Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market • Hacker News Board

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#81

Post by notpushkin » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #65

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

> A torrent of cheap, unregulated second-hand clothing flowing into Indonesia also adds to the country’s mounting garbage problem, said Dharmesh Shah, a policy advisor to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a nonprofit working on waste pollution. He said much of that merchandise is in such poor condition that vendors can’t resell it. > “They sort through it and a very small percentage is actually reusab…

Why don't they put non-reusable shoes back to recycle though?

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#82

Post by capableweb » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:35 PM UTC

gowings97 wrote: post #39

booi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is reduce, reuse and recycle in that order . If anything seems like they did a great job here.

Interesting how that phrase has largely disappeared from the current green message carried by major media. Especially the reduce component.

Reduce would mean you buy less. Reuse would mean you buy less or buy from other people. Only recycle means you buy the same amount as before. Guess which one companies prefer you do?

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#83

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

mirkules wrote: post #80

woodruffw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

The goal of environmental initiatives is to try to ensure the environment stays habitable to humans for longer. The goal of companies is to be profitable. The ultimate goal, then, is to find an intersection between those two concepts that makes sense for both the environment and profitability. "Reduce, reuse, recycle" is the order in which this is achieved, from least to most expensive. Recycling has become incredibl…

I didn't get a "black and white" worldview from this article. In my reading, it supported much of what you've said: that companies are fundamentally profit-driven, and will employ whatever fabrications are necessary to maintain consumer appetite. Dow lying about its recycling is just a tiny niche, one that Reuters chose presumably because it was easy to fact-check.

> Nobody would buy new shoes or donate old ones if the marketing said "In order to reduce waste, we are going to resell your used shoes in Indonesian flea markets". (There is one "reduce" idea, ha!)

This is the entire business model of Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc. These companies and non-profits take donations of old clothes, try and sell them locally, and then cycle them through other markets if they can't sell them locally. It wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out that the tees I give to Goodwill end up in an Indonesian flea market, and that knowledge would have no purchasing effect on me.

Even beyond that: plenty of high-end/luxury brands have old/vintage resale processes. Patagonia is somewhat famous for theirs[1].

[1]: https://wornwear.patagonia.com/

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#84

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

notpushkin wrote: post #81

deathanatos wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A torrent of cheap, unregulated second-hand clothing flowing into Indonesia also adds to the country’s mounting garbage problem, said Dharmesh Shah, a policy advisor to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a nonprofit working on waste pollution. He said much of that merchandise is in such poor condition that vendors can’t resell it. > “They sort through it and a very small percentage is actually reusab…

Why don't they put non-reusable shoes back to recycle though?

Because neither Dow nor the Singaporean government are interested in recycling them once they have been able to dump them in Indonesia? This appears to be just a greenwashing scheme which coincidentally reuses a small fraction of the garbage stream.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#85

Post by kennywinker » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

mirkules wrote: post #80

woodruffw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

The goal of environmental initiatives is to try to ensure the environment stays habitable to humans for longer. The goal of companies is to be profitable. The ultimate goal, then, is to find an intersection between those two concepts that makes sense for both the environment and profitability. "Reduce, reuse, recycle" is the order in which this is achieved, from least to most expensive. Recycling has become incredibl…

> Recycling has become incredibly expensive [1] and it's hardly making financial sense anymore

Small quibble with your wording there - recycling hasn't BECOME more expensive: for the most part it was never real. China was taking our "recyclables" that were never actually recyclable, telling us they were recycling it, and instead dumping almost all of it in landfills.

I recently got into 3d printing, and was sucked in by the promise of everything being PLA bioplastic. I've diligently saved up my misprints and plastic scrap, and now that I have a decent amount collected, I'd like to dispose of it responsibly. As far as I've been able to find, my options are: landfill, or shipping it at my expense (and the planet's) across the continent to the one place that claims they recycle filament. I can't even compost it anywhere local. Disgusting.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#86

Post by paulmd » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #57

maximus-decimus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if they literally have free clothing, doesn't it make that local industry useless? Literally provides no value at that point. This only seems like a problem to me if people literally can't provide value in any other way. To which the solution would seem to create a new type of industry, not create an artificial need by creating a clothes penury on purpose.

If you put a shoemaker out of a job and give them free shoes, they now can’t afford anything other than shoes. Economies grow prosperous when there are more opportunities for economic exchange.

the terrible thing about economics is that it's very complex - "the parable of the broken window" is only a parable. the entire field of keynesian economics says that yes, you can break a window and then pay someone to fix it and increase net economic activity, as long as it's not crowding out actual economic activity that would otherwise have occurred. the "burying jars of money in the desert and paying people to dig them up" is precisely a broken window, economically speaking, and that's just a parable too.

in the real world domestic workers don't all go on to become farmers (oops that's dumped onto by subsidized western businesses too) or some other business... some degree of protectionism has consistently worked well to the extent it's arguably necessary*. And don't take this as me defending sweatshops either ;) but a moderate degree of protectionism and public investment has very consistently allowed countries to move beyond the absolute basic "we have sweatshots and scrap out old electronics and recycle garbage" stage of development. Neoliberalism and free trade will suck away any public investment you give it the opportunity to, and engineer around any comparative advantage you can find.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#87

Post by drno123 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

But this is better to reuse them first, right? Instead of consuming energy to convert them into other materials.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#88

Post by oblib » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #60

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

I'm not really seeing how giving preowned shoes to folks is not "recycling" them.

When I was young we'd take glass soda bottles back to the store to be cleaned and refilled and we'd get a little money back. That was "recycling".

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#89

Post by honkycat » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

I understand your point, but at the end of the day they were not doing what they said they were. People were expecting their shoes to be processed and turned into something new, something that would theoretically help with the development of the recycling tech.

Shipping shoes over the ocean is not the most eco-friendly thing.

Additionally: do we know the shops in Indonesia are going to recycle them? Or is it more likely they will sit in a store for years and are then thrown out?

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#90

Post by nextaccountic » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 7:57 PM UTC

oblib wrote: post #88

woodruffw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

I'm not really seeing how giving preowned shoes to folks is not "recycling" them. When I was young we'd take glass soda bottles back to the store to be cleaned and refilled and we'd get a little money back. That was "recycling".

The article says

> In media releases and a promotional video posted online, that effort promised to harvest the rubberized soles and midsoles of donated shoes, then grind down the material for use in building new playgrounds and running tracks in Singapore.