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We really shot ourselves in the foot with this whole pointless "recycling paper and plastic" thing huh? The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph

• wbraun 7y ago
  I fully share this cynicism about recycling things that are not aluminum or glass. It also seems that by making people feel better about generating nominally recyclable waste they are encouraged to consume more. I am at least familiar with arguments against US-style airport security and donating cans of food, but whats wrong with hybrid cars? I don't know of any arguments that they are net neutral / harmful.
  • t34543 7y ago
    Lithium battery production is extremely harmful to the environment.
    • greglindahl 7y ago
      Compared to what? And with what assumptions about battery life and recycling?
    • TheRealSteel 7y ago
      Most hybrids use nickel-metal hydride batteries. Also, the doubled emissions from a non-hybrid over the lifetime of the vehicle are massive.
  • Skunkleton 7y ago
    I think the idea was that hybrid cars are a sort of local maxima that has stalled real progress (alternative energy cars).
    • Liron 7y ago
      Yeah, hybrid cars might be called a "local maximum"... at best. "Local" because they were always predictably a technological dead end. "Maximum" because they maybe gave us a slight improvement in fuel efficiency, although gas-efficient internal combustion engine cars may have been the more energy-efficient option all along when you consider the up-front cost and maintenance complexity of hybrid cars' dual engines. The only thing we know for sure about hybrid cars is that Toyota successfully profited from selling people's self-image about being more energy efficient. But since we also have Tesla in the market, selling the actual solution to the problem of gas-burning transportation, absolutely no one should be buying hybrids.
      • bdamm 7y ago
        Toyota was selling mass-produced plug-in "hybrids" and Nissan was selling 100mi range 100% electric Leafs before Tesla had even produced the Model S. Yes, Tesla made them sexy, but Toyota, Nissan, and even Ford & GM did the very early path-finding that I think we needed in order to move ahead with the technology and get to the point where people would feel comfortable considering them at all.
      • Tagbert 7y ago
        "maintenance complexity of hybrid cars' dual engines" This is an oft repeated accusation by people who only know the concept of hybrids and have no actual experience with them. The electrical system of hybrids are inherently low maintenance and the gasoline engines run under very low stress conditions for an engine. The result is that the gasoline engine needs much less maintenance. And the brakes are barely used.
      • dgacmu 7y ago
        This is not correct. It depends quite a bit on commute patterns and electricity source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/044007 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/04... The Prius is a better option from a lifecycle CO2 perspective in many places than either a high efficiency conventional vehicle or a pure battery-electric vehicle. That changes if your electricity comes from more renewable sources -- California, for example. Shorter commutes favor small battery packs or no batteries at all.
  • slfnflctd 7y ago
    In the past, I was bearish on hybrids. They seemed overcomplicated and ineffectual. After having driven one for a while, I've done a complete 180. The fact is, they're a perfect interim solution which really brings 'the best of both worlds'. One thing I wasn't expecting was how the system trains me to drive differently and minimize wasteful fuel use-- something that simply doesn't exist in non-hybrids. I think they make even more sense for large freight trucks, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of those. In the U.S., more than half the top-selling vehicles are pure-ICE trucks or SUVs, and I would bet the majority of people buying them don't have a sensible use case. There is plenty of room for hybrids to make a difference. When you can get the same or better performance for half the fuel (or less), it's a no-brainer, and the market will eventually catch up to that.
    • benj111 7y ago
      "overcomplicated" From a mechanical pov? Your experience doesn't seem like it would refute that? To be fair I'm not sure how you could refute it without long term large scale reliability testing.
      • pdonis 7y ago
        Hybrids are more complicated than non-hybrids, not so much mechanically as electrically and in the controls. It takes very sophisticated computer software and calibrations to properly manage the charge/discharge of the battery pack and the electric motors when doing regenerative braking or acceleration, in order to provide the same functionality as a simple throttle and mechanical brakes do in a non-hybrid.
  • mikeash 7y ago
    It’s pretty common to see arguments that the net lifecycle impact of a hybrid outweighs that of a traditional car, because it has more impact in manufacturing. It’s not true (there is more impact in manufacturing, but the breakeven point is fairly early) but it’s an attractive notion to people with a contrarian bent, especially those who like to think that environmentalists are stupid. Incidentally, the same thing exists for pure electric cars, solar panels, and just about anything else of that nature.
    • noobermin 7y ago
      Solar panels are tricky because they rely on certain elements which are rather rare actually. I feel like there needs to be a serious study into whether increased mining/production of solar panels is a net gain or loss. It does feel however than reckoning with climate change will require more on the consumption/behavior side than technology side unfortunately.
      • bildung 7y ago
        Actually, PV energy pay back time has been studied to death. See e.g. this presentation from 2012, which says that the whole PV industry is already a net energy producer: https://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/symposium2012/MikDale_Symp2012_web.pdf https://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/symposium2012/MikDale_Symp201... The energy flow is a bit similar to the cash flow of a SAAS company: As ROI takes a few years, the start of the rapidly growing industry looks like a net negative, but with the installed capacity constantly growing and efficiency getting better, even the industry as a whole is in the black now.
        • noobermin 7y ago
          So I did say production, but my main issue isn't mere production but the mining of materials and that mining's impact on the environment. Also, PVs and rechargable batteries do use some rare earths which also sucks because, well they're rare and may eventually be depleted. Regardless, thanks for the talk, it's interesting. I think someone told me a while back they did an analysis of the difference between gas electricity plants vs solar and they came away with the realization that the only way gas wins is really due to the financing around it, so something totally due to regs and how society is already used to it. I just am not sure solar is going to be the silver bullet and actual reduction of consumption might be the only way to stave off climate change. Relevant: https://earthjournalism.net/stories/the-dark-side-of-renewable-energy https://earthjournalism.net/stories/the-dark-side-of-renewab... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mavb/we-dont-mine-enough-rare-earth-metals-to-replace-fossil-fuels-with-renewable-energy https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mavb/we-dont-mine-enoug...
• Reedx 7y ago
  Wish-cycling. You want it to be true. You have good intentions. You want your waste to be recycled. So you throw it into a recycling bin. Maybe it'll work? It seems better to err on the side that it will? But unfortunately when it gets to the sorting table/machines it often just makes things worse.
  • throwaway3627 7y ago
    There's problems and solutions that need policy and political will to implement: - consumer-sorted recycling is a BandAid virtue-signal and ineffective because it gets mixed up, under-sorted and contaminated - post-consumer waste-stream separation works. Stanford does it because five bins was ridiculous - all trash should be recycled, composted at-scale to reach near zero landfill stream - Structural waste reduction by source-return reuse, recycling - single-use plastics should be eliminated - plastics that cannot be recycled should be banned from retail sale, packaging, products and landfills Maybe very large taxes on landfill waste would compel recycling and manufacturing to get their acts together?
    • henrikschroder 7y ago
      Single-use plastics are perfectly fine if: 1) You already have oil-powered power plants, and 2) You have efficient, modern trash incinerators that can recover 90%+ of the energy in plastics, and 3) You make sure that all plastic garbage actually ends up incinerated. Because the utility you get out of making plastics out of oil, using the plastics for something, and then burning it, is higher than just straight up burning the oil. But if you fail any of these three points, you're better off banning single-use plastics.
      • greglindahl 7y ago
        Can you point out anywhere that's made all of 1..3 work successfully? I'd think that most places have 0 of the 3.
        • sthatipamala 7y ago
• yongjik 7y ago
  > The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization ... I think you got it backwards. Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization arrived, just like defecating wherever you find convenient, hunting animals for dinner, or riding hoses on whatever side of road you like. The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that it's no longer feasible to just "throw away" stuff we don't need. Just like modern cars necessitated speed limits, stop signs, and annoying lane-changing rules, mass production requires one to think about how to dispose stuff without ruining ourselves. So, yeah I think you got it backwards. Maybe recycling doesn't work as well as advertised, but that doesn't mean we are off the hook. It just means we need a different solution.
  • benj111 7y ago
    "The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that it's no longer feasible to just "throw away"" By the same token, it gave us the power to produce so much stuff that we can afford to throw stuff away. Who darns socks anymore? Or has their tv repaired? Your average family of 100 years ago was throwing away ashes and what? The rag and bone man collected rags and bones, veg peelings would have gone to a chicken/pig/compost. Paper probably went in the fire. Plastic was none existent, metal? (rag and bone man? I'm guessing there was a market for it somewhere). This was the situation in the UK at least.
    • DocTomoe 7y ago
      > Who darns socks anymore? Or has their tv repaired? I have done both in the last two years. I also do not send my brand-new car to the junkyard once the ashtray is full. It's wasteful.
      • zaroth 7y ago
        Wait, new cars still have ashtrays?
      • benj111 7y ago
        My grandmother darns her socks too. It isn't the 'normal' thing though, certainly not for younger generations. What were the economics of your tv repair, what was the cost of the repair v replacement and how old was the tv? Last time I looked into it, they were doubtful they could get the parts, and the likely charge was higher than replacing the tv. The same isnt true for emptying the ashtray. In fact I don't even need to take the car to the garage to empty the ashtray, I can do it myself!
• harimau777 7y ago
  So is recycling plastic and paper not effective? I have some anxiety issue and one of the ways that they manifest is obsessing about recycling so not having to worry about plastic and paper would be a huge improvement in my quality of life. Edit: I should clarify, I realize that the article is saying that recycling plastic and paper isn't worth it, but is that a mainstream opinion?
  • ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    It's strangely mainstream in American libertarian circles (and therefore places like HN), but even they seem to spend most of their time railing against the sheep-like masses who have been hoodwinked so I guess even that is a tacit admission that it's not mainstream. The article likewise cites a whole bunch of libertarian sources that unsurprisingly conclude that government interference is bad. On the other hand, here's a document comparing recycling to landfill (and incineration to generate power and a couple of other things). It summarises all the expert research from the actual field, rather than right wing economists. Generally the experts suggest landfill is the worst option on several scales for basically all materials: http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/environmental-benefits-recycling http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/environmental-benefits-recycl... People who think recycling isn't good for the environment seem to fall into the same group as those who really worry about all the birds affected by wind turbines, or the impact of lithium mining or how carbon taxes will hurt the poor i.e. baseless propaganda aimed at people who care about the environment coming from people who clearly don't give a hoot.
    • SamPatt 7y ago
      The first two citations are NPR. Not libertarian by any stretch of the imagination.
      • balfirevic 7y ago
        And neither is HN for that matter.
        • 7y ago
• skybrian 7y ago
  It seems like compostable containers might be more practical, since the food and container go into the same bin?
  • greglindahl 7y ago
    There's already been a huge shift to compostable containers for takeaway food.
  • throwaway10928 7y ago
    Could also consider not throwing out food. I know servings in the US are huge, so either share the meal with another person or ask for a meal size that you can eat and no more.
• cannonedhamster 7y ago
  If there's food/greade on the item that can't be removed for one reason or another toss it, it can't be recycled efficiently. There solved your moral dilemma. Generally only clean paper, glass, and metal are recyclable. Plastics depend entirely on the locality and still require it to be clean. Also I work at a food pantry. Donations of canned goods are always welcome, same for razors, toiletries, etc. Anything that can be eaten without a stove is generally welcome.
  • pokeymcsnatch 7y ago
    > There solved your moral dilemma. Recycling has built up such inertia as the "moral" path, regardless of its inefficiencies for most materials, that it's become an unsustainable clusterfuck that we can't move away. Where I live, it's been codified- municipalities must recycle, and also must discourage landfill-bound waste. The result is that I've been issued a 64-gallon mixed-recycling bin that is picked up once a week, and a small 36-gallon trash can that's picked up every two weeks. There's two people in my household and we both are very conscience of being wasteful- not as some kind of environmental whatever, but it's just in our moral framework. A 36-gallon trash can holds about 2.5 full kitchen garbage bags in it, so if we produce more than 2.5 garbage bags of waste in a 2-week period, we have to hold on to it for another garbage pickup (reducing our available volume for that period then). Anything out there then sits in the sun for 2 weeks stinking and attracting raccoons/rodents until the next pickup. The result? Anything remotely resembling "recyclable" gets tossed in the recycling bin. Food/grease on it? Put it in the bin. You know where the stuff in that bin goes now? It goes to the recycling facilities and then sits there in huge piles because no one will buy it anymore because the whole system was propped up on bullshit the entire time. To top all that off, the law also prevents these now-inundated recycling facilities from moving their material to a landfill for proper disposal. So it literally just sits there and we have absolutely no solution for it. It would be political suicide to advocate the loosening of recycling laws, no matter how broken they are, so you'll never have a representatives willing to fix this problem.
    • triangulum 7y ago
      That’s a good point: if municipalities want you to recycle, they need to provide the necessary infrastructure, and that means at least three source separated bins (ideally 5-7), and a clean container collection system. Otherwise it just turns people off the whole system. A financial incentive to save money when you don’t throw away as much into the landfill bin helps too. Any chance you could compost the kitchen scraps in your garden?
• 1k 7y ago
  > or donating cans of food. Thanks, I never realized https://nationalpost.com/opinion/im-begging-you-stop-donating-canned-goods-to-food-banks https://nationalpost.com/opinion/im-begging-you-stop-donatin...
• Aloha 7y ago
  I end up putting mist of it in the trash bin, except glass or metal. It's too hard for me to know which goes what, how am I supposed to know what's compostable (I only have a broad understanding what composting is, and how it's done), much less if this plastic widget that came with the thing is a recyclable one, a compostable one, or made of styrene (which is neither). So off into the trash it goes.
• mikepurvis 7y ago
  It boggles my mind that modern fast food restaurants don't have a clear board above the multi-receptacle trash area telling you which bin each single-use item they serve goes into. I mean, maybe that's partly because it doesn't matter and in the end they're just combining it all and sending everything to landfill regardless. But still; they got the bins, how much harder can it be to put up a sign?
  • greedo 7y ago
    Aren't most of the things sold by fast food restaurants contaminated and thus un-recyclable?
    • mikepurvis 7y ago
      Probably, but in that case, they should be honest and just have a single receptacle. OTOH, fast food joints are possibly one of the handful of places you could actually do recycling right, since you have a pretty uniform stream of items, thus limiting the need to sort. So instead of having a "recycling" bin, they could have a bin for plastic cutlery, and a bin for straws, and a bin for drink lids, with everything else going in a common trash. Getting thousands of identical contaminated plastic forks that just need a wash before being melted down is probably a lot more appealing to a recycler than getting a bag that's a big jumble of contaminated junk.