4 ms·

I feel like a general-purpose law of the form: "if you sell it, you must recycle it" would nip a lot of this crap in the bud. For instance: my local paint store

I feel like a general-purpose law of the form: "if you sell it, you must recycle it" would nip a lot of this crap in the bud. For instance: my local paint store will happily sell you barrel's-full of paint that is then well-nigh impossible for me to dispose of; same for gas, batteries, plastic bags, ...

linkjuice4all 3y ago
A deposit refund [0] similar to what’s already in place for bottles and cans in some states might be the way to go if enough states/counties would actually implement it. It allows for consumers to consider the “full cost” of being inconsiderate and not recycling properly while not “actually” increasing the cost of the product if they properly dispose of it. It also created a secondary market for scrapers/recyclers to collect and deposit items so there’s another chance it won’t enter the waste steam. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit-refund_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit-refund_system
- unregistereddev 3y ago
  The deposit refund system also needs to be worth the effort. My state has a $0.05 deposit on bottles and cans. I used to save the original packaging, put the empties back in the box, and take the boxes to the the customer service counter at the grocery store. It was worth it for a little pocket change. Now? It's all mechanized. I have to feed cans one by one into a machine that reads the barcode to be sure it is a product the store sells. Different machines accept cans vs bottles. This is a slow process. You often need to wait in line for each machine. Sometimes the machines are broken, or sometimes even a working machine fails to read the barcode and rejects 10% of your cans or bottles. When you are done, you take printed slips from the machines to customer service and wait in line to exchange them for cash. It's not worth it. I still recycle, but I toss cans and bottles into my recycling bin and forgo the deposit.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    Just have to get sufficiently advanced machine. I love that my nearby store has one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4n62Okcf50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4n62Okcf50 Takes plastic and aluminium cans. Just empty a sackful inside and it automatically sorts them for you. Takes about 5 minutes for some 120l+.
    - olyjohn 3y ago
      Back when I lived in Oregon, they just paid some kid minimum wage to sort it. Those guys were fast at sorting too. They could get through 2 or 3 30 gallon bags in just a few minutes.
robotnikman 3y ago
How would this work for online retailers like Amazon? I feel like a big chunk of lithium batteries comes from there.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  I don't understand the question. Proposal: if you sell it, you must recycle it. Question: how would an online shop do this? Obvious answer: by accepting the to-be-recycled product, just like an offline store? Whether they do the actual recycling themselves or contract a third party is up to them of course, but that's the same with any local kiosk that happens to sell batteries. (Not saying I think it's a good or bad proposal btw. It sounds good, but there's going to be uncountable cases where the original retailer does not exist anymore, or you don't know where you bought something, or you've moved, etc. Whether to just accept that and consider it a net win, or if a deposit system would work better, no idea. I just don't see the problem with online stores having to accept goods they sold for recycling.)
Clamchop 3y ago
I've long thought that the cost of proper disposal for all products should be paid for at the time of manufacture as a tax and built into the price, and then sanitation services are paid for out of this fund ahead of time. We need everything to be disposed of properly, whoever that responsibility ultimately falls to, so it's unfortunate that we charge consumers at the end of the line for disposal. It's leaky and creates a perverse incentive for pollution, dumping, trash burning, etc. And products that are harder to recycle or dispose of would cost more than cleaner alternatives, creating gentle economic pressure to produce and buy more sustainable goods. Right now, we might not even have a plan for proper disposal before something is sold. This seems to have happened with electronics.
- thechao 3y ago
  I like this, too, but I think it's hard to find out what the clearing-cost for the market is top-down. Especially for things "like recycling". Instead, I'd just make it a market problem. The point is to find a good balance between regulation ("recycling costs this much") and natural market conditions ("fuck it! throw it in the ocean!").
rcme 3y ago
Does your town not offer hazardous waste disposal?
- thechao 3y ago
  It's done by the first major municipality in my county (a million+ city); there's just the one, and it's an hour+ drive to get there. The neighboring counties decided it was politically expedient to not have a hazardous waste disposal site.

linkjuice4all 3y ago

A deposit refund [0] similar to what’s already in place for bottles and cans in some states might be the way to go if enough states/counties would actually implement it. It allows for consumers to consider the “full cost” of being inconsiderate and not recycling properly while not “actually” increasing the cost of the product if they properly dispose of it. It also created a secondary market for scrapers/recyclers to collect and deposit items so there’s another chance it won’t enter the waste steam. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit-refund_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit-refund_system

unregistereddev 3y ago
The deposit refund system also needs to be worth the effort. My state has a $0.05 deposit on bottles and cans. I used to save the original packaging, put the empties back in the box, and take the boxes to the the customer service counter at the grocery store. It was worth it for a little pocket change. Now? It's all mechanized. I have to feed cans one by one into a machine that reads the barcode to be sure it is a product the store sells. Different machines accept cans vs bottles. This is a slow process. You often need to wait in line for each machine. Sometimes the machines are broken, or sometimes even a working machine fails to read the barcode and rejects 10% of your cans or bottles. When you are done, you take printed slips from the machines to customer service and wait in line to exchange them for cash. It's not worth it. I still recycle, but I toss cans and bottles into my recycling bin and forgo the deposit.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Just have to get sufficiently advanced machine. I love that my nearby store has one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4n62Okcf50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4n62Okcf50 Takes plastic and aluminium cans. Just empty a sackful inside and it automatically sorts them for you. Takes about 5 minutes for some 120l+.
  - olyjohn 3y ago
    Back when I lived in Oregon, they just paid some kid minimum wage to sort it. Those guys were fast at sorting too. They could get through 2 or 3 30 gallon bags in just a few minutes.

robotnikman 3y ago

How would this work for online retailers like Amazon? I feel like a big chunk of lithium batteries comes from there.

lucb1e 3y ago
I don't understand the question. Proposal: if you sell it, you must recycle it. Question: how would an online shop do this? Obvious answer: by accepting the to-be-recycled product, just like an offline store? Whether they do the actual recycling themselves or contract a third party is up to them of course, but that's the same with any local kiosk that happens to sell batteries. (Not saying I think it's a good or bad proposal btw. It sounds good, but there's going to be uncountable cases where the original retailer does not exist anymore, or you don't know where you bought something, or you've moved, etc. Whether to just accept that and consider it a net win, or if a deposit system would work better, no idea. I just don't see the problem with online stores having to accept goods they sold for recycling.)

Clamchop 3y ago

I've long thought that the cost of proper disposal for all products should be paid for at the time of manufacture as a tax and built into the price, and then sanitation services are paid for out of this fund ahead of time. We need everything to be disposed of properly, whoever that responsibility ultimately falls to, so it's unfortunate that we charge consumers at the end of the line for disposal. It's leaky and creates a perverse incentive for pollution, dumping, trash burning, etc. And products that are harder to recycle or dispose of would cost more than cleaner alternatives, creating gentle economic pressure to produce and buy more sustainable goods. Right now, we might not even have a plan for proper disposal before something is sold. This seems to have happened with electronics.

thechao 3y ago
I like this, too, but I think it's hard to find out what the clearing-cost for the market is top-down. Especially for things "like recycling". Instead, I'd just make it a market problem. The point is to find a good balance between regulation ("recycling costs this much") and natural market conditions ("fuck it! throw it in the ocean!").

rcme 3y ago

Does your town not offer hazardous waste disposal?

thechao 3y ago
It's done by the first major municipality in my county (a million+ city); there's just the one, and it's an hour+ drive to get there. The neighboring counties decided it was politically expedient to not have a hazardous waste disposal site.