4 ms·

A lot of that plastic is shipped in from USA/EU.

maxerickson 6y ago
Why would they buy plastic and throw it in the river? The US has plenty of landfill space, we aren't paying to ship plastic to Asia.
- xyzzy123 6y ago
  Bulk shipping to asia in particular is very cheap due to the volume of empty containers going in that direction. Not sure about other places. Countries that recycle plastic have people pick out the good bits cheaply in hellish facilities, profit off selling the high grade recycling, the rest is "waste waste" to be gotten rid of somehow. Dumping it in the ocean is quite cheap. The sorted plastic used to be a thing that you could mix with virgin plastic to get a cheaper product. Since China's waste import bans, I believe it's actually more expensive than virgin plastic, partly because it costs more to produce now and partly because demand is driven by manufacturers who want to have a certain % recycled plastic in their product for marketing reasons. The higher price incentivises other countries to import and process mixed plastic waste instead. They of course will also have to find a way to get rid of the not-useful portions of mixed plastic waste.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    In the US, dumping stuff in the nearest landfill is pretty likely to be cheaper than dumping it in the ocean. Especially if the landfill is operating the recycling sort (the case here and many other smaller counties). (This addresses your second paragraph; if they are selling the high grade and putting the rest in the landfill...)
    - xyzzy123 6y ago
      The first reason it's hard to just landfill it is optics. Local government asked people to sort their trash, made a big deal about it. And it's a scandal when people find out of course it's just being buried with the rest of the stuff. Recyclers were able to do two things; a) play a shell game which diverts the waste in an opaque, hopefully deniable way and b) deal with the waste more cheaply than landfilling it. They did this by exporting it, and all the externalities. I mean, your argument is good but I feel it's contradicted by reality in a sense; megatons of waste plastic were being sent to China before the import ban. You have to pay to put stuff in landfill, whereas the recyclers were paying _you_ to take the waste. I think you might also be surprised by the cost of landfill. Sure, there's plenty of space, but there's not as much government approved, environmentally audited space as you might want - that won't leach into the water table, has good geography, neighbours who won't NIMBY it, no rare frogs that live there etc. Obviously it all needs ISO 27000 management, union labour and regular safety and environmental audits. Caring about none of the above is how Chinese waste entrepreneurs could take mixed plastic from 1/2 way around the world and make a profit out of it, instead of losing money putting it into the ground. Their margins are slim and they have to pay for landfill too (much less of course), so dumping it in the ocean or similar saves money unless they get caught. (For what it's worth I do agree that putting it in the ground might be the best thing to do, i.e, cheapest considering all externalities, and local government should just be transparent about what actually happens to your recycling).
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        I've literally been in the local facility that sorts recycling, they do a good job of sorting clean stuff by type and throw everything else away, into the landfill where it is located. Should I not believe my lying eyes? So someone pays to haul stuff away on trucks and I'm supposed to believe that they are dumping that stuff in the ocean for some reason. Or shipping it to China and then dumping it in the ocean.
        xyzzy123 6y ago
        The situation isn't binary. Waste management is handled at the local government level, they tend to "do their own thing". If your local government is doing the right thing, good for them! It could be burnt, landfilled, exported, sorted and sent to a local processor or sorted and then exported. Sorting is not a binary process either. You can sort to different contamination levels depending on what processors are willing to take. Not all waste is the same; different kinds of waste are handled differently in different places. Local conditions make a difference; how much do voters care about the environment really? How much unused space is nearby? Are you way inland or near a port? etc. But we can zoom out a bit and look at the macro trends. I thought this article was a good introduction to how things have changed: https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-importing-waste-has-stalled-global-recycling https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-i... Hopefully in future we do see more local processing, and less "environmental law arbitrage" by waste export.
      - DFHippie 6y ago
        I lived in Nashville in the early aughts. They had recycling centers where there were bins with labels for every sort of plastic. Of course, the only people using these centers, people like myself and my wife, were people who were scrupulously rule-abiding and wanted to do their part for the environment. Everyone shlepped their recyclables across town to these centers and then carefully sorted everything, take great pains and time to do it. If you were there when the trucks came to pick up the stuff, they emptied all the bins into the same truck. I saw this happen. The recycling company charged the city to mix the recycling. Then they charged it to separate everything again at the recycling plant. This was not a secret. Still, the people such as myself who took the trouble to recycling as much as they could of their waste could not be convinced to throw everything into whichever (carefully labeled) bin and go home. My point is that it is entirely plausible that people are paying extra to "recycle" their waste when this has no positive environmental consequence. I was one of the people separating my trash, knowing the trucks would come and mix and all and charge me for this "service". It wasn't "virtue signaling". It was desperation to feel that one wasn't doing so much harm plus a desire not to be seen as the one breaking the rules of the recycling center. I was trying to do the best I could in my circumstances and feel a little better about my actions. I no longer live in Nashville.

Why would they buy plastic and throw it in the river? The US has plenty of landfill space, we aren't paying to ship plastic to Asia.

xyzzy123 6y ago
Bulk shipping to asia in particular is very cheap due to the volume of empty containers going in that direction. Not sure about other places. Countries that recycle plastic have people pick out the good bits cheaply in hellish facilities, profit off selling the high grade recycling, the rest is "waste waste" to be gotten rid of somehow. Dumping it in the ocean is quite cheap. The sorted plastic used to be a thing that you could mix with virgin plastic to get a cheaper product. Since China's waste import bans, I believe it's actually more expensive than virgin plastic, partly because it costs more to produce now and partly because demand is driven by manufacturers who want to have a certain % recycled plastic in their product for marketing reasons. The higher price incentivises other countries to import and process mixed plastic waste instead. They of course will also have to find a way to get rid of the not-useful portions of mixed plastic waste.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  In the US, dumping stuff in the nearest landfill is pretty likely to be cheaper than dumping it in the ocean. Especially if the landfill is operating the recycling sort (the case here and many other smaller counties). (This addresses your second paragraph; if they are selling the high grade and putting the rest in the landfill...)
  - xyzzy123 6y ago
    The first reason it's hard to just landfill it is optics. Local government asked people to sort their trash, made a big deal about it. And it's a scandal when people find out of course it's just being buried with the rest of the stuff. Recyclers were able to do two things; a) play a shell game which diverts the waste in an opaque, hopefully deniable way and b) deal with the waste more cheaply than landfilling it. They did this by exporting it, and all the externalities. I mean, your argument is good but I feel it's contradicted by reality in a sense; megatons of waste plastic were being sent to China before the import ban. You have to pay to put stuff in landfill, whereas the recyclers were paying _you_ to take the waste. I think you might also be surprised by the cost of landfill. Sure, there's plenty of space, but there's not as much government approved, environmentally audited space as you might want - that won't leach into the water table, has good geography, neighbours who won't NIMBY it, no rare frogs that live there etc. Obviously it all needs ISO 27000 management, union labour and regular safety and environmental audits. Caring about none of the above is how Chinese waste entrepreneurs could take mixed plastic from 1/2 way around the world and make a profit out of it, instead of losing money putting it into the ground. Their margins are slim and they have to pay for landfill too (much less of course), so dumping it in the ocean or similar saves money unless they get caught. (For what it's worth I do agree that putting it in the ground might be the best thing to do, i.e, cheapest considering all externalities, and local government should just be transparent about what actually happens to your recycling).
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      I've literally been in the local facility that sorts recycling, they do a good job of sorting clean stuff by type and throw everything else away, into the landfill where it is located. Should I not believe my lying eyes? So someone pays to haul stuff away on trucks and I'm supposed to believe that they are dumping that stuff in the ocean for some reason. Or shipping it to China and then dumping it in the ocean.
      - xyzzy123 6y ago
        The situation isn't binary. Waste management is handled at the local government level, they tend to "do their own thing". If your local government is doing the right thing, good for them! It could be burnt, landfilled, exported, sorted and sent to a local processor or sorted and then exported. Sorting is not a binary process either. You can sort to different contamination levels depending on what processors are willing to take. Not all waste is the same; different kinds of waste are handled differently in different places. Local conditions make a difference; how much do voters care about the environment really? How much unused space is nearby? Are you way inland or near a port? etc. But we can zoom out a bit and look at the macro trends. I thought this article was a good introduction to how things have changed: https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-importing-waste-has-stalled-global-recycling https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-i... Hopefully in future we do see more local processing, and less "environmental law arbitrage" by waste export.
    - DFHippie 6y ago
      I lived in Nashville in the early aughts. They had recycling centers where there were bins with labels for every sort of plastic. Of course, the only people using these centers, people like myself and my wife, were people who were scrupulously rule-abiding and wanted to do their part for the environment. Everyone shlepped their recyclables across town to these centers and then carefully sorted everything, take great pains and time to do it. If you were there when the trucks came to pick up the stuff, they emptied all the bins into the same truck. I saw this happen. The recycling company charged the city to mix the recycling. Then they charged it to separate everything again at the recycling plant. This was not a secret. Still, the people such as myself who took the trouble to recycling as much as they could of their waste could not be convinced to throw everything into whichever (carefully labeled) bin and go home. My point is that it is entirely plausible that people are paying extra to "recycle" their waste when this has no positive environmental consequence. I was one of the people separating my trash, knowing the trucks would come and mix and all and charge me for this "service". It wasn't "virtue signaling". It was desperation to feel that one wasn't doing so much harm plus a desire not to be seen as the one breaking the rules of the recycling center. I was trying to do the best I could in my circumstances and feel a little better about my actions. I no longer live in Nashville.