5 ms·

Malaysia to send up to 100 tonnes of plastic waste back to Australia

24 points by i_feel_great 7y ago

Paraesthetic 7y ago
Bunch of cunts, they said they would drop it in the sea.
pizzabearman 7y ago
Recycling has become such a lazy way of dealing with a bit more convenience. Single use plastics and plastic packaging should be banned or at least be taxed accordingly for subsequent processing.
- vidarh 7y ago
  > Recycling has become such a lazy way of dealing with a bit more convenience. It's not necessarily that simple. With glass bottle reuse vs. plastic recycling, for example, it's not necessarily clear which ends up being most efficient. The glass containers can be reused, but not that many times on average, and it takes sufficiently more energy to produce one vs. the energy required to recycle a plastic bottle. > Single use plastics and plastic packaging should be banned or at least be taxed accordingly for subsequent processing. I'd go further and say we ought to tax all packaging based on the cost of cleanup, be that reuse, recycling, or other measures. As an example of a measure that works reasonably well (but where I think the rates still ought to rise further to reflect the environmental costs in full) is bottle return schemes like the one in Norway that starts by adding a tax to drinks containers, and then adds in an incentive to recycle by deducting from the tax based on the proportion of containers recycled via approved schemes. It doesn't go far enough in encouraging less packaging, and that specific scheme only covers drinks containers, but the overall principle of taxing based on an assumption that the packaging will not be treated properly and that we need to penalize that, and then reducing the tax bill if you can prove otherwise, is good.
  - mtgx 7y ago
    Same with re-usable bags. I read somewhere that you need to use it 37 times to make the switch from single-use plastic bags worth it. Either way, I prefer reusable bags.
    - LeonM 7y ago
      I live in the Netherlands, the government here passed a law in 2016 that prohibits shops from giving out free plastic bags (the are required to charge a minimal of 25 cents for a bag). In my opinion it works tremendously well. It took about a month for people to get used to the idea, but now you see most people bring their own reusable bags. As far as I can tell the amount of waste plastic bags on the street has reduced significantly since them. An interesting observation was that the shopkeepers had more issues with this law than the consumers. For the first couple of months many had some lame sign saying something like 'we are very sorry that our stupid government forced us to charge you for this bag'. Some even offered 25 cents discount on their product if you took a bag with your purchase. Luckily it is now generally accepted by both the merchants and the consumers.
    - vidarh 7y ago
      Co-op in the UK has an interesting approach: Their single-use bags are now bags of the type approved for the food recycling bins. They tear more easily, but they're still solid enough.
  - nik736 7y ago
    > The glass containers can be reused, but not that many times on average, and it takes sufficiently more energy to produce one vs. the energy required to recycle a plastic bottle. Is there any source for this? In Germany for example we have the option to buy bottled water in glass or plastic. Glass bottles are reusable, while plastic bottles are either one-way (majority) or reusable. The glass bottles are reused an average of 50x, while the one-way plastic bottles obviously are only used once. There are some reusable plastic bottles, but they are only reused max. 12x if not a lot less. Looking at these numbers alone tells me that glass bottles are way better for our environment compared to plastic bottles. So I am a bit confused by your statement.
- python_gt_r3 7y ago
  Yes, and booming Amazon doesn't help to curve residuals use. It's a good example of what has to change going forward. I don't need 3 layers of wrapping for my 10 centimeters shampoo
  - cosmodisk 7y ago
    Tbh every time I get a parcel from Amazon I start thinking of investing in packaging industry,as the amounts used are absolutely obsene...I think 10-15 more years and we'll all be thinking how stupid this all was..
jddj 7y ago
Outsourcing recycling to developing nations seems like such an ethical minefield. It's a promising sign that Malaysia and the Philippines are putting their foot down and rejecting anything which isn't suitable or has been contaminated. If the companies responsible feel the pushback it may help to close the feedback loop somewhat between western consumers and the consequences of their consumption.
merricksb 7y ago
Discussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20030065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20030065
cosmodisk 7y ago
Remember watching a documentary about UK's landfills.The older ones,that are no longer in use, are often not even mapped property,so even the government struggles to pin point where all the stuff was dumped half a century ago.What was even more interesting is how much slower things degrade as opposed to the official guidelines. Decommissioned landfills are often covered with a layer of soil,which essentially deprives it from oxygen and slows down the process.They dug up some newspapers that were 30 or more years old and still fully legible.

24 points by i_feel_great 7y ago

Bunch of cunts, they said they would drop it in the sea.

Recycling has become such a lazy way of dealing with a bit more convenience. Single use plastics and plastic packaging should be banned or at least be taxed accordingly for subsequent processing.

vidarh 7y ago
> Recycling has become such a lazy way of dealing with a bit more convenience. It's not necessarily that simple. With glass bottle reuse vs. plastic recycling, for example, it's not necessarily clear which ends up being most efficient. The glass containers can be reused, but not that many times on average, and it takes sufficiently more energy to produce one vs. the energy required to recycle a plastic bottle. > Single use plastics and plastic packaging should be banned or at least be taxed accordingly for subsequent processing. I'd go further and say we ought to tax all packaging based on the cost of cleanup, be that reuse, recycling, or other measures. As an example of a measure that works reasonably well (but where I think the rates still ought to rise further to reflect the environmental costs in full) is bottle return schemes like the one in Norway that starts by adding a tax to drinks containers, and then adds in an incentive to recycle by deducting from the tax based on the proportion of containers recycled via approved schemes. It doesn't go far enough in encouraging less packaging, and that specific scheme only covers drinks containers, but the overall principle of taxing based on an assumption that the packaging will not be treated properly and that we need to penalize that, and then reducing the tax bill if you can prove otherwise, is good.
- mtgx 7y ago
  Same with re-usable bags. I read somewhere that you need to use it 37 times to make the switch from single-use plastic bags worth it. Either way, I prefer reusable bags.
  - LeonM 7y ago
    I live in the Netherlands, the government here passed a law in 2016 that prohibits shops from giving out free plastic bags (the are required to charge a minimal of 25 cents for a bag). In my opinion it works tremendously well. It took about a month for people to get used to the idea, but now you see most people bring their own reusable bags. As far as I can tell the amount of waste plastic bags on the street has reduced significantly since them. An interesting observation was that the shopkeepers had more issues with this law than the consumers. For the first couple of months many had some lame sign saying something like 'we are very sorry that our stupid government forced us to charge you for this bag'. Some even offered 25 cents discount on their product if you took a bag with your purchase. Luckily it is now generally accepted by both the merchants and the consumers.
  - vidarh 7y ago
    Co-op in the UK has an interesting approach: Their single-use bags are now bags of the type approved for the food recycling bins. They tear more easily, but they're still solid enough.
- nik736 7y ago
  > The glass containers can be reused, but not that many times on average, and it takes sufficiently more energy to produce one vs. the energy required to recycle a plastic bottle. Is there any source for this? In Germany for example we have the option to buy bottled water in glass or plastic. Glass bottles are reusable, while plastic bottles are either one-way (majority) or reusable. The glass bottles are reused an average of 50x, while the one-way plastic bottles obviously are only used once. There are some reusable plastic bottles, but they are only reused max. 12x if not a lot less. Looking at these numbers alone tells me that glass bottles are way better for our environment compared to plastic bottles. So I am a bit confused by your statement.
python_gt_r3 7y ago
Yes, and booming Amazon doesn't help to curve residuals use. It's a good example of what has to change going forward. I don't need 3 layers of wrapping for my 10 centimeters shampoo
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Tbh every time I get a parcel from Amazon I start thinking of investing in packaging industry,as the amounts used are absolutely obsene...I think 10-15 more years and we'll all be thinking how stupid this all was..

jddj 7y ago

Outsourcing recycling to developing nations seems like such an ethical minefield. It's a promising sign that Malaysia and the Philippines are putting their foot down and rejecting anything which isn't suitable or has been contaminated. If the companies responsible feel the pushback it may help to close the feedback loop somewhat between western consumers and the consequences of their consumption.

merricksb 7y ago

Discussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20030065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20030065

cosmodisk 7y ago

Remember watching a documentary about UK's landfills.The older ones,that are no longer in use, are often not even mapped property,so even the government struggles to pin point where all the stuff was dumped half a century ago.What was even more interesting is how much slower things degrade as opposed to the official guidelines. Decommissioned landfills are often covered with a layer of soil,which essentially deprives it from oxygen and slows down the process.They dug up some newspapers that were 30 or more years old and still fully legible.