4 ms·
Who pays for all that? Like is the idea that the recycling companies are getting so much for collection that they can afford to pay to ship the stuff to China
by maxerickson 4y ago
Who pays for all that?
Like is the idea that the recycling companies are getting so much for collection that they can afford to pay to ship the stuff to China and landfill it there?
- lotsofpulp 4y agoUS taxpayers and consumers, via the prices charged by waste removal companies. Recycling plastic was always a feel good political measure to let people continue consuming more and more with no guilt of harming the environment. The solution was always to reduce consumption, but that does not sell as well to voters.
- AustinDev 4y agoWe need wide scale plasma waste extractors like they use on air craft carriers. Turns all trash into syngas and slag.
- maxerickson 4y agoMy landfill recycles plastic because they can sell it and it ends up saving space in the landfill. But like they aren't paying people to come take the recycled plastic away, people pay them and someone comes and picks it up.
- Acinyx 4y agoIn Europe it is also likely the plastic packaging industry that's mostly paying for it as its cheaper for them to make it seem like plastic packaging can be recycled, that it is to get regulated to not cause so much waste. A more generous reading would be that the industry is being incentivized to make their product easier to recycle by making them pay for the recycling, but it depends a bit on how cynical you are :). The result though is that at least in my area the recycles pay so much for plastic waste that the municipality could lower the garbage disposal taxes as they were making money like with paper.
- RamblingCTO 4y agoIn Germany we have a system that producers have to pay for the recycling beforehand, depending on the waste it's going to produce.