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The aluminum cans are stolen because they actually have a intrinsic value. The plastic bag does not and there is no way to artificially add value to it so peopl

by noxer 5y ago

The aluminum cans are stolen because they actually have a intrinsic value. The plastic bag does not and there is no way to artificially add value to it so people collect and return them. >Glass is sand -- throw it in the deep ocean or pile it up I don't care. But who gonna do that? And why would someone do that but not do it for plastic? The reason we dont have a floating patch of glass in the ocean is not because humans piled it up on land its because its sinks and rather fast reaches a destination where it stays for hundreds of years. Unlike plastic which falls apart floats around get eaten by animals etc. etc. The oceans must be full of human made glass its just not visible and has no known severe effects. But replacing all plastic with glass/aluminum just for the small fraction that will ends up in the ocean makes no sense. The extra pollution cased by not using plastic is far far grater. Instead we should focus on the moment plastic turn to pollution. Ive used thousands of plastic bags in my life and none of them ended up in the ocean. This is true for most people so where do the bags actually "leak" into the environment. I would assume there are places where rivers are used as garbage trucks to move the trash away. This is the real problem. Not people who actually use the plastic bags. Its people who intentionally "dispose" trash in the environment.

sokoloff 5y ago
Given how prevalent and light they are, I suspect some of “your” bags have actually ended up as pollution (blowing out of trucks, being mis-managed in waste processing, or otherwise escaping the system that you dutifully turned them over to). It’s not like all the trash out in the ocean was dropped off a boat by the original users.
- noxer 5y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025410 Even if blew out of the the garbage truck (which is not possible they are closed) it would just end up on the street which is then cleaned with another truck or washed into the sewerage collected and disposed. There is no feasible way that my properly disposed trash would end up in the environment. Even if I would dump it somewhere in the woods it likely will gets cleaned up and properly disposed within weeks if its anywhere near civilization. I would need to find a large river so the trash has a realistic chance to reach the ocean. Its completely absurd.
skripp 5y ago
>The aluminum cans are stolen because they actually have a intrinsic value. The plastic bag does not and there is no way to artificially add value to it so people collect and return them. Sure there is. When you buy a bag have it cost $1. If you return the bag you get that back, or maybe $.90 to cover the cost. Not sure about the US, but this is done with glass and plastic bottles in a lot of countries.
- noxer 5y ago
  All this would do is incentivize fraud. Clearly I can find a way to buy these bags for under $0.90 since their real value is almost zero so I could generate money by wasting bags.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
>"Ive used thousands of plastic bags in my life and none of them ended up in the ocean." 99% chance this is wrong, just because you placed it into garbage big does not mean it wasn't shipped off to china to a poorly managed facility and didn't end up in the ocean >"But replacing all plastic with glass/aluminum just for the small fraction that will ends up in the ocean makes no sense." Do you remember when milk was delivered to your door, and you returned the bottles, and they were reused? Reused glass products make perfect sence. We now use inefficient, plastic laden and polluting processes because we are lazy. Most people don't have a real coffee machine, they buy shitty overpriced plastic pods filled with second rate coffee that then pollute the environment for 'convenience'
- noxer 5y ago
  >99% chance this is wrong, just because you placed it into garbage big does not mean it wasn't shipped off to china to a poorly managed facility and didn't end up in the ocean My trash is burned locally there is zero chance it is moved somewhere else. The plastic bag is not separated from other (non-recycling) trash and the energy released from burning is actually used to heat buildings and water. This is not true for different trash like e-waste which could be moved far far away and there is no way to know where it finally ends up but its 100% true for the normal trash. >Do you remember when milk was delivered to your door, and you returned the bottles, and they were reused? That was never the case here. Like 30 year ago you could bring your own bottle and fill in milk form large containers. However you would need to go to a place where they fill milk in bottles an not to you local shop where you would usually buy milk. This was only feasible if you lived near such a place. Also dont think this is possible anymore due to hygienic regulations and most likely also because it did not generate enough revenue. >Reused glass products make perfect sence. Most dont. Glass is heavy and moving glass bottles around especially empty bottles (return for cleaning/refilling) is a huge waste of energy. It may not cause the visible kind of pollution but it indirectly burns way more oil than plastic bottles would. There are also aseptic packages with significantly reduced the amount of plastic needed compared to plastic bottles. >We now use inefficient, plastic laden and polluting processes because we are lazy. Most people don't have a real coffee machine, they buy shitty overpriced plastic pods filled with second rate coffee that then pollute the environment for 'convenience' I agree with the fact that single portion packages of many products are needlessly resource wasting. But nowhere in the western world these plastic pods go in to the environment at any significant rate. In many places these are actively collected for the bio material inside which actually has value. The plastic is then likely reused for something or burned an used as fuel. There is simply no finical incentive to somehow move this kind of "trash" over long distances (which is expensive) and possibly dump it in the environment if people can make money by re-using/burning it locally. Even in places like the US where they would dump it into a landfill, it makes no sense to move it further than the next landfill. So I agree reducing the energy and plastic needed is good. Replacing it with glass however is nonsense. And assuming the plastic goes in the environment simply because it exists is nonsense too.
pixl97 5y ago
>Its people who intentionally "dispose" trash in the environment. In the US and Europe we tend to have well developed municipal waste systems and only a small portion of our plastic waste ends up in the ocean. The problem is the rest of the places that do not. There are many places in the world that will gladly sell you a plastic soda bottle, but after that point it's your job to burn it or bury it. In addition, you had plenty of 'recycled' plastic waste end up in the ocean by proxy. Before 2017 or so, if you were 'recycling' plastic, it was getting shipped overseas on a container where it had a very high chance of just being dumped.
- noxer 5y ago
  >In the US and Europe we tend to have well developed municipal waste systems and only a small portion of our plastic waste ends up in the ocean. Thats exactly what I said >The problem is the rest of the places that do not. There are many places in the world that will gladly sell you a plastic soda bottle, but after that point it's your job to burn it or bury it. And to solve this problem the people in this thread what to replace plastic bottles on the other side of the world (in the west) with glass/aluminum bottles. See how that does not work? >In addition, you had plenty of 'recycled' plastic waste end up in the ocean by proxy. Before 2017 or so, if you were 'recycling' plastic, it was getting shipped overseas on a container where it had a very high chance of just being dumped. This is a side effect of the whole "recycling at any cost" nonsense strategies. Plastic was carefully and labor intensively separated form trash to be sold. But only very specific plastics have accentual market value. The rest does not have value or maybe it sometimes has but supply and demand fluctuates so there could be many month where no one wants to buy it. Consequentially the US companies would need to pay for it to have it burned or land-filled. But that would destroy their "recycling goals" so what they instead do is they sell it with the valuable stuff by offering it only together. Whoever buys it then dumps the worthless stuff somewhere. The whole recycling-mania created the incentive for this. There is no way moving the plastic trash so far away is cheaper than the local landfill. They are simply not allowed to landfill it due to recycling goals which if they reach it probably gives them taxpayer money to do do more useless recycling.

by noxer 5y ago

sokoloff 5y ago

Given how prevalent and light they are, I suspect some of “your” bags have actually ended up as pollution (blowing out of trucks, being mis-managed in waste processing, or otherwise escaping the system that you dutifully turned them over to). It’s not like all the trash out in the ocean was dropped off a boat by the original users.

noxer 5y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025410 Even if blew out of the the garbage truck (which is not possible they are closed) it would just end up on the street which is then cleaned with another truck or washed into the sewerage collected and disposed. There is no feasible way that my properly disposed trash would end up in the environment. Even if I would dump it somewhere in the woods it likely will gets cleaned up and properly disposed within weeks if its anywhere near civilization. I would need to find a large river so the trash has a realistic chance to reach the ocean. Its completely absurd.

skripp 5y ago

>The aluminum cans are stolen because they actually have a intrinsic value. The plastic bag does not and there is no way to artificially add value to it so people collect and return them. Sure there is. When you buy a bag have it cost $1. If you return the bag you get that back, or maybe $.90 to cover the cost. Not sure about the US, but this is done with glass and plastic bottles in a lot of countries.

noxer 5y ago
All this would do is incentivize fraud. Clearly I can find a way to buy these bags for under $0.90 since their real value is almost zero so I could generate money by wasting bags.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

>"Ive used thousands of plastic bags in my life and none of them ended up in the ocean." 99% chance this is wrong, just because you placed it into garbage big does not mean it wasn't shipped off to china to a poorly managed facility and didn't end up in the ocean >"But replacing all plastic with glass/aluminum just for the small fraction that will ends up in the ocean makes no sense." Do you remember when milk was delivered to your door, and you returned the bottles, and they were reused? Reused glass products make perfect sence. We now use inefficient, plastic laden and polluting processes because we are lazy. Most people don't have a real coffee machine, they buy shitty overpriced plastic pods filled with second rate coffee that then pollute the environment for 'convenience'

noxer 5y ago
>99% chance this is wrong, just because you placed it into garbage big does not mean it wasn't shipped off to china to a poorly managed facility and didn't end up in the ocean My trash is burned locally there is zero chance it is moved somewhere else. The plastic bag is not separated from other (non-recycling) trash and the energy released from burning is actually used to heat buildings and water. This is not true for different trash like e-waste which could be moved far far away and there is no way to know where it finally ends up but its 100% true for the normal trash. >Do you remember when milk was delivered to your door, and you returned the bottles, and they were reused? That was never the case here. Like 30 year ago you could bring your own bottle and fill in milk form large containers. However you would need to go to a place where they fill milk in bottles an not to you local shop where you would usually buy milk. This was only feasible if you lived near such a place. Also dont think this is possible anymore due to hygienic regulations and most likely also because it did not generate enough revenue. >Reused glass products make perfect sence. Most dont. Glass is heavy and moving glass bottles around especially empty bottles (return for cleaning/refilling) is a huge waste of energy. It may not cause the visible kind of pollution but it indirectly burns way more oil than plastic bottles would. There are also aseptic packages with significantly reduced the amount of plastic needed compared to plastic bottles. >We now use inefficient, plastic laden and polluting processes because we are lazy. Most people don't have a real coffee machine, they buy shitty overpriced plastic pods filled with second rate coffee that then pollute the environment for 'convenience' I agree with the fact that single portion packages of many products are needlessly resource wasting. But nowhere in the western world these plastic pods go in to the environment at any significant rate. In many places these are actively collected for the bio material inside which actually has value. The plastic is then likely reused for something or burned an used as fuel. There is simply no finical incentive to somehow move this kind of "trash" over long distances (which is expensive) and possibly dump it in the environment if people can make money by re-using/burning it locally. Even in places like the US where they would dump it into a landfill, it makes no sense to move it further than the next landfill. So I agree reducing the energy and plastic needed is good. Replacing it with glass however is nonsense. And assuming the plastic goes in the environment simply because it exists is nonsense too.

pixl97 5y ago

>Its people who intentionally "dispose" trash in the environment. In the US and Europe we tend to have well developed municipal waste systems and only a small portion of our plastic waste ends up in the ocean. The problem is the rest of the places that do not. There are many places in the world that will gladly sell you a plastic soda bottle, but after that point it's your job to burn it or bury it. In addition, you had plenty of 'recycled' plastic waste end up in the ocean by proxy. Before 2017 or so, if you were 'recycling' plastic, it was getting shipped overseas on a container where it had a very high chance of just being dumped.

noxer 5y ago
>In the US and Europe we tend to have well developed municipal waste systems and only a small portion of our plastic waste ends up in the ocean. Thats exactly what I said >The problem is the rest of the places that do not. There are many places in the world that will gladly sell you a plastic soda bottle, but after that point it's your job to burn it or bury it. And to solve this problem the people in this thread what to replace plastic bottles on the other side of the world (in the west) with glass/aluminum bottles. See how that does not work? >In addition, you had plenty of 'recycled' plastic waste end up in the ocean by proxy. Before 2017 or so, if you were 'recycling' plastic, it was getting shipped overseas on a container where it had a very high chance of just being dumped. This is a side effect of the whole "recycling at any cost" nonsense strategies. Plastic was carefully and labor intensively separated form trash to be sold. But only very specific plastics have accentual market value. The rest does not have value or maybe it sometimes has but supply and demand fluctuates so there could be many month where no one wants to buy it. Consequentially the US companies would need to pay for it to have it burned or land-filled. But that would destroy their "recycling goals" so what they instead do is they sell it with the valuable stuff by offering it only together. Whoever buys it then dumps the worthless stuff somewhere. The whole recycling-mania created the incentive for this. There is no way moving the plastic trash so far away is cheaper than the local landfill. They are simply not allowed to landfill it due to recycling goals which if they reach it probably gives them taxpayer money to do do more useless recycling.