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Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

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Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#41

Post by xyzzy123 »

WalterBright wrote: post #39
xyzzy123 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but there is a good deal of hypocrisy in the way this kind international "trade" is viewed. Giving away second hand clothes to developing countries is indistinguishable from "dumping", a trade practice which more developed countries (including the U.S) frequently take trade action against. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

Dumping is a losing game for the dumper. It's nearly as bad as paying someone to buy your products. It only "works" as long as you keep paying, things revert to normal when you stop paying. Meanwhile, the dumpees are better off at your expense.

Then rationally no one would do it, right? And U.S border protection wouldn't need to enforce anti-dumping tariffs.

I think you're accounting only for first-order effects and ignoring costs to reboot industries that have been shut down.

EDIT: To clarify, I think your position is logically consistent and my guess is that you'd explain WTO actions / anti dumping enforcement as regulatory capture and protectionism.

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#42

Post by jccalhoun »

WalterBright wrote: post #21

> The price of the physical glasses is minor -- only $1.88 for a new pair of ready-made spectacles. Sigh. Why is it I can't get a pair of prescription glasses for under $500?

there are tons of places online to get glasses for a lot less. My last two pair came from https://www.eyebuydirect.com/ I think the site that started it was http://www.39dollarglasses.com (never ordered from them though)

Warby Parker advertises on a lot of podcasts but their prices seem to be at least twice the two places listed above.

Both times took 3-4 weeks to get the frames so I assume they are made in china but they are cheap and I never had any problems with my last pair or my current pair.

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#43

Post by twblalock »

WalterBright wrote: post #39
xyzzy123 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but there is a good deal of hypocrisy in the way this kind international "trade" is viewed. Giving away second hand clothes to developing countries is indistinguishable from "dumping", a trade practice which more developed countries (including the U.S) frequently take trade action against. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

Dumping is a losing game for the dumper. It's nearly as bad as paying someone to buy your products. It only "works" as long as you keep paying, things revert to normal when you stop paying. Meanwhile, the dumpees are better off at your expense.

> things revert to normal when you stop paying

Not if you do it right.

If your goal is to destroy an industry in another country, you can stop dumping after that industry has been destroyed. Then, the people of that country will have no choice but to buy from you, because there is nobody left in that country that produces the goods you produce.

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#44

Post by schoen »

tamana wrote: post #33
13of40 wrote: post #4

I think I read somewhere that it used to be standard practice to go to the eye doctor (or glasses-monger?) and just try on pairs until you found one that worked, rather than getting a laser-precise eye exam. At the time I thought it was a terrible, backwards idea, but it makes sense in this context. Getting an affordable, almost-fit pair of glasses is probably a lot better than no glasses at all.

In the USA, most people today try on lenses until they find one that fits. Where do you use a laser to measure the eye?

They do have a machine to estimate the necessary correction by physical analysis of the eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorefractor

(But maybe "laser" was meant as a metaphor above?)

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#45

Post by rjpower9000 »

RyJones wrote: post #38
rdtsc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Yeah was wondering it about the day. Here we are dutifully separating cans, paper, trash, looking at the little triangle and number on each plastic item. And then I had a vision of these trucks going to the same dump, and dumping it all in one big pile, or putting it on a ship and sending it off to another country to be burried there, away from EPA's reach. The answer I think is it makes us feel good, it…

Coincidentally, I was watching a fleet of three garbage trucks going though my neighborhood this week, wondering if the impact of running 3x garbage trucks to pick up trash, compost, recycyling was completely offset by the end product. I suspect the answer is no.

3 trucks would only be wasteful if they didn't manage to complete a full load over their entire shift.

I doubt that's the case. (The yard waste and recycling bins are more full in my neighbourhood than the garbage cans...)

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#46

Post by dredmorbius »

tamana wrote: post #29
danieltillett wrote: post #3

This goes for most (almost all) recycling programs. Recycling programs are a worse than a waste of money since you are using up some of people’s limited support for environmental causes. This would not matter if we did not have some really huge, long term problems that we need to deal with that we are not doing enough about.

Plastic recycling was a platic-industry PR campaign to make consimers more friendly to buying plastic by assuaging their feelings of guilt. Now it's embedded in our culture as a received truth.

Source?

Not doubting -- see Annie Leonard's Worldwatch Institute (2013) piece on the fallacy of individual responsibility, particularly in disposable packaging littering. But I'd like to see specifics if you've got them.

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#47

Post by rahimnathwani »

WalterBright wrote: post #21

> The price of the physical glasses is minor -- only $1.88 for a new pair of ready-made spectacles. Sigh. Why is it I can't get a pair of prescription glasses for under $500?

Apart from the recent startups mentioned by others, there are also established Asian sellers of prescription eyeglasses. About 9 years ago I bought two pairs of single-vision prescription glasses from optical4less.com for 58 USD total, including shipping from Hong Kong to the UK. Assuming you live in the US, you could have gotten the same deal, and could still get it today.

If you have a really strong prescription or need varifocals, this increases the price. Be careful about buying varifocals online. It's worth contacting the company usong their chat/messaging function prior to ordering.

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#48

Post by dredmorbius »

danieltillett wrote: post #3

This goes for most (almost all) recycling programs. Recycling programs are a worse than a waste of money since you are using up some of people’s limited support for environmental causes. This would not matter if we did not have some really huge, long term problems that we need to deal with that we are not doing enough about.

There's a counterargument that we have been collectively underpricing nonrenewable resources, to the point that the term itself "nonrenewable resource" points to a price which fails to account for the full-in total economic, natural-capital, time, and impact costs of sustainably sourcing the resource, and potentially by factors of thousands to millions.

That's a concept I'm still working out, and is based on a re-reading of much foundational economic work (Smith, Mill, Jevons, Hotelling, among others). I'm not in the least presenting this as mainstream. But it would call into question the market-price basis of both resources and recycling.

Food for thought, for now.

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#49

Post by [deleted] »

rjpower9000 wrote: post #45
RyJones wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidentally, I was watching a fleet of three garbage trucks going though my neighborhood this week, wondering if the impact of running 3x garbage trucks to pick up trash, compost, recycyling was completely offset by the end product. I suspect the answer is no.

3 trucks would only be wasteful if they didn't manage to complete a full load over their entire shift. I doubt that's the case. (The yard waste and recycling bins are more full in my neighbourhood than the garbage cans...)

[deleted]

Re: Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money

#50

Post by WalterBright »

twblalock wrote: post #43
WalterBright wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumping is a losing game for the dumper. It's nearly as bad as paying someone to buy your products. It only "works" as long as you keep paying, things revert to normal when you stop paying. Meanwhile, the dumpees are better off at your expense.

> things revert to normal when you stop paying Not if you do it right. If your goal is to destroy an industry in another country, you can stop dumping after that industry has been destroyed. Then, the people of that country will have no choice but to buy from you, because there is nobody left in that country that produces the goods you produce.

Can you provide a case history of an industry destroyed in this manner (selling below cost), where the dumper goes on to enjoy monopoly profits?
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