4 ms·

> I'm not sure how to fix it. We have a lot of people who are afraid to get their hands dirty, designing the things that are supposed to be the future of our ci

by jlg23 4y ago

> I'm not sure how to fix it. We have a lot of people who are afraid to get their hands dirty, designing the things that are supposed to be the future of our civilization. That's a real problem. I think "garbage" disposal is way too cheap: books, clothing and electronics are things that should be really expensive to throw away as most often they can be re-used, re-purposed or at least gutted. When disposing them as garbage is more expensive and less convenient than finding someone who wants to take the stuff, people will be motivated to at least donate them.

mfer 4y ago
It's not just cheap. The effects of disposing of all the things are out of side and out of mind. People don't see the results of their actions.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Syonyk 4y ago
Getting rid of trash service would solve a lot, yes... though it would take some adjustments. It's a lot harder if you're denser urban. I got tired of paying a lot of money to have trash hauled, so I solved it around our property. I built a trash trailer out of some old stuff laying at a relative's place (old pickup bed trailer and a topper, some new plywood for the bottom, some Great Stuff foam to seal it up, and a couple used tires), and I now haul trash every 18 months, aiming for 24 months. Food waste goes to the property cats or the compost bins, and I'm able to separate out almost all our waste stream into assorted recycling or reusable packing material (boxes, newspaper, random padding, stuff like that gets reused either by me or by some other people locally with some ecommerce sorts of sales flows). Very little ends up in the trash trailer, and it's not organic, so it just sits there until I haul it. It's really quite eye opening just how much waste there is in the normal flows of packaging material. I have a local(ish...) way to deal with plastic waste, so I can deal with the "mixed unusual plastics" in a recycling flow as well (it goes to be burned to offset coal use in a cement kiln over in Utah), but that makes up an awful lot of volume in our waste. With the metal recycling, though, I'm "net positive" on annual trash spend now, and I'm far better able to optimize our waste streams down than I was before. But I also recognize this isn't something that will scale nearly as easily as I can do it.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  My trash pickup is included in my rent, but to take out the trash involves walking 500 feet accross the property, which turns out is a lot of effort carrying tens of pounds of awkward trash. So I make less trash now. That cheese danish in the store looks tasty, but the plastic clamshell packaging is incredibly space inefficient as trash, so I'll buy the cookies instead, they're in easy to compact paper boxes. Maybe you think I'm putting a burden on myself but I didn't need either the danish or the cookies in the first place!
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Donating itself is also fraught, however. Very few people are going to want a 20-year-old pulp book, soiled magazine, out-of-date manual, etc. Librarians commonly have to curate their collections which includes throwing out a ton of books, often donated books. Clothing is also often stained, holey, or dirty. While clothing can be repurposed to cleaning rags I suppose, I don't know if one can easily repurpose books.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > While clothing can be repurposed to cleaning rags I suppose, Not anymore, when almost all clothing is partly synthetic. If it isn't 100% cotton or 100% wool, it is probably going straight to a landfill.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    You can find online the absolute bales of clothing crap Goodwill et all throw away; people use them as a dumping ground for garbage so they don't have to feel bad about it.
    - euroderf 4y ago
      I thought most donated clothing ends up going to "the rag trade".
- jlg23 4y ago
  > Donating itself is also fraught, however.[...] That again is a problem the receiver of a donation has to take care of as they'll have to pay for the disposal of actual garbage. When I was donating my library before traveling for a few years, someone was coming to my apartment, checking out my donation and he did reject 2 or 3 (of a few thousand). > Clothing ... can in worst case be shredded and used for thermal insulation.
InitialLastName 4y ago
If you get rid of garbage disposal, you get people dumping things in random places. Maybe it's more expensive, maybe some places can enforce not doing it, but if you make instigating negative externalities the easiest solution, what you get is the destruction of the commons.

by jlg23 4y ago

mfer 4y ago

It's not just cheap. The effects of disposing of all the things are out of side and out of mind. People don't see the results of their actions.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Syonyk 4y ago

Getting rid of trash service would solve a lot, yes... though it would take some adjustments. It's a lot harder if you're denser urban. I got tired of paying a lot of money to have trash hauled, so I solved it around our property. I built a trash trailer out of some old stuff laying at a relative's place (old pickup bed trailer and a topper, some new plywood for the bottom, some Great Stuff foam to seal it up, and a couple used tires), and I now haul trash every 18 months, aiming for 24 months. Food waste goes to the property cats or the compost bins, and I'm able to separate out almost all our waste stream into assorted recycling or reusable packing material (boxes, newspaper, random padding, stuff like that gets reused either by me or by some other people locally with some ecommerce sorts of sales flows). Very little ends up in the trash trailer, and it's not organic, so it just sits there until I haul it. It's really quite eye opening just how much waste there is in the normal flows of packaging material. I have a local(ish...) way to deal with plastic waste, so I can deal with the "mixed unusual plastics" in a recycling flow as well (it goes to be burned to offset coal use in a cement kiln over in Utah), but that makes up an awful lot of volume in our waste. With the metal recycling, though, I'm "net positive" on annual trash spend now, and I'm far better able to optimize our waste streams down than I was before. But I also recognize this isn't something that will scale nearly as easily as I can do it.

mrguyorama 4y ago
My trash pickup is included in my rent, but to take out the trash involves walking 500 feet accross the property, which turns out is a lot of effort carrying tens of pounds of awkward trash. So I make less trash now. That cheese danish in the store looks tasty, but the plastic clamshell packaging is incredibly space inefficient as trash, so I'll buy the cookies instead, they're in easy to compact paper boxes. Maybe you think I'm putting a burden on myself but I didn't need either the danish or the cookies in the first place!

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

Donating itself is also fraught, however. Very few people are going to want a 20-year-old pulp book, soiled magazine, out-of-date manual, etc. Librarians commonly have to curate their collections which includes throwing out a ton of books, often donated books. Clothing is also often stained, holey, or dirty. While clothing can be repurposed to cleaning rags I suppose, I don't know if one can easily repurpose books.

mellavora 4y ago
> While clothing can be repurposed to cleaning rags I suppose, Not anymore, when almost all clothing is partly synthetic. If it isn't 100% cotton or 100% wool, it is probably going straight to a landfill.
- bombcar 4y ago
  You can find online the absolute bales of clothing crap Goodwill et all throw away; people use them as a dumping ground for garbage so they don't have to feel bad about it.
  - euroderf 4y ago
    I thought most donated clothing ends up going to "the rag trade".
jlg23 4y ago
> Donating itself is also fraught, however.[...] That again is a problem the receiver of a donation has to take care of as they'll have to pay for the disposal of actual garbage. When I was donating my library before traveling for a few years, someone was coming to my apartment, checking out my donation and he did reject 2 or 3 (of a few thousand). > Clothing ... can in worst case be shredded and used for thermal insulation.

InitialLastName 4y ago

If you get rid of garbage disposal, you get people dumping things in random places. Maybe it's more expensive, maybe some places can enforce not doing it, but if you make instigating negative externalities the easiest solution, what you get is the destruction of the commons.