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You have to assume that any adherence to a recycling regime will have a spectrum of success never reaching 100%. Someone will fill their bin with all kinds of n

by teeray 4y ago

You have to assume that any adherence to a recycling regime will have a spectrum of success never reaching 100%. Someone will fill their bin with all kinds of non-recyclable plastic. They won’t always clean them out. Education can improve this situation but it can’t eliminate it. We have to assume failure at some level and design for it instead of chasing the unattainable 100% compliance.

dehrmann 4y ago
In the office I work with smart tech people, I see mistakes all the time. You basically have to read the entire recycling guide to get it right. So yes, it has to be built for 90% compliance.
czynskee 4y ago
In Switzerland they have a “simple” solution to this problem. The onus is on the consumer to make sure all recyclables are washed and split appropriately. There are different bins for metals, paper, compost, and the different kinds of plastic. The municipality randomly checks your bags and fines you if you don’t do this right. Regular trash has to go in specific bags that are much more expensive. Basically the incentives are setup such that everyone takes the 10 extra minutes to do it right. People are annoyed but once you have a system down it’s not really hard to do. I think this is the way to go. Everyone pitches in to make recycling work. In the long run it may even incentivize sellers to make their products easy to recycle, as buyers are forced to care. Note I may have some details wrong as this is based on what I remember from living there 10 years ago.
- beerpls 4y ago
  “ Everyone pitches in to make recycling work. In the long run it may even incentivize sellers to make their products easy to recycle, as buyers are forced to care.” I just bought about 15 pounds of plastic in the form of bottles and material and whatnot from the store. Then at the front they refused to give me plastics bags weighing a few grams. There’s no way in hell any reasonable person should be on board with these kinds of taxes or policies. All they will end up doing is making people pay money to the rich, while the rich don’t do anything but continue to use more plastic for their purposes You want change, charge the company for plastic straight away. Stop expecting consumers to bear the burden of corporate greed
  - toxik 4y ago
    Hear hear. And even then, plastic grocery bags are part of a beautiful, closed system of becoming trash bags. Now I have to go to the store, buy a literal roll of plastic bags, and carry it home in a non-plastic bag, then throw my garbage in this one-time-use garbage bag. Congratulations! Progress has been made at you.
    - mschild 4y ago
      Do you have to use bags or do just do it because you've always done it? We have similar recycling setup in Germany. I don't use bags for any of them.
      - toxik 4y ago
        We are not allowed to throw trash without bags for obvious reasons. I'm not sure I understand what you even mean by that.
        Filligree 4y ago
        What are the obvious reasons? Doesn't your trash go in a trash can?
        toxik 4y ago
        Where do you empty your trash can? Let’s say you throw away something sticky, maybe a dirty diaper, or something else. You don’t want to get that stuff on your own trash can, and the garbage collectors don’t want to deal with soiled garbage bins either. It is simply about sanity, residues and stuff attracts rodents and other pests. Both in apartment buildings and in houses with trash collection, the rule is that you put the trash in bags.
        mschild 4y ago
        All buildings have larger bins (between 240 and 1100 litres) on the outside or in a specified area. Those are picked up by the waste companies. There is no need to specifically place waste into a bag. You can just put it straight into the container. We generally don't have all that much super sticky trash. We also simply clean our bins when needed. Our organic waste bin, for example is simply lined with an unbleached kitchen paper towel that gets dumped into the container as well.
- Tade0 4y ago
  I've spent a few months in Switzerland in 2020 and all I've seen were PET and non-PET bins for plastics. But the rest of the world has that already in the form of public bins for plastic bottle caps, as these are made from PET. In any case fines or no fines I doubt this is enough if a single piece of trash can ruin a whole batch. I can assure you that I for one have thrown trash in the wrong bin at least twice - or maybe more because I still don't know the details of recycling in that country.
- mock-possum 4y ago
  Sounds like a regressive tax to me - rich men can pay sorters to avoid ever wasting their own time on recycling, poor men who can least afford the time and effort and fines if they get it wrong meantime suffer under the system. Much better approach would be tax-funded recycling sorters - much more cost efficient to do all the work at the point of collection besides, allows for training and specialized equipment.
- kenhwang 4y ago
  Austria is kinda the same way. We had to sort everything into one of 6 bins. But there was only one bin for all plastics. The 6 bins is fine (metal, glass, paper, organic, plastic, landfill), further sorting the plastics into the 7 kinds currently labeled might be a bit much (especially since only like 3 of them are commonly recycled). I was curious about how they solved the mixed plastics problem, and quick searching around suggests most of the plastic gets incinerated.
- soco 4y ago
  There are containers for recyclables where you personally dump your bags brought along, so there's no bag for the municipality to check. You maybe mix this up with the fine for using non-fee garbage bags? The only check they can do is when looking at your recycled paper stack whether it has also cartons, then they'll leave it on your roadside (and if you're around they'll also tell you why). But that's hardly noteworthy. In any case, Swiss shops are starting to take in also the new category of "non recyclable plastics" as in non-PET wrappings/recipients/tetrapack/anything. No idea where those go though, I never thought to check if they're burnt or exported.

by teeray 4y ago

dehrmann 4y ago

In the office I work with smart tech people, I see mistakes all the time. You basically have to read the entire recycling guide to get it right. So yes, it has to be built for 90% compliance.

czynskee 4y ago

In Switzerland they have a “simple” solution to this problem. The onus is on the consumer to make sure all recyclables are washed and split appropriately. There are different bins for metals, paper, compost, and the different kinds of plastic. The municipality randomly checks your bags and fines you if you don’t do this right. Regular trash has to go in specific bags that are much more expensive. Basically the incentives are setup such that everyone takes the 10 extra minutes to do it right. People are annoyed but once you have a system down it’s not really hard to do. I think this is the way to go. Everyone pitches in to make recycling work. In the long run it may even incentivize sellers to make their products easy to recycle, as buyers are forced to care. Note I may have some details wrong as this is based on what I remember from living there 10 years ago.

beerpls 4y ago
“ Everyone pitches in to make recycling work. In the long run it may even incentivize sellers to make their products easy to recycle, as buyers are forced to care.” I just bought about 15 pounds of plastic in the form of bottles and material and whatnot from the store. Then at the front they refused to give me plastics bags weighing a few grams. There’s no way in hell any reasonable person should be on board with these kinds of taxes or policies. All they will end up doing is making people pay money to the rich, while the rich don’t do anything but continue to use more plastic for their purposes You want change, charge the company for plastic straight away. Stop expecting consumers to bear the burden of corporate greed
- toxik 4y ago
  Hear hear. And even then, plastic grocery bags are part of a beautiful, closed system of becoming trash bags. Now I have to go to the store, buy a literal roll of plastic bags, and carry it home in a non-plastic bag, then throw my garbage in this one-time-use garbage bag. Congratulations! Progress has been made at you.
  - mschild 4y ago
    Do you have to use bags or do just do it because you've always done it? We have similar recycling setup in Germany. I don't use bags for any of them.
    - toxik 4y ago
      We are not allowed to throw trash without bags for obvious reasons. I'm not sure I understand what you even mean by that.
      - Filligree 4y ago
        What are the obvious reasons? Doesn't your trash go in a trash can?
        toxik 4y ago
        Where do you empty your trash can? Let’s say you throw away something sticky, maybe a dirty diaper, or something else. You don’t want to get that stuff on your own trash can, and the garbage collectors don’t want to deal with soiled garbage bins either. It is simply about sanity, residues and stuff attracts rodents and other pests. Both in apartment buildings and in houses with trash collection, the rule is that you put the trash in bags.
        mschild 4y ago
        All buildings have larger bins (between 240 and 1100 litres) on the outside or in a specified area. Those are picked up by the waste companies. There is no need to specifically place waste into a bag. You can just put it straight into the container. We generally don't have all that much super sticky trash. We also simply clean our bins when needed. Our organic waste bin, for example is simply lined with an unbleached kitchen paper towel that gets dumped into the container as well.
Tade0 4y ago
I've spent a few months in Switzerland in 2020 and all I've seen were PET and non-PET bins for plastics. But the rest of the world has that already in the form of public bins for plastic bottle caps, as these are made from PET. In any case fines or no fines I doubt this is enough if a single piece of trash can ruin a whole batch. I can assure you that I for one have thrown trash in the wrong bin at least twice - or maybe more because I still don't know the details of recycling in that country.
mock-possum 4y ago
Sounds like a regressive tax to me - rich men can pay sorters to avoid ever wasting their own time on recycling, poor men who can least afford the time and effort and fines if they get it wrong meantime suffer under the system. Much better approach would be tax-funded recycling sorters - much more cost efficient to do all the work at the point of collection besides, allows for training and specialized equipment.
kenhwang 4y ago
Austria is kinda the same way. We had to sort everything into one of 6 bins. But there was only one bin for all plastics. The 6 bins is fine (metal, glass, paper, organic, plastic, landfill), further sorting the plastics into the 7 kinds currently labeled might be a bit much (especially since only like 3 of them are commonly recycled). I was curious about how they solved the mixed plastics problem, and quick searching around suggests most of the plastic gets incinerated.
soco 4y ago
There are containers for recyclables where you personally dump your bags brought along, so there's no bag for the municipality to check. You maybe mix this up with the fine for using non-fee garbage bags? The only check they can do is when looking at your recycled paper stack whether it has also cartons, then they'll leave it on your roadside (and if you're around they'll also tell you why). But that's hardly noteworthy. In any case, Swiss shops are starting to take in also the new category of "non recyclable plastics" as in non-PET wrappings/recipients/tetrapack/anything. No idea where those go though, I never thought to check if they're burnt or exported.