7 ms·

This is very irresponsible. The reason soft plastics are unrecyclable curbside in San Francisco is that they pose a very real danger to the machines that do rec

by akanet 10y ago

This is very irresponsible. The reason soft plastics are unrecyclable curbside in San Francisco is that they pose a very real danger to the machines that do recycling sorting. This is possible to overcome with greater manual filtering of recyclable materials, but Recology currently does not have the funds for it. Putting soft plastics in curbside recycling at the moment does nothing but make recycling worse for everyone.

an_account 10y ago
There are plenty of cities that do soft plastic recycling. I'm surprised San Fransisco doesn't.
- akanet 10y ago
  SF has a very high diversion percentage (waste that doesn't go to landfull). I'm not sure what tradeoffs go into getting that number, but I do absolutely recommend going on one of the free Recology tours. We went on a tour a few months ago as part of the SF YIMBY infrastructure tour series (shameless plug) and I had a great time.
  - kogepathic 10y ago
    YIMBY? Your infrastructure my back yard?
    - jmharvey 10y ago
      "Yes in my back yard." It's a group that advocates for building more housing in San Francisco.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
corecoder 10y ago
Doesn't this just mean that the machines were chosen unwisely?
- akanet 10y ago
  There's more to it than machine choice, there's also process surrounding the machines. The current process probably assumes a certain compliance rate of people "not putting soft plastic in the bin". In so much as we are citizens who don't want to endanger the recycling process, I believe we have at least a mild ethical duty to at least not knowingly do just that.
  - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
    Doesn't this just mean that the process surrounding the machines was chosen unwisely???
- Crito 10y ago
  Yes.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
The city just has to say "put all your soft plastics in a larger soft plastic bag for easier sorting at the other end" or "take your soft plastics to the supermarket and put them in the soft-plastics bin there". Do everything to make it easy at both ends.
- ritchiea 10y ago
  Don't recyclers have to sort submissions anyway? It's expected that citizens will fail to completely adhere to recycling instructions and submissions must be sorted anyway.
  - test1235 10y ago
    Throwing your plastic bags into recycling because "it'll get sorted anyway" is as bad as throwing your litter on the ground because "we pay people to clean the streets anyway" You're just playing NIMBY by passing the responsibility on.
    - gutnor 10y ago
      On the other hand where do you put the limit on what is a acceptable burden ? Here are the rules for recycling where I lived: plastic to be cleaned before recycling (a minimal trace of food, allegedly, would require the whole batch of plastic to be thrown away). You are also supposed to separate the plastic part from the cardboard part on the packaging. You are also supposed to check if there is a specific type of coating on the inside of a cardboard box like foil for milk or wax for cups. Metal, Glass need to be cleaned too, although without threat of discarding a ton of waste. Paper is recycled separately from cardboard, however I believe that was for operational rather than technical reasons. Recycled paper could not be recycled again and glassy paper (magazine covers) needed removal. When you get to that stage you realise that the average product in the supermarket would require quite a lot of processing. That's not realistic to expect people to follow all those rules and if you rely on thousands or ten of thousands of people to comply with them in order for your recycling to work, you are deep in the designed to fail territory.
hoorayimhelping 10y ago
To put in tech terms: This is horrible UX and it's no surprise to me that recycling isn't very effective. Asking your end users to deal with your internal complexity doesn't work in software or in recycling. I want to help out, really I do, but I have more important things to worry about than which type of plastic goes in which bin. Hell, I'm happy to put the right kind of thing in the right bin if they made it clear which is which and why. But they don't do a very good job of communicating to me why this is important. They just say "recycle properly" then try to make you feel irresponsible and like a bad citizen for not knowing the proper way to do it based on some opaque and arcane process. If you want people to help out, make it easy for them to feel like they're a part of it. The rules around recycling do the opposite - make you feel like you're harming things if you don't do things exactly right. Not a very empowering feeling at all.
- blowski 10y ago
  Much innovation in the last 20 years has been finding ways to get your customers to do work for free that you previously paid employees to do instead. For example, self-service checkouts in supermarkets, fast food, building a holiday package, etc. Recycling is the same. They have 'outsourced' much of the job to local government and consumers.
  - kaspiCZ 10y ago
    To add: other than cost transfer, it enables better scaling for the companies.
  - summarite 10y ago
    That's not really the case. It's simply a really hard problem and that's easiest to address early on (recycle somewhat right) than to try and filter useful things out of shredded sludge.
    - blowski 10y ago
      It's a really hard problem that big companies show no signs of helping to solve because they have no economic interest in doing so. They use whatever packaging helps their short-term profits without consideration of long-term environmental damage. It's a typical externalities problem - the full cost of using some types of packaging is not paid by the one doing the packaging.
gm-conspiracy 10y ago
How much does municipal recycling cost in San Francisco? Is it a net profitable endeavor (energy in vs out)? What are the recycled materials being used for, and what are the costs to get the material into that state?
devopsproject 10y ago
> but Recology currently does not have the funds for it And you know this how?

by akanet 10y ago

an_account 10y ago

There are plenty of cities that do soft plastic recycling. I'm surprised San Fransisco doesn't.

akanet 10y ago
SF has a very high diversion percentage (waste that doesn't go to landfull). I'm not sure what tradeoffs go into getting that number, but I do absolutely recommend going on one of the free Recology tours. We went on a tour a few months ago as part of the SF YIMBY infrastructure tour series (shameless plug) and I had a great time.
- kogepathic 10y ago
  YIMBY? Your infrastructure my back yard?
  - jmharvey 10y ago
    "Yes in my back yard." It's a group that advocates for building more housing in San Francisco.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

corecoder 10y ago

Doesn't this just mean that the machines were chosen unwisely?

akanet 10y ago
There's more to it than machine choice, there's also process surrounding the machines. The current process probably assumes a certain compliance rate of people "not putting soft plastic in the bin". In so much as we are citizens who don't want to endanger the recycling process, I believe we have at least a mild ethical duty to at least not knowingly do just that.
- 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
  Doesn't this just mean that the process surrounding the machines was chosen unwisely???
Crito 10y ago
Yes.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

The city just has to say "put all your soft plastics in a larger soft plastic bag for easier sorting at the other end" or "take your soft plastics to the supermarket and put them in the soft-plastics bin there". Do everything to make it easy at both ends.

ritchiea 10y ago
Don't recyclers have to sort submissions anyway? It's expected that citizens will fail to completely adhere to recycling instructions and submissions must be sorted anyway.
- test1235 10y ago
  Throwing your plastic bags into recycling because "it'll get sorted anyway" is as bad as throwing your litter on the ground because "we pay people to clean the streets anyway" You're just playing NIMBY by passing the responsibility on.
  - gutnor 10y ago
    On the other hand where do you put the limit on what is a acceptable burden ? Here are the rules for recycling where I lived: plastic to be cleaned before recycling (a minimal trace of food, allegedly, would require the whole batch of plastic to be thrown away). You are also supposed to separate the plastic part from the cardboard part on the packaging. You are also supposed to check if there is a specific type of coating on the inside of a cardboard box like foil for milk or wax for cups. Metal, Glass need to be cleaned too, although without threat of discarding a ton of waste. Paper is recycled separately from cardboard, however I believe that was for operational rather than technical reasons. Recycled paper could not be recycled again and glassy paper (magazine covers) needed removal. When you get to that stage you realise that the average product in the supermarket would require quite a lot of processing. That's not realistic to expect people to follow all those rules and if you rely on thousands or ten of thousands of people to comply with them in order for your recycling to work, you are deep in the designed to fail territory.

hoorayimhelping 10y ago

To put in tech terms: This is horrible UX and it's no surprise to me that recycling isn't very effective. Asking your end users to deal with your internal complexity doesn't work in software or in recycling. I want to help out, really I do, but I have more important things to worry about than which type of plastic goes in which bin. Hell, I'm happy to put the right kind of thing in the right bin if they made it clear which is which and why. But they don't do a very good job of communicating to me why this is important. They just say "recycle properly" then try to make you feel irresponsible and like a bad citizen for not knowing the proper way to do it based on some opaque and arcane process. If you want people to help out, make it easy for them to feel like they're a part of it. The rules around recycling do the opposite - make you feel like you're harming things if you don't do things exactly right. Not a very empowering feeling at all.

blowski 10y ago
Much innovation in the last 20 years has been finding ways to get your customers to do work for free that you previously paid employees to do instead. For example, self-service checkouts in supermarkets, fast food, building a holiday package, etc. Recycling is the same. They have 'outsourced' much of the job to local government and consumers.
- kaspiCZ 10y ago
  To add: other than cost transfer, it enables better scaling for the companies.
- summarite 10y ago
  That's not really the case. It's simply a really hard problem and that's easiest to address early on (recycle somewhat right) than to try and filter useful things out of shredded sludge.
  - blowski 10y ago
    It's a really hard problem that big companies show no signs of helping to solve because they have no economic interest in doing so. They use whatever packaging helps their short-term profits without consideration of long-term environmental damage. It's a typical externalities problem - the full cost of using some types of packaging is not paid by the one doing the packaging.

gm-conspiracy 10y ago

How much does municipal recycling cost in San Francisco? Is it a net profitable endeavor (energy in vs out)? What are the recycled materials being used for, and what are the costs to get the material into that state?

devopsproject 10y ago

> but Recology currently does not have the funds for it And you know this how?