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For myself, I tend to be in the "let the professionals decide what to scrap" camp. If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss b

For myself, I tend to be in the "let the professionals decide what to scrap" camp. If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage? As the OP says, they have various uses for items, so it makes sense to let them handle the sorting through of junk to decide what is ultimately landfill material. Sure, I could educate myself better about the details on what happens once I hand it over, so that time isn't being wasted, but I am, of course, lazy.

tablespoon 5y ago
> If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage? Because a lot of the organizations that take donated items are charities, and disposing of your garbage costs them money that they then cannot use to do good. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/06/993821945/goodwill-doesnt-want-your-broken-toaster https://www.npr.org/2021/05/06/993821945/goodwill-doesnt-wan... It's the same thing with recycling. If you "hopefully" put unrecyclable stuff in with it, all you're doing is making recycling less economically viable and increasing the chance that the batch is ruined. The sorters only have the capacity to imperfectly remove the most obviously unrecyclable trash (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83sYHe3jdGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83sYHe3jdGA), not to ponder if your yogurt container is made of the right kind of plastic or determining if every wrapper is food-stained or not. The contents of your entire recycling bin flies past their eyes in a literal second or two.
- JamesSwift 5y ago
  The increased cost aspect is interesting, and is something I've recently learned about. Fortunately our local goodwill is very active in pre-screening items when you drop off so I don't feel a huge need to get into the weeds with it. For recycling, it sounds more and more like our current systems just aren't well designed. If there is so much incidental complexity downstream that can actually ruin the recycleability of other items, we as consumers should aggressively under-recycle. But then that makes recycling that much less impactful as well. I don't know what the right answer is here other than we need to improve the sorting/processing to avoid consumers needing to understand the intricacies.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > The increased cost aspect is interesting, and is something I've recently learned about. Fortunately our local goodwill is very active in pre-screening items when you drop off so I don't feel a huge need to get into the weeds with it. So they're paying some dude to pre-screen instead of paying a larger trash bill. It's still a cost to them. If people were a little more conscientious, those costs could be eliminated. > But then that makes recycling that much less impactful as well. I don't know what the right answer is here other than we need to improve the sorting/processing to avoid consumers needing to understand the intricacies. Those intricacies are not hard to learn, and the improvements you seek are probably a lot harder than you or I realize.
    - c22 5y ago
      If people were (universally) a little more conscientious a lot of costs could be eliminated...
- int_19h 5y ago
  Personally, I would happily pay more for someone to come and take away my maybe-garbage and maybe-recycling, and sort through it. If the issue is purely economic - that there's a very real cost that's not accounted for - let's just make it explicit. FWIW I think the reason why it's not that way already for recycling is to encourage people to recycle when they can. But it's clear that, at this point, the processing issue is more important than that. Then those who recycle because they want to feel good about it, can pay for the privilege. And same for donations.
qqqwerty 5y ago
You are making it harder for recycling to be profitable/worthwhile. Sorting the material and disposing the trash is one of the biggest costs associated with recycling. If the inputs to the processes get too saturated with waste, the recycling process stops being a net positive to society. As an example posted elsewhere in this thread, a soiled food container is not only non-recyclable, it will contaminate the other material next to it also making those materials non-recyclable. Basically, if you think you are being a good steward of the earth by throwing your trash into the recycling bin, you are wrong, you are making the problem worse. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environm...
- JamesSwift 5y ago
  I should note that I'm only addressing donating items to e.g. Goodwill. I am more careful with recycling, but only because I have slightly more knowledge about what to recycle since there is a somewhat helpful graphic on our city's recycling bin.

tablespoon 5y ago

> If the alternative is that I throw it in the garbage, what is the net loss by letting the workers who do this all day long decide what should be thrown in the garbage? Because a lot of the organizations that take donated items are charities, and disposing of your garbage costs them money that they then cannot use to do good. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/06/993821945/goodwill-doesnt-want-your-broken-toaster https://www.npr.org/2021/05/06/993821945/goodwill-doesnt-wan... It's the same thing with recycling. If you "hopefully" put unrecyclable stuff in with it, all you're doing is making recycling less economically viable and increasing the chance that the batch is ruined. The sorters only have the capacity to imperfectly remove the most obviously unrecyclable trash (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83sYHe3jdGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83sYHe3jdGA), not to ponder if your yogurt container is made of the right kind of plastic or determining if every wrapper is food-stained or not. The contents of your entire recycling bin flies past their eyes in a literal second or two.

JamesSwift 5y ago
The increased cost aspect is interesting, and is something I've recently learned about. Fortunately our local goodwill is very active in pre-screening items when you drop off so I don't feel a huge need to get into the weeds with it. For recycling, it sounds more and more like our current systems just aren't well designed. If there is so much incidental complexity downstream that can actually ruin the recycleability of other items, we as consumers should aggressively under-recycle. But then that makes recycling that much less impactful as well. I don't know what the right answer is here other than we need to improve the sorting/processing to avoid consumers needing to understand the intricacies.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > The increased cost aspect is interesting, and is something I've recently learned about. Fortunately our local goodwill is very active in pre-screening items when you drop off so I don't feel a huge need to get into the weeds with it. So they're paying some dude to pre-screen instead of paying a larger trash bill. It's still a cost to them. If people were a little more conscientious, those costs could be eliminated. > But then that makes recycling that much less impactful as well. I don't know what the right answer is here other than we need to improve the sorting/processing to avoid consumers needing to understand the intricacies. Those intricacies are not hard to learn, and the improvements you seek are probably a lot harder than you or I realize.
  - c22 5y ago
    If people were (universally) a little more conscientious a lot of costs could be eliminated...
int_19h 5y ago
Personally, I would happily pay more for someone to come and take away my maybe-garbage and maybe-recycling, and sort through it. If the issue is purely economic - that there's a very real cost that's not accounted for - let's just make it explicit. FWIW I think the reason why it's not that way already for recycling is to encourage people to recycle when they can. But it's clear that, at this point, the processing issue is more important than that. Then those who recycle because they want to feel good about it, can pay for the privilege. And same for donations.

qqqwerty 5y ago

You are making it harder for recycling to be profitable/worthwhile. Sorting the material and disposing the trash is one of the biggest costs associated with recycling. If the inputs to the processes get too saturated with waste, the recycling process stops being a net positive to society. As an example posted elsewhere in this thread, a soiled food container is not only non-recyclable, it will contaminate the other material next to it also making those materials non-recyclable. Basically, if you think you are being a good steward of the earth by throwing your trash into the recycling bin, you are wrong, you are making the problem worse. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environm...

JamesSwift 5y ago
I should note that I'm only addressing donating items to e.g. Goodwill. I am more careful with recycling, but only because I have slightly more knowledge about what to recycle since there is a somewhat helpful graphic on our city's recycling bin.