics which can't be recycled is bad, and shouldn't be incentivised. Making corporations pay for non-recyclable plastic is a market mechanism which fiscal conservatives should applaud. Casting this…

> Making corporations pay for non-recyclable plastic is a market mechanism which fiscal conservatives should applaud. Citation needed. That sounds like socialist insanity to me. So sure, I applaud it. I just don't see these "conservatives" you are taking about. Even at the level of local politics this tends to be a partisan issue. And you sure sound like a democrat to me...

Conservatives always decry some group getting something for free, which is actually paid for by the taxpayer. Distributing non-recyclable plastic and forcing rate payers to pay to dump it, collect it from rivers and drains etc is it be such case.

A market mechanism uses the power of the market to encourage correct behavior through market forces, instead of penalties, taxes on all, special schemes to give cash to specific state controlled recycling projects, etc. A market mechanism allows free enterprise solutions, whereas 'social insanity' creates inflexible regulatory processes.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#344

Post by pawsys » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:40 AM UTC

Every time I clean a yogurt container I feel torn. What is a better environmental trade-off: not running water for 90 seconds or recycling the plastic? I think it would be really helpful if there was some kind of universal unit that would describe the real environmental impact of producing, trashing, recycling of goods and materials. The unit would appear on packagings of goods, specs of materials, landfill/recycling bins etc. I created a pdf to visualize the idea (all values in the pdf are made up): https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi51serx6hwn8e/EarthHarm.pdf?dl=0 I realize how complex such a project would be. Inherently, the choice of how the unit works would be a political one. How to compare and calculate the different environmental challenges and wrap them up in one unit? What institution would have enough authority and expertise to deploy it? Setting this all aside, I think unit like this would be a really helpful tool letting people have some baseline they can refer to. It could inform people what is the impact of their actions and where to seek for a real change. (a simpler version of this project would be a well-researched website that compares these environmental factors with each other)