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Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.is/x8kNK http://archive.is/x8kNK
- opportune 7y agoAs far as I can understand it, the recycling industry is a well-intentioned waste of resources. It would be much better for the environment for all this waste to be sequestered in a landfill than for people to pay to ship it around the world only for most of it to be dumped or rejected (which, even when the Asian countries in question do accept it, they are likely to do anyway). These materials (plastics) are so cheap to produce that it will probably never be economical to recycle them, unless recycling them entails cleaning them and reusing them in their original state. I think a lot of people have undeservedly negative emotional reactions to the concept of sending waste to landfills. Waste in landfills is waste that won't find its way into the rest of the environment. Plastic not decomposing is bad in that it ties up resources for a very long time, but it's good in that it doesn't even produce methane waste in landfills. And I'm guessing it takes less CO2 to ship X kilos of plastic around the world and reprocess it than to dispose of the plastic close to its source and produce X new kilos of plastic.
- Scoundreller 7y agoAnd plastics are cheaper than ever in N. America. We fractionate the ethane out from natural gas, and we’re fracking a lot of natural gas. And it isn’t easy to store ethane, so we’re turning on more and more plants to turn it into polyethylene. At least in winter, the ethane can be used to froth up gasoline, but in summer, there’s not a lot to do with ethane.
- Reedx 7y agoAnd with that approach it'd be easier to reclaim if/when we figure out a good way to re-use it. Basically plastic deposits that could be conveniently mined in the future.
- umvi 7y agoSo what you are saying is we need to create more plastics since they sequester carbon better than plants!
- tomjakubowski 7y agoLike the comforting lie I tell myself when printing a long paper: you're sequestering carbon!
- Bakary 7y agoA more prosaic explanation is that recycling is primarily aimed at removing garbage from the first world rather than environmental friendliness.
- jlawson 7y agoNon-biodegradeable plastic is a carbon sequestering scheme.
- undersuit 7y agoBreaking windows stimulates the local economy.
- mediaman 7y agoYou're confusing mixed waste, the subject of the article, with all recycling. It's true that mixed waste is difficult to process and is often best in a landfill or clean incinerator. But properly sorted plastics are perfectly usable, and they are cheaper than virgin plastics. The reason they are cheaper is that it is less expensive to clean and regrind them than it is to process new, virgin plastic. Virgin polypropylene currently fetches about $0.65 a pound, whereas recycled clear polypropylene is sold for $0.50-0.55 a pound. These plastics are typically recycled within the same region as the origin of the waste plastic, and, due to freight, often get re-used in industry in the same region as well.
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoWell-intentioned is a stretch. We really just shouldn’t be using plastic for disposable products, and corporations take advantage of peoples’ lack of knowledge of recycling to neglect their responsibility of proper disposal and pricing. Given the effect of plastic on the environment single use plastics should be priced higher than their (eg) metal counterparts. (This is assuming those have priced in externalities, so I realize this is reductive, but I believe my point is clear.) I’m staring at a unilever plastic container with cute recycling logos on the side, and I have no consumer option to price compare with a more sustainable option, let alone vote with my wallet. What a waste of materials. Granted, lighting the materials on fire so I can drive around the countryside isn’t much better.
- mehrdadn 7y ago> We really just shouldn’t be using plastic for disposable products Huh... I would've expected to read we very much should be using plastics for disposables. (Do you want a metal or cloth trash bag?) Rather the problem I see is disposing so much in the first place.
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoI was more implying things like paper, but I see your confusion.
- philliphaydon 7y agoPaper cups for coffee and paper containers for food are lined which makes them difficult to recycle. Despite having a recycle logo on them they are often not recyclable.
- spraak 7y agoThey can be lined in a way to be easily compostable
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rlpb 7y ago> it will probably never be economical to recycle them While we're talking in hypotheticals, I think the economics of recycling needs to take into account the negative externality of environmentally safe disposal cost in production. In other words, if we actually priced in the cost of safe disposal into the cost of plastic products, then recycling wouldn't have to be viable economically based on the price of recycled plastic alone. Europe already does this for household electrical waste; there is no reason it cannot be done for plastics.
- JamesBarney 7y agoAre you talking the cost of putting it into a landfill?
- spullara 7y agoIt seems obvious to me that we will eventually be a lot better at recycling or the materials will be worth a lot more. If you can keep it around without it polluting the environment outside of the landfill, you should dig it up later and recycle it with superior technology and/or when there is much more demand.
- tomc1985 7y agoWhy can't the US develop domestic waste-processing capabilities? We could be generating power from incineration plants.
- pkaye 7y agoIt was cheaper to send it overseas rather than to invest in alternative technologies. So if any company tries to develop some technology, they might not get funding. Imagine if gasoline was 10x cheaper how much it would slow down development of electric cars.
- Scoundreller 7y agoPollution control standards make incineration expensive. It’s not like the US is going to run out of land for landfills.
- tomc1985 7y agoYes but can't you have a closed system that compacts the exhaust into solid matter?
- Scoundreller 7y agoFor some things (like SO2), yes. But not easy for CO2.
- xyzzyz 7y agoYeah, it's much easier and cheaper to have someone else emit all of it (and most likely more than we would have) on your behalf on the other side of the world. Locally it wouldn't fly, because people don't like the idea of just burning it and releasing all of the pollutants, but if you ship it in the container that would otherwise go empty anyway, and then they do it for you, it's okay.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
- devoply 7y agoReplace with glass and aluminum, with what's left over burn it. That way it has no way of creating any other problems in the future. If you are efficient with burning it you could even capture the greenhouse gasses produced as a result and sequester those.
- anon_cow1111 7y agoAs someone who rides a bicycle and hikes, glass bottles are the bane of my existence.
- mattmanser 7y agoGet reusable plastic ones and decant then.
- Scoundreller 7y agoI think their concern is others’ disposal of the glass on trails. Edit: though I do dislike the idea of biking with glass bottles, especially in a backpack. A plastic container absorbs impact and can make falls safer. Not so much for a glass container.
- anon_cow1111 7y agoI've lost so many tubes from glass fragments. Sometimes the tire even shifts around when going flat and pokes several more holes nearby. Still not as bad as people who throw bottles in the creek though.
- fooblitzky 7y agoStainless steel is usually a good option - it weighs less than glass and is more robust.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- arcticbull 7y ago
- pen2l 7y agoThis might be a dumb question, but: why don't we do glass-style bottles? I live in America now, but when I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago, I remember that I would buy pepsi or coki in a glass bottle... and if I wanted to buy a second one, I would go back to the store and give them the old empty bottle, and they would compensate me a few pennies for it -- and the bottle then is presumably washed and reused. It's simple, fun, and environmentally friendly. Why don't we do this with... milk, juice, etc.? Why not do this with everything really?
- wil421 7y agoPlastic is cheaper and doesn’t shatter. Some states in the US still have the refund thing for bottles. I’ve seen a vending machine in NYC for bottle refunds and one in Munich, Germany. When I was in Central America they wouldn’t let you leave the store with the bottle. They would provide a plastic bag where you could sip the coke out with a straw.
- eli 7y agoTo be clear: the bottle redemption machines in New York crush bottles, they don't save them for reuse
- wil421 7y agoWow I did not know that. It’s likely being thrown in a land fill. The garbage companies around me stopped collecting bottles years ago. Do they do it to keep trash off the streets?
- xyzzyz 7y agoIf NYC was into keeping the trash off the streets, they'd rather invest in better garbage collection methods than their current one, which is to have people just leave trash bags right there on the sidewalk, leaking all kinds of disgusting fluids all over the place. Really, Manhattan is such a disgusting, dirty, smelly place full of trash, that a few additional glass bottles here and there won't make too much of a difference.
- olliej 7y agoGood for them - until recently it had never occurred to me that many “recycling” programs were just “send it to another country”. It wasn’t until someone on HN pointed out to me that even most plastic “recycling” is just shredding and using for things like carpet. The long term solution seems to replace most plastics with paper/cardboard and actually compostable materials (which doesn’t really include the compostable plastics)
- carapace 7y agoFor a fascinating (and less sensational) read on the global recycling trade I recommend "Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade" by Adam Minter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17286721-junkyard-planet https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17286721-junkyard-planet
- chrisanthropic 7y agoThe first time I really started thinking about this was years ago after watching the recycling episode of "Penn & Teller: Bullshit" where they essentially warn that many recycling programs consist of shipping our waste elsewhere for someone else to deal with and that some day the countries we send our "recycling"/waste to will likely get sick of it and start rejecting it and we'll be fucked. That was almost 10 years ago
- Scoundreller 7y agoI don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in sending materials elsewhere for cheap sorting or re-manufacturing. Especially when ships and containers are going that way empty anyway.
- chrisanthropic 7y agoWhile I basically agree, one of the arguments in the episode (as I remember it, it's been a while) is that since we ship it away, we don't see the negative results of our lifestyle choices, making the problems created easier to ignore. Also, they argue that modern landfills _can_ be pretty damned "green", capturing the heat/gases created and using them to generate power. But since we've prioritized and financially incentivized recycling (shipping everything somewhere else) we haven't prioritized responsible ways to manage waste locally and once our waste gets rejected we'll likely to be playing catch-up. I guess we'll see. Or we'll all die before then. Shrug.
- gwbas1c 7y agoThe problem is mis-representing what's in the shipment. (There's probably a lot of plausible deniability in the system. People throw a lot of trash into recycling bins for lots of reasons, including ignorance or laziness. Trash companies don't take responsibility to make sure that's what's in the bin is actually what's supposed to be there.) Read the article. There's dirty diapers mixed in with so-called "recyclables."
- Scoundreller 7y ago
- Barrin92 7y agoFor a great fiction take on the issue The Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan and recently translated into English by Ken Liu is well worth a read.
- nitwit005 7y agoOther than the diplomatic issue of sending it back, "Asian countries take a stand against their own recycling industries" seems more accurate. There was someone buying it on the other end.
- Spooky23 7y agoIt’s also a good PR hit after the discovery that oceanic plastic pollution comes from a few rivers in Asia.
- doomjunky 7y agoHow can we find out whose garbage is it?
- kabacha 7y agoYeah, original title is absurd. I've never seen as much plastic waste as I see in Asia. I mean I've got called names few times for refusing plastic bag lol.
- evancox100 7y agoThe move to single-stream recycling probably represents the single largest setback in the U.S. to the cause of waste reduction.
- butisaidsudo 7y agoFrom what I understand, shipping containers are sent out from Asia stuffed with goods, but there isn't nearly as much going in the other direction. The containers need to go back whether they're full or not, which is why it ends up being so cheap to ship plastic. And the CO2 caused doesn't really change as a result. To the rest of your point though, I agree. My wife is a hardline recycler. I generally am too, but I have a hard time seeing the benefit in recycling soft plastics.
- snthd 7y agoCargo ships are designed to float at a certain level in the water - if they're too empty they carry ballast instead. This causes it's own problems - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballast_water_discharge_and_the_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballast_water_discharge_and_th...
- basilgohar 7y agoThank you for the included link. This is an aspect of international shipping about which I was wholly ignorant. The particular section mentioning the "international exchange" occurring in Singapore was particularly concerning because even species from areas not visited by the transiting vessels can "hitch a ride", so to speak.
- chewz 7y agoIt is like ships carrying opium to China had to take Chinese porcelain as balast on the way back. https://southchinaenvir.com/opium-dreams-speedy-clipper-ships-and-chinese-porcelain-for-ballast/ https://southchinaenvir.com/opium-dreams-speedy-clipper-ship...
- shados 7y agoIs there really much of a point in recycling anything but reasonably clean paper/cardboard (I know stuff like greasy pizza boxes won't get recycled), and clean metals (like aluminum cans). Like, aside for those, will much realistically get recycled? Aside for the insane amount of amazon boxes I toss in recycling, so very little of my trash fits the bill of things that will reasonably get recycled...
- tartinipaolo 7y agoScary! So bad plastics are so cheap that no one wants to substitute them.
- cortesoft 7y agoThere is this strange belief that landfills are taking up a ton of space and we need to reduce landfill usage because of it. This is simply not true. Landfills don't take up much space, we have plenty.
- weberc2 7y agoThis is pretty much what the environmentalists were preaching when I was growing up. Not sure why to be honest. In retrospect it certainly seems like "but the landfills!" is the lesser of all evils.
- nostrademons 7y agoProbably a combination of NIMBYism and poor land-use planning. Back when many of these landfills were created, they were on the outskirts of urban areas, where "outskirts" = 15-20 miles away. After the wave of suburbanization in the 1950s-80s, suddenly those outskirts are right next to someone's home. Now it's a crisis. Most people's conception of what land is available is limited to their local metropolitan area, and they have no idea just how abundant land is in the hinterlands. You could probably bury all the nation's garbage in the craters left inside the Nevada Proving Grounds, which is a radioactive wasteland anyway. And shipping contains of garbage 500 miles from LA, Vegas, and SF to Northern Nevada looks a lot more appealing when you've gotten used to shipping it 10,000 miles to China.
- whatshisface 7y agoShipping over water is cheaper than shipping over land.
- nostrademons 7y agoTrue, but probably not 20x true.
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoOnly if you don’t price in environmental impact. Trains are much more efficient than ships in this regard and can be powered purely by green energy.
- cybersnowflake 7y agoThe real story, is not that China is simply refusing waste, what nobody is really talking about is how the omnipresent dogma we've been indoctrinated with since childhood, that all this recycling is doing all this good is a flatout lie. And its mostly just been going to dumps in China. I mean it would be as if the whole world suddenly discovered one day that Santa wasn't real. At the bare minimum this angle deserved a few months at frontpage billing but it just passed by without any notice in favor of continuing 24hr coverage of the latest mean Trump Tweet.
- gesman 7y ago“This is rubbish that you know cannot be recycled, and it makes me really angry that our country has to endure this,” she said in an interview. Were they ever forced to accept this with no say into this? Or it's just change of mindset to stop selling their own country as a garbage dump?
- rishav_sharan 7y agoThis is simply a political issue at this point. If there is political will, then we can ban all consumer plastic. We used to live fine without them 40 years ago. We can do so again. Damn the inconvenience. We must plug this at both source and disposal.
- protonfish 7y agoIf you made a case that this would be better for the environment, which I have yet to see. Plastic waste is not toxic, nor does it use a lot of energy to produce.
- cameronbrown 7y agoMicroplastics which are irremovable from the environment would beg to differ. Those are what need to be banned.
- tomxor 7y agoMicroplastics are all plastics, since that's what it all turns into after getting ground up through environmental processes.
- dflock 7y ago> Plastic waste is not toxic It absolutely is. It breaks down into micro-plastics, which are sub-celluar sized plastic particles. These have a large surface area and are easily absorbed into tissues and cells. They then leech out whatever additives are in that particular piece of plastic - plasticizers, colourings, etc... Some of these are directly toxic/harmful when released into tissues and cells - and lots of them are endocrine disruptors: molecules with a very similar 3d shape to hormones: > Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that can interfere with endocrine (or hormone) systems at certain doses. These disruptions can cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders.[1] Any system in the body controlled by hormones can be derailed by hormone disruptors. Specifically, endocrine disruptors may be associated with the development of learning disabilities, severe attention deficit disorder, cognitive and brain development problems; deformations of the body (including limbs); breast cancer, prostate cancer, thyroid and other cancers; sexual development problems such as feminizing of males or masculinizing effects on females, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor > The toxins the microplastic leaches into seawater inhibit the growth and photosynthetic efficiency of the bacteria Prochlorococcus, which is responsible for producing an estimated 20 percent of the oxygen we breathe. That means Prochlorococcus is also responsible for 20 percent of carbon capture on this planet (one molecule of carbon goes in, one molecule of oxygen goes out), theoretically spelling trouble for humanity’s quest to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere. This is early research that comes with several big caveats, and also exposes the challenges of studying a threat as new and omnipresent as plastic pollution. https://www.wired.com/story/ocean-plastics-bacteria/ https://www.wired.com/story/ocean-plastics-bacteria/ Etc, etc, etc...
- eschaton 7y agoThe fundamental problem here is that the cost paid for a good does not directly include the cost to reclaim and/or sequester it. That cost is externalized, and so it winds up seeking a local minima, with serious adverse effects on the total system. If these costs are incorporated, everyone’s incentives are aligned and solutions will be found.
- throw2016 7y agoWhenever it comes to issues of environmental concern there is always an 'authoritative' comment hand waving away objections and pretending to be on the side of 'science' but offering no scientific evidence, rationale or reasoning. The entire comment essentially says 'nothing to see here' and positions any concern as 'unscientific' and overreaction. You see this on HN every time in cases of nuclear power and the environment externalities. This may benefit people who make money from it but no one else and actively derails discussion and environmental concerns.
- tomxor 7y agoI'm fed up of sorting and "recycling" plastic, it's such bullshit, it's a feel good activity for individuals or a check box exercise for governments. If anything it's damaging to continue pretending to recycle plastics, it makes it seem ok to continue producing them. One day in the future it will be banned at the source, packaging will be replaced with something non-hazardous and efficient to recycle or biodegrade, and our children will look back at us in disbelief - just like we look back and scoff at advertisements for healthy smoking, yet it will have longer lasting effects on the food chain.
- mediaman 7y agoAs a counter-example, British Columbia recycles its post-consumer waste. There are state of the art sorting facilities near Vancouver that receive this material, sort it, grind it, clean it, and pelletize it. It's then bought and used to produce various industrial and consumer goods. The recycler receives a subsidy (set through open bid) because the cost of sortation, grinding and cleaning is somewhat less than the recovery price of commodity resins. (Post-industrial plastics, or highly sorted plastics, are much cheaper to recycle and are processed without subsidy.) The idea that all plastic recycling is "pretend" recycling is false, damaging, and encourages adoption of environmentally damaging alternatives or use of virgin plastics. We should either use more bins and pre-sort everything (which will result in lower recycle rates, but much more economic streams) or subsidize processors to sort streams out and turn them into useful material to be re-used.
- mikekchar 7y agoThe city where I live has 14 sorts of garbage. You have to sort, clean, put it in clear special bags and write your name on it. If you don't do it right, it doesn't get removed (and your neighbours gang up to figure out who screwed it up if you don't write your name). Of course, it's Japan and people are used to following rules, but the system works quite well. One of the things I don't like about these kinds of issues is the lack of understanding that garbage is as much a social problem as it is a technical problem. We assume that people can't/won't do things and evolve a culture where it is true.
- babyslothzoo 7y agoInteresting. Meanwhile, apparently Asian countries dump more plastic into the ocean than the rest of the world combined. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asian-countries-dump-more-plastic-than-anyone-else-combined-how-you-can-help/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asi...
- gtgtgthyhy 7y agoThe water from my well is not very good, but ever since I got a reverse-osmosis filtration system, I probably reduced our one-time-use plastic consumption by about 95% (mainly water bottles)... and this system will pay for itself in less then one year... but of course they need to fix the packaging of many items.
- baxtr 7y agoIs there a good reason not to burn all the plastic instead of shipping it to foreign lands?
- Tsubasachan 7y agoWhat happened before the recycling movement was that Western waste was burned in Western waste disposal facilities. This created a ton of toxic shit. Shipping it off to Asia or Africa kept our skies clear. So the recycle lie was created.
- abakker 7y agoWhat is actually produced when we burn a plastic water bottle at high temperature? I've always wondered this but never seen a great answer - are we just releasing gasses, or is the resultant ash toxic?
- sitharus 7y agoIf the incineration happens at over 1000°C and the facility has operation exhaust gas scrubbers then not much. You'll end up with bromine, chlorine and fluorine salts in the ash. If it's below 400° (as happens if you burn plastic in your backyard or fireplace) you'll release dioxins, which are persistent fat-accumulating toxins, and fluorine and bromide compounds which are typically bad news to anyone downwind. It does depend on the plastic you burn though. Some are worse than others, but 1000°+ controlled incineration is typically fine for all.
- abraae 7y agoWe watched a documentary on people living with minimal waste, which highlight an elderly couple who managed to live with less than one rubbish sack of waste per year. I was admiring their efforts until I noticed a smouldering rubbish heap in their back garden. Sure enough, they burned all their plastic and other waste.
- 90minuteAPI 7y agoI don't think that really counts as living with minimal waste then.
- pushedx 7y agoI would prefer to see plastic and styrofoam containers outlawed entirely.
- gingabriska 7y agoI just bought 5 new Prusa i3 MK3 and I print lots of ABS and PETG parts, am I contributed to the plastic problem? Over last 1 month, I ended up using roughly 25KG of plastic.
- maccard 7y agoI don't know if this is a serious question or not, but I'll assume it is - You are. Unless you're printing medical parts or repair parts to be resold, that's an enormous amount of plastic. My entire weeks worth of packaging recycling is probably only 5% of that. That said, overall the amount is negligible compared to industrial food packaging, or industrial freight, and you'd have more of an impact by campaigning for change in those areas while waiting for your 3d printers to finish. At a certain point we're likely to enter a death by 1000 papercuts phase, and at that stage it would be irresponsible
- rlpb 7y agoIMHO, while in the short term using a 3D printer may mean more plastic parts everywhere and therefore more waste, in the long term you're promoting a world of Just In Time part production where it is needed, and that future world will produce less waste.
- Godel_unicode 7y agoYou're forgetting that just in time means a much lower barrier between desire and realization. This can lead to a significant increase in overall consumption.
- m4x 7y agoYou could use PLA more to reduce the impact. It's made from plant materials and is biodegradable - unfortunately it still needs to be composted correctly to fully break down, so almost all your parts will still end up contributing micro plastics to the environment.
- gaze 7y agoThat’s an enormous amount of plastic. Yes you are.
- raviolo 7y agoIt’s sad how the costs of dealing with used plastics - whether recycling, landfill, or something else - are usually presented as a problem. Like, “look, it’s getting too expensive to have country X take it” or “it’s not economically feasible to recycle”. I wish the costs of dealing with plastic trash went up 10 times and there was absolutely no way for anyone to avoid them. That’s the only meaningful way to get people’s attention and stop consuming 400 million tons of plastic per year. The amount of plastic bags is ridiculous. The packaging for many products is ridiculous. I feel good about being able to put groceries into my backpack rather than plastic bags. Unfortunately I don’t have an option to take other products of their crazy layered plastic packages and put those into my backpack as well, all that packaging going straight to garbage as soon as I get home. This makes me sad.
- tomohawk 7y agoSeems relevant: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64430.Bill_the_Galactic_Hero https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64430.Bill_the_Galactic_...
- throw2016 7y agoA lot of assertions here about waste management and relative harmlessness of landfills. Do you have experience or exposure to the recycling, waste management and landfill industry that you can share? Have you spoken to any landfill managers, have some idea of the volume of plastic waste and the landfill industry? Or is this just speaking from the gut? Most articles have experts[1] and researchers[2] expressing grave concern about waste and microplastics from landfills seeping into the environment and polluting animal ecosystems and even our own water and food supply that would give anyone cause for concern. Positioning that concern as 'negative emotional reactions' without providing any science or evidence about why it is so seems unscientific in the realm of wishful thinking. [1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-03/documents/microplastics_expert_workshop_report_final_12-4-17.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-03/documents... [2] https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/114539/Kilponen_Juho.pdf?sequence=1 https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/114539/Kilpone...
- slavik81 7y agoThe Tali landfill in the second link must be very old. It seems they designed it to drain directly into the river. That's definitely not how a modern landfill is designed, and not just because of plastics. Wikipedia seems to suggest the landfill was known as "Talinhuippu" and claims it was in use 1963–1979.
- ZeroGravitas 7y agoNo, they're just repeating libertarian propaganda. Libertarians hate recycling, the Dvorak keyboard and climate change because they are all popular examples of market failures. So they've attacked them all for decades and now most American nerds will pipe up with "actually, it turns out..." and spew a bunch of lies if you bring up any of these topics and feel all pleased with themselves that they're not getting suckered like all the sheeple who believe in climate science. It's actually got to the point were libertarian "journalists" are openly admitting that they intentio ally lied about climate change for 20 years because they didn't like the political implications. Depressingly they're not saying this through any sense of guilt but rather a calculation that they can continue to have more influence by partially admitting but still downplaying climate change rather than blank denial.
- exabrial 7y agoAsia is not "taking a stand", that's quite the spin on reality. It was never economically profitable, and they tightened import controls as a pawn in the current trade war. Coincidently: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti... It's not to say that the move will undoubtedly benefit the environment, but we should call a spade a spade.
- dcx 7y agoWell yes, that may have been part of the calculus for China banning garbage imports. But the resulting unmet demand for garbage dumping then spread to the rest of Asia, and we absolutely are taking a stand on rejecting it for non-trade war reasons. [1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.my/malaysia-town-plastic-waste-china-photos-2019-2/ https://www.businessinsider.my/malaysia-town-plastic-waste-c...
- deanCommie 7y agoI understand the pro landfill arguments because landfills are certainly better than lugging plastic across half the planet, burning bunker fuel the whole way, only for it to get dumped into a river, and wind up essentially all back in the ocean. But let's not pretend like landfills are an indefinite solution for humanity's problem either. Space is still finite.
- toastal 7y agoBut actual space is basically infinite. Futurama taught me sending our garbage in a gooey mass was a good solution for our garbage problem.
- BurningFrog 7y agoThe trash comes from earth. We don't create it out of nothing. We can't overfill earth with itself.
- thtthings 7y agoNo one's talking about the point that Western countries are exploiting poor Asian countries. They consume a lot, are a big burden on the planet and this selfishness is going to end the world
- sn41 7y agoIndia is now having a plastic recycling problem of its own. Most cities in India do not own landfills, and their surrounding villages do not want a landfill in their backyard, even if the city wants to purchase it. What's the alternative to landfilling? My ignorant guess would be to use an abandoned mine or something of the sort. Is there a sustainable waste management technique?
- saravana85 7y agoActually we are too late to act on this. But its a good initiative to begin with and need more actions to save the earth. Recently heard that Philippines govt has announced that students should plant 10 trees before they could get a degree. Creative steps like these will take us closer to create great awareness.
- top-news-talk 7y agoPenn and Teller BS (TV series) has the best solution to this problem but we have way too many liberal lefty softies. Dig a fucking hole in the middle of a desert and bury it there. Problem solved it's far away from water supplies or any other way that should could contaminate things. I always found it stupid that we use bodies of water to ship around trash to dump it. It's also stupid that in LA we use deserts to put massive ass farms in where water is piped in from way the hell up north and complain when there is a draught that the north is cutting off the water supply to farms located in the desert. LOL!
- BurningFrog 7y agoControversial but technically true point: Plastic and paper in landfills are a form of carbon sequestration. Discuss.
- Shalle135 7y agoSweden has been importing more and more trash the last decade since it ran out of it's own. https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5788020 https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&ar...
- agumonkey 7y agoWith the recent trend of stopping plastic usage, and using compost for organic waste and maybe shared glass containers too. What would still remain to dispose ? (honest question)
- steve_taylor 7y agoChina ships us tons of plastic rubbish and we actually buy the crap, because it's cheap.
- iamsb 7y agoMain issue with recycling is sorting. Perhaps there are ways to solve this using technology.
- superflb 7y agoLess plastic consumption means less dependency on oil. Generally a good idea for all human beings. But, dominant oil companies will do anything they can to stop it.
- jwillmer 7y agoI watched this documentary about the world leading company in sorting all kind of waste. I'm afraid it's only available in German: https://youtu.be/6g1KNlXPbDo https://youtu.be/6g1KNlXPbDo