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When I read something like this I really wish the people who use all their smarts for selling more ads to sell more crap would instead work on figuring out tras

When I read something like this I really wish the people who use all their smarts for selling more ads to sell more crap would instead work on figuring out trash separation and recycling. It's a very interesting problem: Recognizing different items, handle it, and recycle it. It has it all: AI, computer vision, robotics. It would make the world a much better place.

lucisferre 8y ago
Might not be a lot of aptitude overlap between those two problems.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  What do you mean? No single person can solve it all. It's not like there is one guy who creates all of google's tech. You need many people with different skills.
mc32 8y ago
Isn’t most of the issue a lack of profitability in recycling rather than a problem in sorting? In other words more efficient sorting won't result in more recycling unless recycling becomes worthwhile (profitable). One way to make it “profitable” would be to put exorbitant taxes on virgin plastics or petroleum derived plastics.
- tryptophan 8y ago
  Or a carbon tax! Recycling presumably puts much less new CO2 into their air than making it new, and so would incentivize recycling more.
  - ars 8y ago
    > Recycling presumably puts much less new CO2 into their air than making it new I'm pretty sure it doesn't. If it did recycled products would be cheaper than new, but they aren't. It depends a lot on how much free labor AKA consumer pre-sorting you get though. Countries where this is seen as normal and expected have workable recycling.
    - mc32 8y ago
      While things hsve improved greatly in recycling, there was a time in Germany where people were asked to diligently sort their waste, the recycling companies were caught simply incinerating or dumping to foreign garbage markets. It looked like it worked, people thought they were being good citizens to learn years later it was a scam of sorts.
      - chimeracoder 8y ago
        > While things hsve improved greatly in recycling, there was a time in Germany where people were asked to diligently sort their waste, the recycling companies were caught simply incinerating or dumping to foreign garbage markets. It looked like it worked, people thought they were being good citizens to learn years later it was a scam of sorts. That's not in the past; it still happens across Europe. A lot of "recycling" is actually just shifting carbon emissions from Europe to developing nations.
  - 0xfeba 8y ago
    > Recycling presumably puts much less new CO2 into their air I don't think this is the case for a few things... paper, cardboard, etc. Metals are worth it though -- hence why some places will pay for it.
- conception 8y ago
  Every. It's the same solution as Co2. Tax things including negative externalities and things will self adjust. You can even do a tax refund at the end of the year and it'd work.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I still think consumers need to take responsibility for what we buy. I can complain that someone else isn’t fixing our problems, but then I go to the store and I buy detergent that comes in a plastic tub. Why can’t they dispense detergent in to a reusable container? Why do I buy all this plastic crap? Can we form a collective that researches options and bulk buys products in a low waste manner?
- deogeo 8y ago
  Consumers aren't just consumers - they're also voters, and can take responsibility by voting/demanding better environmental regulation. Great change is rarely brought about with merely individual action.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    > Great change is rarely brought about with merely individual action. Hmm... I specifically mentioned collective action. But I think there’s more we can do than vote. We can work to reduce our impact, tell everyone how we did it, and then form collectives that embody our goals. I prefer the notion of supporting companies that care rather than forcing companies that don’t care to act like they do. Perhaps it’s good to force bad actors to comply to some minimum level, but voluntary action can go much farther. For example we’re unlikely to solve the climate impacts of meat consumption with the law - because we probably can’t ban meat consumption - but voluntary veganism makes a big impact over time.
  - Reedx 8y ago
    They're also voting with their wallet with every purchase. Not buying plastic crap that gets thrown out after one use would help.
    - deogeo 8y ago
      Companies would love nothing more than to convince consumers that's all they should do. But it wasn't voting with wallets that got us food and electrical safety standards, the 40 hour work week, or banned leaded gasoline. And markets carry no detergents in reusable containers you could 'vote' for in this manner.
vkou 8y ago
> When I read something like this I really wish the people who use all their smarts for selling more ads to sell more crap would instead work on figuring out trash separation and recycling. The day that manufacturers, or retailers will, by law, be required to generate net-zero garbage, is the day that this will happen. [1] Until that day comes, nobody will give two shits about spending money on reducing waste. The cost, to me, of having my personal junk hauled away to a landfill, or dumped into the ocean, is minimal. The cost, to a store, of selling me products wrapped in six layers of plastic, that I will throw out, is non-existent. The cost, to a manufacturer, to produce such a product is actually a net gain (Because the disposable wrapping keeps the product safe during shipping.) Until producing waste costs something, nobody will work very hard on optimizing it. Make someone pay through the nose for dealing with the trash, and you'll get a revolution in recycling, reduction, and re-use. [1] Yes, this is draconian. It's also about the only thing that will make real changes to how our society produces waste.
claudiawerner 8y ago
On a similar note, the amount of resources wasted on replicating the same research in multiple different places because of trade secrecy (driven by profit), and the amount of resources that artists need to use to create original material when they'd rather re-use something under copyright for the same or better effect, and the artistic abilities of highly talented people needing to be spent on marketing and producing mass-consumption crap (example: I'm sure there were a great many highly intelligent and skilled people working on The Emoji Movie) and the human potential for genuine thought, art and science being squandered by all those who cannot afford the education and finally (but certainly not least) all the enjoyment people are losing out on by feeling compelled by the market to pursue one line of education when they'd much rather another. I think it's important to look at these qualitative issues especially given how the quantitative effects of measures to reduce poverty are almost universally agreed upon to be very impressive.
- zanny 8y ago
  We, the people alive today, are going to be written in history books as generations who had the potential to achieve unbound greatness but decided the potential was better spent lining pockets and feeding dopamine addictions.
mindslight 8y ago
I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, but if the people who think advertising/surveillance is an acceptable endeavor moved to the waste disposal industry, the main innovation they would bring is that included with every product there would be a bonus pile of someone else's garbage.
aaron695 8y ago
> figuring out trash separation and recycling. This is a well and truly solved problem. And has been for many years. (http://www.cpmfg.com/recycling-equipment/optical-sorting-equipment/plastic-sorting-equipment/ http://www.cpmfg.com/recycling-equipment/optical-sorting-equ... ....etc ) I assume it's ok then to go back to "selling more ads to sell more crap" or can we deal with real problems for a change like 1 billion people living in poverty, and not first world issues with wanting to feel good about our consumption. And as an added bonus when people don't worry about their children dying they get to do fun stuff like recycling so everyone gets to feel good, even rich people in the first world.
swebs 8y ago
In Finland there's a 15 cent refund on small plastic bottles and 40 cents on large ones. It may not sound like much, but its enough that at any time of day you can see people combing the parks and searching through public trash cans for any sort of recyclables. It is essentially crowdsourcing sorting to the local alcoholics. Win-win
- mc32 8y ago
  I think it mostly works but can result in anyi social behavior like people rummaging ghtu and ransacking your “recyclables” bin for the rubbish company. They are known to occasinally leave things strewn about after hitting their jackpots.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Here in Copenhagen, little shelves have been added to public trash cans, so you can put your empty bottles/cans there, instead of throwing them in, if you don't want to return them. That way, there's no need to rummage through the trash, possibly making a huge mess.
- c0nducktr 8y ago
  Michigan has a 10 cent deposit on bottle and cans, and it works well as an incentive to recycle. A little annoying having to take them back instead of just tossing them in my recycle bin, but it's not too inconvenient.
- ac29 8y ago
  With a refund that high, wouldn't it discourage curbside recycling programs run by cities in favor of less efficient individual recycling efforts? In the US, states with refunds are usually 5 or 10 cents. So, a week's worth of recycling is maybe worth $2-3 - not really worth sorting and taking yourself. If it was worth $20/week or more, you'd have a lot more people opting to do it themselves, leading to a ton of otherwise unneeded car trips.
  - swebs 8y ago

lucisferre 8y ago

Might not be a lot of aptitude overlap between those two problems.

maxxxxx 8y ago
What do you mean? No single person can solve it all. It's not like there is one guy who creates all of google's tech. You need many people with different skills.

mc32 8y ago

Isn’t most of the issue a lack of profitability in recycling rather than a problem in sorting? In other words more efficient sorting won't result in more recycling unless recycling becomes worthwhile (profitable). One way to make it “profitable” would be to put exorbitant taxes on virgin plastics or petroleum derived plastics.

tryptophan 8y ago
Or a carbon tax! Recycling presumably puts much less new CO2 into their air than making it new, and so would incentivize recycling more.
- ars 8y ago
  > Recycling presumably puts much less new CO2 into their air than making it new I'm pretty sure it doesn't. If it did recycled products would be cheaper than new, but they aren't. It depends a lot on how much free labor AKA consumer pre-sorting you get though. Countries where this is seen as normal and expected have workable recycling.
  - mc32 8y ago
    While things hsve improved greatly in recycling, there was a time in Germany where people were asked to diligently sort their waste, the recycling companies were caught simply incinerating or dumping to foreign garbage markets. It looked like it worked, people thought they were being good citizens to learn years later it was a scam of sorts.
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > While things hsve improved greatly in recycling, there was a time in Germany where people were asked to diligently sort their waste, the recycling companies were caught simply incinerating or dumping to foreign garbage markets. It looked like it worked, people thought they were being good citizens to learn years later it was a scam of sorts. That's not in the past; it still happens across Europe. A lot of "recycling" is actually just shifting carbon emissions from Europe to developing nations.
- 0xfeba 8y ago
  > Recycling presumably puts much less new CO2 into their air I don't think this is the case for a few things... paper, cardboard, etc. Metals are worth it though -- hence why some places will pay for it.
conception 8y ago
Every. It's the same solution as Co2. Tax things including negative externalities and things will self adjust. You can even do a tax refund at the end of the year and it'd work.

TaylorAlexander 8y ago

I still think consumers need to take responsibility for what we buy. I can complain that someone else isn’t fixing our problems, but then I go to the store and I buy detergent that comes in a plastic tub. Why can’t they dispense detergent in to a reusable container? Why do I buy all this plastic crap? Can we form a collective that researches options and bulk buys products in a low waste manner?

deogeo 8y ago
Consumers aren't just consumers - they're also voters, and can take responsibility by voting/demanding better environmental regulation. Great change is rarely brought about with merely individual action.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  > Great change is rarely brought about with merely individual action. Hmm... I specifically mentioned collective action. But I think there’s more we can do than vote. We can work to reduce our impact, tell everyone how we did it, and then form collectives that embody our goals. I prefer the notion of supporting companies that care rather than forcing companies that don’t care to act like they do. Perhaps it’s good to force bad actors to comply to some minimum level, but voluntary action can go much farther. For example we’re unlikely to solve the climate impacts of meat consumption with the law - because we probably can’t ban meat consumption - but voluntary veganism makes a big impact over time.
- Reedx 8y ago
  They're also voting with their wallet with every purchase. Not buying plastic crap that gets thrown out after one use would help.
  - deogeo 8y ago
    Companies would love nothing more than to convince consumers that's all they should do. But it wasn't voting with wallets that got us food and electrical safety standards, the 40 hour work week, or banned leaded gasoline. And markets carry no detergents in reusable containers you could 'vote' for in this manner.

vkou 8y ago

> When I read something like this I really wish the people who use all their smarts for selling more ads to sell more crap would instead work on figuring out trash separation and recycling. The day that manufacturers, or retailers will, by law, be required to generate net-zero garbage, is the day that this will happen. [1] Until that day comes, nobody will give two shits about spending money on reducing waste. The cost, to me, of having my personal junk hauled away to a landfill, or dumped into the ocean, is minimal. The cost, to a store, of selling me products wrapped in six layers of plastic, that I will throw out, is non-existent. The cost, to a manufacturer, to produce such a product is actually a net gain (Because the disposable wrapping keeps the product safe during shipping.) Until producing waste costs something, nobody will work very hard on optimizing it. Make someone pay through the nose for dealing with the trash, and you'll get a revolution in recycling, reduction, and re-use. [1] Yes, this is draconian. It's also about the only thing that will make real changes to how our society produces waste.

claudiawerner 8y ago

On a similar note, the amount of resources wasted on replicating the same research in multiple different places because of trade secrecy (driven by profit), and the amount of resources that artists need to use to create original material when they'd rather re-use something under copyright for the same or better effect, and the artistic abilities of highly talented people needing to be spent on marketing and producing mass-consumption crap (example: I'm sure there were a great many highly intelligent and skilled people working on The Emoji Movie) and the human potential for genuine thought, art and science being squandered by all those who cannot afford the education and finally (but certainly not least) all the enjoyment people are losing out on by feeling compelled by the market to pursue one line of education when they'd much rather another. I think it's important to look at these qualitative issues especially given how the quantitative effects of measures to reduce poverty are almost universally agreed upon to be very impressive.

zanny 8y ago
We, the people alive today, are going to be written in history books as generations who had the potential to achieve unbound greatness but decided the potential was better spent lining pockets and feeding dopamine addictions.

mindslight 8y ago

I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, but if the people who think advertising/surveillance is an acceptable endeavor moved to the waste disposal industry, the main innovation they would bring is that included with every product there would be a bonus pile of someone else's garbage.

aaron695 8y ago

> figuring out trash separation and recycling. This is a well and truly solved problem. And has been for many years. (http://www.cpmfg.com/recycling-equipment/optical-sorting-equipment/plastic-sorting-equipment/ http://www.cpmfg.com/recycling-equipment/optical-sorting-equ... ....etc ) I assume it's ok then to go back to "selling more ads to sell more crap" or can we deal with real problems for a change like 1 billion people living in poverty, and not first world issues with wanting to feel good about our consumption. And as an added bonus when people don't worry about their children dying they get to do fun stuff like recycling so everyone gets to feel good, even rich people in the first world.

swebs 8y ago

In Finland there's a 15 cent refund on small plastic bottles and 40 cents on large ones. It may not sound like much, but its enough that at any time of day you can see people combing the parks and searching through public trash cans for any sort of recyclables. It is essentially crowdsourcing sorting to the local alcoholics. Win-win

mc32 8y ago
I think it mostly works but can result in anyi social behavior like people rummaging ghtu and ransacking your “recyclables” bin for the rubbish company. They are known to occasinally leave things strewn about after hitting their jackpots.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Here in Copenhagen, little shelves have been added to public trash cans, so you can put your empty bottles/cans there, instead of throwing them in, if you don't want to return them. That way, there's no need to rummage through the trash, possibly making a huge mess.
c0nducktr 8y ago
Michigan has a 10 cent deposit on bottle and cans, and it works well as an incentive to recycle. A little annoying having to take them back instead of just tossing them in my recycle bin, but it's not too inconvenient.
ac29 8y ago
With a refund that high, wouldn't it discourage curbside recycling programs run by cities in favor of less efficient individual recycling efforts? In the US, states with refunds are usually 5 or 10 cents. So, a week's worth of recycling is maybe worth $2-3 - not really worth sorting and taking yourself. If it was worth $20/week or more, you'd have a lot more people opting to do it themselves, leading to a ton of otherwise unneeded car trips.
- swebs 8y ago