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The garbage disposal problem, of which recycling is a subset, is due to a lack of back pressure in the consumption system. From the perspective of production,

The garbage disposal problem, of which recycling is a subset, is due to a lack of back pressure in the consumption system. From the perspective of production, disposal is an externality. From the perspective of the consumer, disposal is an annoyance that they typically don't have enough buyer power individually to push back on to producers. Society has come up one workaround: social conscience, the green movement, so that shame can be used to attack brands, aggregating buying power to push back on producers. It doesn't work brilliantly with everyone - some people are allergic to the ritualistic, moralizing pseudo-religious aspects of the movement. Politics has come up with another: WEEE: the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. This is an attempt to tax goods by incorporating the cost of disposal into the purchase price. While the green movement was necessary to provide political will, it's much better than a directly shaming approach - the closer the cost of disposal can be pushed to the producer, tightening the feedback loop, the more likely economic incentives will work. Continuing to push the problem upstream into production is the long term answer. If you try and increase costs at point of disposal, consumers are simply incentivized to cheat, or pay people to cheat on their behalf. The whole exporting of rubbish to China wheeze was one big cheat. The costs have to be loaded at the point of purchase, and producers ultimately made responsible for costs of disposal.

Areading314 8y ago
I find that Amazon is one of the worst offenders. It's clear, especially for Amazon fresh orders, that they have zero incentive to care about their plastic footprint, and they take full advantage of this. Should be taxed or disincentivized.
- pault 8y ago
  Ugh, I once got an amazon package that contained a product about the size of a toaster oven and it was shipped in the original manufacturer's box, nested in the box from whoever shipped the product to amazon, nested in the box amazon used to ship it. All the boxes were full of packing foam of course, so the total volume of the packaging after removing it was about a meter squared, or about 25x the volume of the product inside. It was extremely upsetting.
  - ddoolin 8y ago
    When you buy Amazon Fresh, if it contains anything cold, Amazon will include many packs to keep it cold. Our first time was a decently large order and it contained 8 (!) of such packs. They don't have a program to return these things. It's not just water inside but some other substance that shouldn't be casually thrown out. Suffice to say it was also our last order. I wouldn't say we're particularly more garbage-conscious than most but that was just absurd. To me, that should be illegal without some kind of reuse program.
    - delecti 8y ago
      That scheme didn't last very long, and they've changed a couple times since then. For a while it was similar packs, but filled with water, and the pack said to just pour it down the drain. And now they send packs of dry ice along with frozen food, and frozen bottles of water along with refrigerated food. The dry ice just sublimates away (and the cardboard it's in is recyclable), and the bottled water is at least slightly valuable as a product.
      - vram22 8y ago
        >The dry ice just sublimates away Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide, though. So when it sublimates, the CO2 will go into the atmosphere.
        nostrademons 8y ago
        Where do you think the CO2 came from in the first place?
        vram22 8y ago
        From turtles (all the way down/up)? Heh. Jokes apart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice#Manufacture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice#Manufacture
        8y ago
- consp 8y ago
  As an example for recycling: the grocery deliverable service I use (picnic) charges 35 ct as a deposit for the plastic bags which gets refunded if you give them back the next delivery. They are bio decomposable but they want them back anyways.
caoilte 8y ago
Good answer. One interesting addendum is that many food producers are lobbying to argue that reducing the amount of plastic in their packages will likely lead to more food wastage. The feedback loops here are fascinating, but I'm increasingly reminded of the scorched earth public relations tactics employed by the Tobacco industry against plain packaging and which turned out later to be pure fiction. https://www.bath.ac.uk/case-studies/debunking-big-tobaccos-arguments-against-standardised-packaging/ https://www.bath.ac.uk/case-studies/debunking-big-tobaccos-a...
- ip26 8y ago
  The precept that packaging serves to reduce spoilage is true. The real question is, can there really be no other alternative with merit? For example, it's true glass can break, but the main knocks against it are mostly cost & weight (aka delivery cost). Are they lobbying in good faith, or just trying to keep the cheapest option?
  - Godel_unicode 8y ago
    Weight means more energy to move the product which means more fuel in and more co2 out.
    - abootstrapper 8y ago
      True, but it takes energy to produce and dispose of the plastic packaging, so it’s no so clear which produces the least co2 without doing the math.
      - hanniabu 8y ago
        I'm pretty sure the extra CO2 to transport would be worth the tradeoff for a decrease in physical pollution.
  - fyfy18 8y ago
    I'd argue that it's not even a problem if more food is wasted. If it's a small percentage, it's still going to be a net win for the environment if it dramatically reduces the amount of plastic used for food packaging. The problem is that there is no economical cost on the environmental impact to producers. My local supermarket has switched to supplying avocados in a plastic tray wrapped in plastic film. I can't imagine that provides any meaningful advantage over shipping 10s of avocados loose in a large cardboard box. Of course for the industry it's bad because any percentage increase in waste comes out of their profits, while plastic packaging is basically free.
mirimir 8y ago
Yes! And it's not just economic costs. It's "lifestyle", more or less. So a few decades ago, all beer bottles were the same size and shape. You took your empties back to the store, and got paid for them. Distributors bought them from stores, and manufacturers from distributors. So they got reused until they broke. Maybe 40 years ago, some regional US beer makers still did this. Maybe some still do. I saw this 10-20 years ago in Mexico, for both beer and soda bottles. And it was also pretty common for wine bottles. But now? Now my wife buys French yogurt in tiny glass bottles. Tiny heavy glass bottles. We could save them, but they're really too small for anything but liquor. And who wants to drink from old yogurt containers, in any case? in the late 60s and 70s, a crucial aspect of the food coop movement was buying bulk stuff, and using your own containers. In Mexico, old-style milk stores often didn't provide containers. And if they did, it was plastic bags. Handling a 2L plastic bag of milk is quite the experience. I can't imagine how the US could go back to bulk distribution and reusable containers. Or, for that matter, how we could undo suburbanization. But there are limits to externalities, and we are hitting them.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  Still common in South America (as of 5 years ago) and Europe (as of about 9)
- ams6110 8y ago
  Reusable containers died as soon as plastic containers were developed. Plastic containers are so much lighter that significant money is saved in transport, and obviously the handling and transport for the returns, the inspecting, washing, sterilizing costs are all gone. Huge win for the producers, not sure whether it's a net win or loss overall environmentally.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Sure. That's why it happened. But what to do with all those containers? Many current disposable containers are durable enough for long-term use. Even a couple centuries ago, they'd be passed down through families. Maybe they still are, somewhere. But what do I do with hundreds of ~4L plastic milk bottles?
thaumasiotes 8y ago
There is no garbage disposal problem -- disposal is easy and cheap. Recycling is an attempt to address what people see as a product creation issue -- they object to the fact that resources are mined, smelted, drilled, refined, etc. in order to create new things, and see recycling as a way to ensure that less of that happens. "The same amount of plastic, but less drilling."
kodablah 8y ago
It's not pushed to the producer, it's pushed to the consumer, just as charging more for trash does (which may be ideal depending on who you ask). Regardless, all this does is keeps those who have less from obtaining more, others will eat the costs. Seems everything that is disliked these days always has government taking money as the suggested solution. Even if it was the only way, plenty is already taken to rationally use it to help without using the tool punitively.
- vohk 8y ago
  What cost isn't eventually pushed to the consumer? You pay more upfront, you pay more for disposal, you pay more in tax so the government can handle it, or you pay with a degrading environment in which to live. Forcing producers to account for the full life cycle internalizes that particular externality and makes it an area they can compete in.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    This reduces the situation down to simple zero sum as if public spending waste and several other factors don't exist. It doesn't force producers to do anything. Often these types of punitive taxes just feed government coffers and don't affect the problem to the contrary of what idealists told them with simple napkin math when proposed. Encouraging better handling of these things can happen via many awareness and grant initiatives with the vast amounts of monies already taken. You don't have to take more.
    - zenexer 8y ago
      Taxes are pretty good at raising awareness, since they're quite controversial. Of course, that increase in awareness isn't necessarily going to result in better actions--there are likely people who will deliberately sabotage such efforts in protest. If the only solution here is to consume less, taxes could work for the majority of the population. If the cost of consumption goes up, actual consumption goes down. But a significant minority of the population would probably be willing to eat the extra cost, which is unfortunate. Not all waste producers are individuals, either. Industrial processes often produce a lot of waste, and the products at the end of the chain don't always go to individuals; they might go to the military, for example. Big companies are more likely to have the money and lawyers to evade taxes and fines, which impedes regulation and rewards companies that don't play fair. These issues aren't seen by consumers, so we can't vote with our wallets, either. Raising awareness via traditional methods seems like a good long-term strategy, but what about all the people who simply don't care? Ultimately, we're going to need to tackle this problem from multiple angles. It's unlikely that a single tactic will yield satisfactory results. Regulation and taxes are probably going to need to be part of our plan, but they won't be sufficient on their own.
killjoywashere 8y ago
I don't always upvote, but when I do, it's for sharing of insights like this.

Areading314 8y ago

I find that Amazon is one of the worst offenders. It's clear, especially for Amazon fresh orders, that they have zero incentive to care about their plastic footprint, and they take full advantage of this. Should be taxed or disincentivized.

pault 8y ago
Ugh, I once got an amazon package that contained a product about the size of a toaster oven and it was shipped in the original manufacturer's box, nested in the box from whoever shipped the product to amazon, nested in the box amazon used to ship it. All the boxes were full of packing foam of course, so the total volume of the packaging after removing it was about a meter squared, or about 25x the volume of the product inside. It was extremely upsetting.
- ddoolin 8y ago
  When you buy Amazon Fresh, if it contains anything cold, Amazon will include many packs to keep it cold. Our first time was a decently large order and it contained 8 (!) of such packs. They don't have a program to return these things. It's not just water inside but some other substance that shouldn't be casually thrown out. Suffice to say it was also our last order. I wouldn't say we're particularly more garbage-conscious than most but that was just absurd. To me, that should be illegal without some kind of reuse program.
  - delecti 8y ago
    That scheme didn't last very long, and they've changed a couple times since then. For a while it was similar packs, but filled with water, and the pack said to just pour it down the drain. And now they send packs of dry ice along with frozen food, and frozen bottles of water along with refrigerated food. The dry ice just sublimates away (and the cardboard it's in is recyclable), and the bottled water is at least slightly valuable as a product.
    - vram22 8y ago
      >The dry ice just sublimates away Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide, though. So when it sublimates, the CO2 will go into the atmosphere.
      - nostrademons 8y ago
        Where do you think the CO2 came from in the first place?
        vram22 8y ago
        From turtles (all the way down/up)? Heh. Jokes apart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice#Manufacture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice#Manufacture
        8y ago
consp 8y ago
As an example for recycling: the grocery deliverable service I use (picnic) charges 35 ct as a deposit for the plastic bags which gets refunded if you give them back the next delivery. They are bio decomposable but they want them back anyways.

caoilte 8y ago

Good answer. One interesting addendum is that many food producers are lobbying to argue that reducing the amount of plastic in their packages will likely lead to more food wastage. The feedback loops here are fascinating, but I'm increasingly reminded of the scorched earth public relations tactics employed by the Tobacco industry against plain packaging and which turned out later to be pure fiction. https://www.bath.ac.uk/case-studies/debunking-big-tobaccos-arguments-against-standardised-packaging/ https://www.bath.ac.uk/case-studies/debunking-big-tobaccos-a...

ip26 8y ago
The precept that packaging serves to reduce spoilage is true. The real question is, can there really be no other alternative with merit? For example, it's true glass can break, but the main knocks against it are mostly cost & weight (aka delivery cost). Are they lobbying in good faith, or just trying to keep the cheapest option?
- Godel_unicode 8y ago
  Weight means more energy to move the product which means more fuel in and more co2 out.
  - abootstrapper 8y ago
    True, but it takes energy to produce and dispose of the plastic packaging, so it’s no so clear which produces the least co2 without doing the math.
    - hanniabu 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure the extra CO2 to transport would be worth the tradeoff for a decrease in physical pollution.
- fyfy18 8y ago
  I'd argue that it's not even a problem if more food is wasted. If it's a small percentage, it's still going to be a net win for the environment if it dramatically reduces the amount of plastic used for food packaging. The problem is that there is no economical cost on the environmental impact to producers. My local supermarket has switched to supplying avocados in a plastic tray wrapped in plastic film. I can't imagine that provides any meaningful advantage over shipping 10s of avocados loose in a large cardboard box. Of course for the industry it's bad because any percentage increase in waste comes out of their profits, while plastic packaging is basically free.

mirimir 8y ago

Yes! And it's not just economic costs. It's "lifestyle", more or less. So a few decades ago, all beer bottles were the same size and shape. You took your empties back to the store, and got paid for them. Distributors bought them from stores, and manufacturers from distributors. So they got reused until they broke. Maybe 40 years ago, some regional US beer makers still did this. Maybe some still do. I saw this 10-20 years ago in Mexico, for both beer and soda bottles. And it was also pretty common for wine bottles. But now? Now my wife buys French yogurt in tiny glass bottles. Tiny heavy glass bottles. We could save them, but they're really too small for anything but liquor. And who wants to drink from old yogurt containers, in any case? in the late 60s and 70s, a crucial aspect of the food coop movement was buying bulk stuff, and using your own containers. In Mexico, old-style milk stores often didn't provide containers. And if they did, it was plastic bags. Handling a 2L plastic bag of milk is quite the experience. I can't imagine how the US could go back to bulk distribution and reusable containers. Or, for that matter, how we could undo suburbanization. But there are limits to externalities, and we are hitting them.

tomc1985 8y ago
Still common in South America (as of 5 years ago) and Europe (as of about 9)
ams6110 8y ago
Reusable containers died as soon as plastic containers were developed. Plastic containers are so much lighter that significant money is saved in transport, and obviously the handling and transport for the returns, the inspecting, washing, sterilizing costs are all gone. Huge win for the producers, not sure whether it's a net win or loss overall environmentally.
- mirimir 8y ago
  Sure. That's why it happened. But what to do with all those containers? Many current disposable containers are durable enough for long-term use. Even a couple centuries ago, they'd be passed down through families. Maybe they still are, somewhere. But what do I do with hundreds of ~4L plastic milk bottles?

thaumasiotes 8y ago

There is no garbage disposal problem -- disposal is easy and cheap. Recycling is an attempt to address what people see as a product creation issue -- they object to the fact that resources are mined, smelted, drilled, refined, etc. in order to create new things, and see recycling as a way to ensure that less of that happens. "The same amount of plastic, but less drilling."

kodablah 8y ago

It's not pushed to the producer, it's pushed to the consumer, just as charging more for trash does (which may be ideal depending on who you ask). Regardless, all this does is keeps those who have less from obtaining more, others will eat the costs. Seems everything that is disliked these days always has government taking money as the suggested solution. Even if it was the only way, plenty is already taken to rationally use it to help without using the tool punitively.

vohk 8y ago
What cost isn't eventually pushed to the consumer? You pay more upfront, you pay more for disposal, you pay more in tax so the government can handle it, or you pay with a degrading environment in which to live. Forcing producers to account for the full life cycle internalizes that particular externality and makes it an area they can compete in.
- kodablah 8y ago
  This reduces the situation down to simple zero sum as if public spending waste and several other factors don't exist. It doesn't force producers to do anything. Often these types of punitive taxes just feed government coffers and don't affect the problem to the contrary of what idealists told them with simple napkin math when proposed. Encouraging better handling of these things can happen via many awareness and grant initiatives with the vast amounts of monies already taken. You don't have to take more.
  - zenexer 8y ago
    Taxes are pretty good at raising awareness, since they're quite controversial. Of course, that increase in awareness isn't necessarily going to result in better actions--there are likely people who will deliberately sabotage such efforts in protest. If the only solution here is to consume less, taxes could work for the majority of the population. If the cost of consumption goes up, actual consumption goes down. But a significant minority of the population would probably be willing to eat the extra cost, which is unfortunate. Not all waste producers are individuals, either. Industrial processes often produce a lot of waste, and the products at the end of the chain don't always go to individuals; they might go to the military, for example. Big companies are more likely to have the money and lawyers to evade taxes and fines, which impedes regulation and rewards companies that don't play fair. These issues aren't seen by consumers, so we can't vote with our wallets, either. Raising awareness via traditional methods seems like a good long-term strategy, but what about all the people who simply don't care? Ultimately, we're going to need to tackle this problem from multiple angles. It's unlikely that a single tactic will yield satisfactory results. Regulation and taxes are probably going to need to be part of our plan, but they won't be sufficient on their own.

killjoywashere 8y ago

I don't always upvote, but when I do, it's for sharing of insights like this.