35 ms·

People over-emphasize the recycling aspect of "reduce, reuse, recycle"

350 points by gsky 3y ago

xnx 3y ago
Recycling is happily promoted and encouraged by corporations because it is the only one of the three that does not reduce consumption. To the corporation, reducing consumption is totally unacceptable.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gcanyon 3y ago
While consumer efforts are good, it's important to remember and focus on industrial waste, which is a far greater problem: https://stanfordmag.org/contents/industrial-versus-consumer-recycling https://stanfordmag.org/contents/industrial-versus-consumer-...
- supazek 3y ago
  Okay I’m focused on it
  - staunton 3y ago
    ... and then do something about it
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - subroutine 3y ago
      like what? vote or something
- themitigating 3y ago
  Multiple things can be considered at once
  - Y_Y 3y ago
    I respectfully disagree. Some days even a single thing is a challenge. Anyway, at the risk of rehashing a very old argument, OP presumably means that if you want to reduce the effects (landfill, increased consumption of plastics etc) then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts. It's good to reduce any waste but it's rational to apply your finite efforts where they'll give the best return.
    - gcanyon 3y ago
      Yep, exactly this.
    - themitigating 3y ago
      * then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts.* The vast majority of people don't have control over industrial waste. Of course I can vote for someone who says they will but that doesn't require focus only an action at most once a year. I believe the OP is using whataboutism to allow himself to be selfish. "Why recycle when celebrities fly on private jets" or to make it more obvious "Why should I be good if another person isn't"
      - pessimizer 3y ago
        Whataboutism is a bad term. I think of it as the socialist slaveowner problem: "You can't call me a bad socialist, I'll release my slaves when everybody releases their slaves. Compared to world slavery, I'm just a drop in the bucket (I own barely 5% of them.) Actually, your obsession with me instead of the real problem says a lot about you. So convenient for you to ignore the 95% and indulge your petty, childish bigotry against equestrians." There's no ethical consumption under capitalism!
- parker_mountain 3y ago
  Remembering and focusing intently. Why is nothing getting done about this?
- billti 3y ago
  Or even the different scales of your own waste. Whenever I'm worrying about which bin to put my coffee stirrer in, I sometimes think about the shear volume of landfill that got hauled from our house when we did a major renovation. I'm sure 10 lifetimes of coffee stirrers wouldn't come close. I think worrying about things like single-use shopping bags and compostable straws is great from a "keep pollution out of the environment" perspective, but I doubt they make a huge difference from a landfill usage perspective.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    America seems determined to do as little recycling as possible for weird culture war reasons, but even in the US construction rubble is fairly widely re-used and recycled: https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-and-demolition-materials https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-... > 600 million tons of C&D debris were generated in the United States in 2018, which is more than twice the amount of generated municipal solid waste. > Demolition represents more than 90 percent of total C&D debris generation, while construction represents less than 10 percent. > Just over 455 million tons of C&D debris were directed to next use and just under 145 million tons were sent to landfills.
- pjc50 3y ago
  My personal bugbear, and that of quite a few people in the Firth of Forth, is the Mossmorran Flare: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt At one point I estimated that's about a hundred plastic straws worth of ethylene per second. There's not a lot of individual recycling that can be done about that.
henrikschroder 3y ago
Backfired? > While recycling campaigns can help limit what heads to the landfill Oh, backfired in the US. Gotcha. Right. And because it didn't work out in the US, there's absolutely no way that any other country could have this shit figured out, right? Landfills. Jesus.
- vore 3y ago
  Is incineration really that much better? You’re trading off one kind of pollution for another: toxic emissions and toxic byproducts that still have to be disposed of in some way… One way or another, countries have to deal with non-recyclable, non-compostable waste, and all solutions to it are pretty nasty.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    You get toxic ash for a landfill, if you have a proper smoke treatment, but you could argue that the waste was already toxic before the burning and far less so now since many toxins are destroyed in fire. Also the volume is smaller for the ash.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      The thing is, with incineration you also lose all the raw materials and the energy contained within them, as well as release all the CO2 and other greenhouse gases - not a good thing given that most of the stuff ending up in incinerators is fossil in origin. Landfills at least can be mined in the future when we develop at-scale actual recycling capabilities for plastics (e.g. GMO bacteria/fungi that break down the polymers in the waste into precursors that can be used to create new plastics).
      - uoaei 3y ago
        The thing is, virtually every single incineration plant also generates electricity, typically at smaller scales than dedicated plants to serve smaller regions, but distributed/decentralized generation is a big win for resilience of the grid overall. Also please provide at least one citation where "maybe we'll totally reverse the negative effects of this thing we put into our environment" has been fulfilled. I can only think of failures to live up to that expectation: PFAS, microplastics, oil spills, etc.
defrost 3y ago
The short form (6 paragraphs) futurism 'source' paraphrases the long form work of the primary researchers who discuss their own work first hand at: Decades of public messages about recycling in the US have crowded out more sustainable ways to manage waste https://theconversation.com/decades-of-public-messages-about-recycling-in-the-us-have-crowded-out-more-sustainable-ways-to-manage-waste-208924 https://theconversation.com/decades-of-public-messages-about... In our research on waste behavior, sustainability, engineering design and decision making, we examine what U.S. residents understand about the efficacy of different waste management strategies and which of those strategies they prefer. In two nationwide surveys in the U.S. that we conducted in October 2019 and March 2022, we found that people overlook waste reduction and reuse in favor of recycling. We call this tendency recycling bias and reduction neglect. (21 hours ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36860103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36860103 (6 minutes ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36873964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36873964
- yomlica8 3y ago
  Isn't this by policy design? Recycling is the only R that doesn't implicitly call for reduced consumption so it is the only one that is pushed. Reduce and reuse will curtail economy activity.
- hgsgm 3y ago
  I'd love to have a job like that, where I get paid to research and repeat basic facts that have been known for decades.
cik 3y ago
It's important for each of us to do our part. It's even better when we help others do theirs. But, we really need to not lose sight of the fact that the (extreme) majority of pollution is industrial, and private outsized use. It's fun that X airline does carbon offsets. But, at the end of the day that private flight that someone took, his a significantly outsized impact.
- cal85 3y ago
  > It's important for each of us to do our part. It's even better when we help others do theirs. I challenge these assumptions. I suspect the “everyone must do their part” mentality is at best useless, and perhaps a major blocker, for devising effective techniques and systems to address the wide variety of issues that have been thrown together under the banner of “climate”.
  - 542354234235 3y ago
    100% agree. The average consumer shouldn’t have to the think about it at all. There are an insane number of potential problems in the world that need to be solved. Putting the cognitive load on individuals to each do a tiny bit on each individual problem is a stupidly ineffective and inefficient way to do almost anything. Much better to have either change made to how industries operate, or redesign how the system works so that whatever the desired outcome for individuals becomes the easiest and simplest option.
PlunderBunny 3y ago
It really depends on the type of recycling you do. I recycle (after reducing and reusing) obsessively, while also being painfully aware of the problems with recycling. One of the things I recycle are soft plastics [1], which are made into fence posts (among other things) [2]. I recently bought 58 of these posts, and asked the company that makes them to do the maths on how much plastic was diverted. It surprised me - the 58 posts are the equivalent of "17,694 milk bottles and 79,098 bread bags". (These posts are warrantied for 10 years, and are expected to last for 50 years. I don't know what happens at the end of those 50 years). 1. https://www.recycling.kiwi.nz https://www.recycling.kiwi.nz 2. https://www.futurepost.co.nz https://www.futurepost.co.nz
- brutusborn 3y ago
  This is interesting. After the recent collapse of a recycling company in Australia I was under the impression that soft plastic recycling wasn't economical. Are the posts particularly expensive? Or maybe are the definitions of 'soft plastic' in each case different? https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/redcycle-softplastics-recycling-scheme-collapsed-owing-5-million/news-story/918c7c202339790da52fea4b9ac03424 https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/redcycle-sof...
  - bawolff 3y ago
    I imagine there is a rather limited market for fence posts relative to the amount of soft plastic being recycled.
    - PlunderBunny 3y ago
      Depends on how many old wooden posts you have - in a country like New Zealand, there's a lot. Several years ago, they (the soft-plastic recycling company) did get too much plastic at one point, and had to pause collection for several months while they sorted out new suppliers, and found new uses for the product. I think they have now exceeded the original amount being collected, but they roll out new collection areas cautiously to ensure supply matches demand. It helps that we're progressively banning some types of soft plastic too (e.g. shopping bags are already gone).
Animats 3y ago
"In a series of experiments, the UV researchers first asked participants first to list "reduce," "reuse," and "recycle" by order of efficacy — the correct answer being the same one in the old slogan — finding that a whopping 78 percent got it wrong. In a second experiment, the researchers had participants use a computer program to virtually "sort" waste into recycling, compost, and landfill bins. Unfortunately, the outcome of that survey was even more stark, with many incorrectly putting non-recyclable waste, such as plastic bags and lightbulbs, into the virtual recycle bin." That doesn't mean that recycling has "backfired". It just means that it's not occupying much consumer attention. Which it shouldn't. It's not about virtue signaling. It's about bulk materials handling. As I pointed out the last time this came up on HN, the machinery that sorts recyclables today does a far better job than humans. It's not even clear that it's even worth having people sort out trash from recyclables. Here's a plant that takes in ordinary trash and sorts it.[1] About 25% goes to the landfill, the rest is recycled. San Jose has two such plants. Total capacity over 200 tons per hour. This problem is routinely being solved by mostly boring but useful heavy machinery. The non-serious players talk about "green" and "eco" and want "awareness". The serious players in recycling talk about tons per hour. Modern recycling plans aren't that big. The one that does all of San Francisco is about the size of a Target store. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUCHnAzlgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUCHnAzlgw
- winrid 3y ago
  It's also the fact that the recycling systems are still behind consumer expectations. Many would look at a plastic bag and expect that it could be broken down and reused, or that the glass in a lightbulb could be recovered. If we cared more about reuse than cost, we would. Hopefully sorting machines will continue to improve and be able to sort out bags without getting clogged all the time. I agree it hasn't "backfired" in any way.
  - runsWphotons 3y ago
    had no idea you cant recycle plastic bags. really? why not?
    - 3y ago
secretsatan 3y ago
I do seem to have more plastic waste now then 10 years ago in my food shopping, one I find particularly annoying is what used to be loose fruit and veg is now packaged in set portions, which seems to double the waste, not only do I have to buy more than I need and have to throw some away (to the compost disposal), but they seem to use even more packaging
- gampleman 3y ago
  So I read somewhere that apparently packaging can greatly increase the shelf life of the produce and so the overall waste is actually reduced by using packaging.
  - modo_mario 3y ago
    Waste for the seller and potentialy consumer no? I'd argue the plastic wrap is more of a long term issue than the cucumber.
    - gampleman 3y ago
      As far as I understood from a pollution perspective yes. But not from a carbon perspective. Farming, shipping, selling, etc. a cucumber to a consumer produces far more CO2 than a small piece of plastic wholesaled to a producer. So if you can reduce the waste, you need fewer cucumbers and apparently this adds up to a carbon reduction overall. Of course I think this shows the limits of the kind of thinking that reduces all environmental impact to just a single metric like carbon emissions.
      - gampleman 3y ago
        See for instance this paper: > In light of increasing public pressure, retailers strive to remove plastic packaging as much as possible from fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the environmental impacts along their supply chains. Plastic packaging, however, also has an important protective function, similar to the fruit's peel. For cucumbers transported from Spain and sold in Switzerland, our investigations in the form of a life cycle assessment study showed that the plastic wrapping has a rather low environmental impact (only about 1%) in comparison to the total environmental impacts of the fruit from grower to grocer. Hence, each cucumber that has to be thrown away has the equivalent environmental impact of 93 plastic cucumber wraps. We found that plastic wrapping protects the environment more by saving more cucumbers from spoilage than it harms the environment by the additional use of plastic. If, by using the plastic wrap, we reduce cucumber losses at retail even by only 1.1%, its use has already a net environmental benefit. Currently, in the cucumber import supply chain from Spain to Switzerland, the use of plastic wrapping lowers the cucumber losses at retail by an estimated 4.8%; therefore, it makes sense to use it from an environmental perspective. The environmental benefit of food waste reduction due to plastic wrapping the cucumbers was found to be 4.9 times higher than the negative environmental impact due to the packaging itself. Alternative strategies to preserve fresh cucumbers without using plastic wrapping will have to compete with this challenging limit. https://www.empa.ch/documents/56164/19450914/2021.07.29_Cucumber+packaging+LCA_Preprint_V1.pdf/44baa51d-e218-4c85-a970-03d6e6edc86e#:~:text=The%20supply%20chain%20of%20cucumbers%20without%20plastic%20wrap%20has%20an,is%20used%2C%20namely%204.6%25 https://www.empa.ch/documents/56164/19450914/2021.07.29_Cucu....
xeyownt 3y ago
What is this even saying? I saw nothing mentioned that was backfiring, even less so spectacularly.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Did you read past the headline? "Reduce, reuse, recycle" means "avoid buying more things, use the things you already have and recycle instead of throwing away". The inclusion of "recycle" led to a hyperfocus on that last, least effective, part of the guidance at the cost of the other two. It backfired by making consumers think they're doing their part by buying products that include recycled materials or throwing their trash in the recycling bin, rather than simply buying less or not buying things or buying things that last longer and continuing to use them. Of course this isn't on the consumers but the producers. The article explicitly says the focus on reycling hasn't helped reduce overproduction, which isn't a surprise as the economy grows by producing (and selling) and recycling is orthogonal to that whereas reducing/reusing runs counter to it.
kristiandupont 3y ago
I am not sure if this is supposed to be an exception, but looking at the authors other articles, it seems like they are satire or comedy of some sort: https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai
ki_ 3y ago
horrible article, title is super clickbait and totally not what the article represents. There is no backfire and all it says is that some people dont know what can or cannot be recycled...
pyrale 3y ago
Considering recycling is mostly promoted by consumer brands to avoid acting on their own end (for instance, by setting up deposit schemes to reuse parts), it's not very surprising that recycling is not really successful.
photochemsyn 3y ago
Corporations whose profit margins rely on continuation of current patterns of consumption say any deviation from this program is unwise.
dgan 3y ago
IMHO, asking end consumer to "correctly sort" the trash is a non-scalable, non-solution. First of all, packaging isn't even standardised: you need to assume all the information about materials used to be available to end consumer, and the consumer must follow the guidelines to separate them. If packaging were standardised (with a limited number of options, not like two hundreds different things) it would be much much simpler and more efficient. Plus, even in France (just example), sorting instructions vary from town to town, which makes everything even more complicated But even in the case above where everything is as simple and efficient as possible, and end consumers are 100% benevolent, why would you want to rely on N millions agents, each making some mistakes, when you could rely on a couple (of dozens) sorting plants, with professionals paid to do just that ? For me it's just blaming and punishing the weak (end consumer) , because coward and mediocre politicians don't want to tackle the strong (industry)
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Ironically, it was the trash handling companies that complained when the county introduced separating plastic from other general waste, because they had just invested in new machinery that could do it. And they have to keep that machinery and staff because not everyone will separate their waste properly. But even then, what's the point? The separated plastic is bundled up and... then what? Exported or sold to the highest bidder, who will do whatever with it. Some is recycled / reused performatively, but I'm sure a lot is just put in landfill or burned. See I don't even mind so much that plastic can't be reused as well yet, but it has to be stored responsibly. Landfill, concrete / impermiable basin, neatly stack the compressed plastic bales there, cover it up, and just forget about it until it can be "mined" again as a resource. Else, it'll just sit there and (naively of me, I know), be inert and harmless until it won't matter anymore.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    Why would the companies complain if they still had to use their machinery? They didn't buy it in vain; the only difference is consumers waste a tiny bit more of their time.
andrewstuart 3y ago
Landfill is demonized. And yet for plastic waste it’s the best destination. Our society is obsessed with “keeping plastic out of landfill”. Why? Are we running out of landfill? No. We’re so obsessed with keeping plastic out of landfill that we come up with ideas like putting waste plastic into roads. Sounds great doesn’t it? Until you realize cars and trucks drive in those roads, grind them down. Grind out the plastic into microplastic as that go into air water soil food animals people. But hey, the important thing is the plastic was kept out of landfill, right?
- pjc50 3y ago
  > Are we running out of landfill? No Varies by country.
  - andrewstuart 3y ago
    You should put it in roads.
  - tomjen3 3y ago
    Then the free market will solve that problem too: those who have excess land will take the stuff of our hands for a small fee. Put it into old coal mines as an example.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. Libertarians in the US have been landfill stans for decades because they are funded by the people who provide the inputs for non-recycled plastics, namely fossil fuels. The only thing they hate more than recycling is single use plastic bans, again because that means less fossil fuel sales. Ironically, their anti-recycling propaganda has been so successful that people have just started supporting outright bans. And now they have to embarrassingly suggest that bans are unnecessary because single use plastics can be recycled instead.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    > Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. This would be what to expand on. Without this, you have no foundation for the rest of your comment. I'll happily listen to why landfills are bad, I don't care about a bunch of motives and associations that rely on your audience already agreeing with you that landfills are bad to have any relevance. That's how propaganda works. It often leads by assuming the question, skips right past it into invective and speculation about the opponents' evil motives and associations; then when the audience asks about the question you skipped, it turns to speculation about the audience's evil motives and associations. Landfill isn't demonized, it's just bad! I'm not going to tell you why, though, I'm going to talk about the character of the people who disagree with me.
andrewstuart 3y ago
Recycling plastic is a pile of garbage.
pimpampum 3y ago
Recycling was pushed forward by companies so they wouldn't have to cut down on plastic. It's like carbon credits for oil companies.
scotty79 3y ago
Plastic manufacturers should be taxed on their output. Let's start with 50% of their sales price and see how it goes.
- jmclnx 3y ago
  I agree with this, and surprised no one brought up how hard it is to recycle plastic. By hard I mean the cost in money and energy, thus more CO2. It is time to eliminate plastic containers and force the use of containers that are easy to recycle, glass and paper. Yes that will be a pain, but I remember when everything came in glass and paper. People were able to deal wit it, but that was in a day when you bought things at ma and pa stores. It is all the large companies that push plastics, it moves the cost from them to someone else.
wunderland 3y ago
We’re staring the obvious in the face for decades: overconsumption is unsustainable. But our entire economy is based off this wasteful mode of production, so we’re sold lies and happily latch onto fantasies to convince us that we can somehow overcome the negative externalities of profit maximization. As long as there are economic incentives to create trash, we will fill the oceans with garbage. I used to believe that we could solve this with “market solutions” which incorporate the true environmental cost of wasteful production, but this is just another fantasy. Even if the real cost of pollution could be known, there is no profit incentive to enact such a scheme. We’ve got about 20 more years of maximizing shareholder value before we run off an ecological cliff.
- taylodl 3y ago
  People are going to learn the hard way that The Market they've been worshipping is a false idol. Don't get me wrong - I advocate for a regulated market economy, but the key point is "regulated." We have 200-300 years of experience now showing the kinds of problems vaunted market is unable to solve.
  - drc500free 3y ago
    Agreed. Until you get rid of the ability to just take someone else's stuff by force or fraud, there isn't oxygen for actual productive and creative work to flourish in the market. A "pure" free market doesn't ensure the positive feedback cycle that re-invests value back into the people and processes who created it. Instead, people are free to use their accumulated power to take value that others create.
- ip26 3y ago
  As much as I would prefer to believe otherwise, the only way to completely eliminate trash is with a gigantic step-function increase in energy usage. Lowering consumption won’t do it alone.
darkclouds 3y ago
I dont think there is a perfect solution, be it heavy machinery or human sorting at the waste depot, or human sorting at the home, but a KISS approach tends to help. Barcode backgrounds. Red for waste Green for recycle. Different background patterns to represent the different elements of packaging which can be recycled. Bottle with no outer wrapper. Two elements, top half of barcode background represents bottle top. Bottom half represents the bottle. ---------------- | RED | ---------------- | GREEN | ---------------- Bottle with an outer wrapper. -------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | BOTTLE TOP | | | -------------- | | | BOTTLE | | | -------------- | | WRAPPER | --------------------- Plastic trays ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | | | | | TRAY | | | | | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Tray with food sauces contain in plastic ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | TRAY | | | | ------- | | | | |SAUCE| | | | | ------- | | | | TRAY | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Glossy Magazines ---------------------- | COVER | | ------------- | | | | | | | INNARDS | | | | | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Bottle no plastic label plastic wrapped Multi packs ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | TOP | | | | ------- | | | | BOTTLE | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Bottle with plastic label plastic wrapped Multi packs --------------------------- | WRAPPER | | ----------------- | | | LABEL | | | | ---------| | | | | | TOP | | | | | ---------- | | | | | BOTTLE | | | | | ---------- | | | | LABEL | | | ----------------- | | WRAPPER | -------------------------- Basically the principle of working from the out in and where there are joins like bottle tops they get split in half. Dont know if the Red and Green would affect barcodes and colour blind people much though. Or a phone app where every barcode scanned shows what can and cant be recycled on the product, maybe organised through a trade body of sorts. I think the barcode background is wasted though. Edit. The ascii art hasnt come out well on here but hopefully the gist can be understood.
pharmakom 3y ago
Is this not inevitable? No corporation is going to push Reduce and Reuse over Recycle. It’s incompatible with growth (in a narrow sense).
_8j50 3y ago
At the grocery store today, I can get soft drinks in a glass bottle as well as in cans and plastic, I can get forzen food in paper based containers as well as plastic, I can get pringles in a cardboard tune bit lays stax is in plastic, I go out of my way to buy things in cans instead of plastic, delivery food arrived in cardboard containers sometimes but most of the time it comes in styroform inside plastic bags, I use a water filter instead of buying plasic bottles and I can buy metal forks, spoons and straws for at least around a dollar a piece which is not a big addition to any delivery order. Not too long ago, a world existed without plastic and styrofoam all over just fine. Electronics can be stored in glasses or metal enclosed cardboard (and it would look cooler!). I don't really care that much about recycling and I am doing all this now. I mostly refuse to recycle after finding out most places here just mix them up anyways and throw them in landfills. But my more important reasoning is that similar to "carbon footprint" this is a government problem not a consumer problem. Producers can use expensive products but if only a few do it in a few states then it is too costly for the producer and prices will increase. But if the government bans and regulates material usage then although material costs increase, so long as producers have a profit margin and competition the consumer will not see too much of a price increase. But even in competition and fighting price gouging governments are sucking big time. There is no reason every chip isn't in cardboard because pringles can turn a profit just fine and soda makers already have glass stored products for quite some time so they have no excuse. An argument I've heard is the other materials are hard to make at scale, but I already see them at scale. Even apple from what I hear has eliminated all but 4% plastic from their iPhones (not sure what the material is now). I am convinced that just like governments can solve climate change with nuclear power, water centric infra buildout and reducing cars (not replacing with evs), so can they solve waste that isn't degradable. I have said it before, the root cause in my opinion is the US needs constitutional reform and the rest of the world will catch on, even China will if their export economy depended on it.
- brewdad 3y ago
  I mostly recycle because my town charges more for a larger garbage can but gives you a huge recycle bin for free. I could even request a second giant recycle bin, twice the size of my trash bin, for free if I somehow needed it. Even if it all ends up in the landfill (I try to follow their guidelines to avoid this), recycling saves me money every month.
pabs3 3y ago
I feel like recycling solves the problem at the wrong end of the material pipeline. Why do we buy so much single-use packaging, so many things that are unrepairable, too costly to repair, hard to disassemble, or that have externalities that were not solved before the product went to market? Require anyone who sells a new physical product have to accept returns of that physical product at the end of its lifetime. Don't throw out food packaging, return it to the supermarket. Don't throw out a dead TV, return it to the electronics store. Stores will send those dead products back upstream. Companies will quickly figure out how to make products that are reusable, repairable, disassemblable and recyclable.
- veave 3y ago
  >Why do we buy so much single-use packaging, so many things that are unrepairable, too costly to repair, hard to disassemble, or that have externalities that were not solved before the product went to market? Because it's easier, cheaper and better? >Require anyone who sells a new physical product have to accept returns of that physical product at the end of its lifetime. That will translate into even more expensive products for consumers. Thanks but no thanks.
  - c22 3y ago
    It's cheapest for consumers not to pay for trash pickup at all but instead to just dump their refuse in the nearest gully.
  - Sharlin 3y ago
    > Because it's easier, cheaper and better? Cheaper to whom? Better to whom? > That will translate into even more expensive products for consumers. You know what's even more expensive for consumers in the long run? But of course you don't think in the long run. Or anybody else than yourself. Or anything at all, really. I'm sorry that people like you exist. So blinded by cheap bling. One generation of wealthy Western people filling their homes with crap because it's "cheap" and "easy", blissfully unaware or unwilling to think about the very real external costs borne by other people somewhere else. Or somewhen else for that matter – so incredibly selfish that you're entirely willing to make the world worse for your children and their children, just in order to enjoy limitless consumerism for a few decades. Feeling good about that?
omgmajk 3y ago
> Unfortunately, the outcome of that survey was even more stark, with many incorrectly putting non-recyclable waste, such as plastic bags and lightbulbs, into the virtual recycle bin. In some countries there are recycle bins for this, where was this study conducted?
slantaclaus 3y ago
This is exactly what I thought the article would be talking about--people not knowing what is recyclable in the first place.
rednerrus 3y ago
We could make a huge dent in this problem by simply reusing glass containers for things that are appropriate. Start with beer and soda. Move on to canned beans, soup, etc. Setup programs to make returning the containers easy. We use 80,000,000,000 aluminum cans, 35,000,000,000 plastic bottles, and 16,000,000,000 glass bottles a year in the US.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Indeed, the energy cost of machine-washing glass bottles is surely an order of magnitude less than that of recycling the broken glass into new bottles. However, I don't think you can replicate that with aluminium cans. They preserve their contents better than glass bottles do, so glass bottles can't necessarily replace them. The seal of aluminium cans also breaks when they're opened, so you can't directly wash and reuse the cans.
  - genman 3y ago
    I have seen aluminum bottles (for beer). Heavier than cans but lighter than glass.
- callalex 3y ago
  We could streamline this process and increase participation by having local governments provide a bin that they collect in a big truck every week…
ldehaan 3y ago
[dead]
JohnFen 3y ago
Yes. I remember being taught in grade school that "reduce, reuse, recycle" is the order of importance. Reducing consumption is the most important thing. Keeping existing things in use is next up. Recycling is the worst of the three options -- it's just better than the landfill.
- grecy 3y ago
  Another way to say it - "Of the things you should be doing, recycling is the worst".
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
DIY is one of the best ways to reduce conspicuous consumption and consumerism. Learn skills to make what you need rather than buying it. Learn to reuse materials as part of that process, and repair things back into working order. My favorite example of this is IKEA wood bed frames. I used to cruise around cities just picking up truckloads of perfectly good solid wood that people left on the street, and then would have endless supplies for building. I've built raised garden beds, new custom bed frames, awnings for porches, bird feeders and houses, tables, stools, shelves, and more, just from junk left on curbs. One time I found a pretty much fully functional sewing machine on the curb. That's when I learned how to sew, and have since repaired jeans, shirts, socks, and made little tote sacks as gifts out of old clothes. Once you learn a DIY skill it serves you for the rest of your life, saves you money, and helps the environment.
- klipt 3y ago
  That's great if it's your hobby but if I value my time at my current wage, darning socks is incredibly more expensive than just buying a pack of new ones. You just can't beat the efficiency of factory machines.
  - shadowfoxx 3y ago
    My only problem with this logic is that you and I both know you aren't getting paid for the time you spend not at your job and that you don't spend all of your time in pursuit of work. I don't mean, "You don't get paid to brush your teeth" (But I am willing to bet you don't consider your hourly rate when you do an activity you are interested in or hanging out with your friends) but that you don't completely fill your day with money making activities. I think the logic here reframes the 'blame' off of you and onto something external. But its perfectly okay to say that the benefits the previous poster mentioned aren't worth more to you than the convenience + quality of just buying a new pair of socks. Because the truth of it is that darning your own socks costs almost nothing.
  - throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
    I don't darn socks, I just sew the hole shut when one starts to form. You value your time? The next time you sit down to watch a TV show, pull out your travel sewing kit and the sock and sew as you watch. You'll be done way before the end of the episode, and you'll have gained value, not lost it.
pluto_modadic 3y ago
we should be emphasizing "regulate"-ing plastics and industrial waste. Or "replacing" whole entire commercial pipelines. "regulate, replace, revolution".
ggm 3y ago
Reduce is deflationary. And, atagonistic to profit so no entity driven to profit (sell) is going to emphasise it. Rationing is not held in high regard even when its socially useful. Those "only 2 rolls of toilet paper" signs come to mind, and how people acted and felt when told to be reasonable. Reuse is expensive to implement because it bigs up the cost of packaging to make it capable of reuse, demands reuse collection, and processes. Or, shifts in sales to allow bulk -> own-container which does exist, but it has all kinds of little niggly problems. It's still the least-worst option (after reduce) but it does not always appeal. Manufacturers at scale struggle with accepting full life cost of re-use, milk bottles aside. The old school distribution and dairy coop model worked well and maybe we should stop driving to least cost, and re-explore locavore for packaged goods? Recycle is broken. everyone knows this. It was broken at birth because under the sheets a lot of recycling was bad, dirty, polluting externality to poor nations but unwinding recycling is also broken because again least-cost wins hard. I still support the triad, the order is right. Its just harder than people think and I believe (perhaps wrongly) corporates have exploited the guilt elements in recycle to avoid reduce/reuse costs they'd wear as impacts to profit. TL;DR yes. the article is right.
exabrial 3y ago
It's "recycle"able is the easiest way for a company to greenwash their products though, while absolutely making 0 actual environmental impact. It sells well and consumers buy it up.
10g1k 3y ago
Tip: All matter, 100% of it, every last molecule, is biodegradable. The only differences are the time it takes, and the damage caused to other things while it degrades. From this you can figure out that the recycling industry operates by calculating what it can recycle or safely degrade for a profit, and where it draws the line for "too hard, not profitable".
user6723 3y ago
I put a month's worth of trash in a pile, pour kerosene on it, and burn it. Local codes are cool with it. Feels good man.
systems_glitch 3y ago
Can you trust an article where they refer to the University of Virginia as UV and not UVA?
1letterunixname 3y ago
I remember when curbside recycling was implemented in the mid 80's in the San Jose area. 3 plastic recycling stacking crates: yellow, lime, and green colored. Recycling was, and is, a scam by the plastics industry to encourage consumption and shift the responsibility from producers and the waste stream onto consumers. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/plastics-industry-insiders-reveal-the-truth-about-recycling/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/plastics-industry...
andersrs 3y ago
Recycling is a meme created by corporations that benefit from filling the planet with junk. That little numbered recycling triangle on every plastic bottle - public relations stunt. They even made a TV advert featuring an Italian actor as American Indian shedding a tear. Decades ago glass bottles used to be taken back to the factory, washed and reused. These days every package is a unique shape because of marketing ensuring each package is incompatible with other brands. We need a shipping container (docker) concept for packaging. Consumers are not going to solve this problem as we're easily tricked by greenwashing produced by PR and marketing teams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnJ8mK3Q3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnJ8mK3Q3g
- klyrs 3y ago
  Wow... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody
- sschueller 3y ago
  This is true for the US but I there are good functional recycling concepts that work in Europe and probably even in some places in the US. What I would like to see is a limit on which plastics can be used in packaging which is destined for trash incinerating so that no additives are present that are difficult to filter. Most trash here where I live is incinerated to produce electricity and heat for the surrounding building.
- yMEyUyNE1 3y ago
  Reduce is attacked by advertising and marketing. Reuse is squeezed under social pressure. Recycle (lends itself well for business) is targeted by businesses.
  - sharemywin 3y ago
    The whole global system would collapse under Reduce.
- throwawaymobule 3y ago
  I've seen reused plastic bottles, and even bought and returned one filled with orangeade before. German company, I think. Dead giveaway was the outside looking super scuffed up, and it being thick as hell. Also, it having a deposit added at the checkout.
bensonn 3y ago
Somewhat related- I am often disappointed and surprised at how many new houses are being marketed as "green". 4200 square feet, 3 bed 4 bath, 3 car garage- but it has solar panels, low-flow faucets, and "natural" granite counter tops. New houses and neighborhoods are cookie-cutter to reduce costs. The land is flattened and natural vegetation removed. Three floor plans with tons of windows are repeated, regardless of orientation to the sun. Then concrete roads, lawns, ornamental plants are added. Recycling addresses the symptoms but not the cause. Reducing addresses the cause. There are probably national, regional, and local laws preventing this but why is property taxes not progressive? Ignoring lobbying, is there a legal reason why progressive property taxes can't be created? Is there a region that does this?
ccamrobertson 3y ago
“ the growing waste production catastrophe.” Or maybe waste production isn’t a “catastrophe” and reuse should be dependent on economic rationale rather than virtue signaling.
Spasnof 3y ago
Key takeaway is that people don't consider it ( the three R's) an ordered list in terms of preference. What made this most clear to me was a full list of 5 R's. Refuse > Reduce > Reuse > Recycle Rot
pmlnr 3y ago
It's also missing "repair". It should be reduce, reuse, repair, recycle.

350 points by gsky 3y ago

xnx 3y ago

Recycling is happily promoted and encouraged by corporations because it is the only one of the three that does not reduce consumption. To the corporation, reducing consumption is totally unacceptable.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

gcanyon 3y ago

While consumer efforts are good, it's important to remember and focus on industrial waste, which is a far greater problem: https://stanfordmag.org/contents/industrial-versus-consumer-recycling https://stanfordmag.org/contents/industrial-versus-consumer-...

supazek 3y ago
Okay I’m focused on it
- staunton 3y ago
  ... and then do something about it
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - subroutine 3y ago
    like what? vote or something
themitigating 3y ago
Multiple things can be considered at once
- Y_Y 3y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Some days even a single thing is a challenge. Anyway, at the risk of rehashing a very old argument, OP presumably means that if you want to reduce the effects (landfill, increased consumption of plastics etc) then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts. It's good to reduce any waste but it's rational to apply your finite efforts where they'll give the best return.
  - gcanyon 3y ago
    Yep, exactly this.
  - themitigating 3y ago
    * then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts.* The vast majority of people don't have control over industrial waste. Of course I can vote for someone who says they will but that doesn't require focus only an action at most once a year. I believe the OP is using whataboutism to allow himself to be selfish. "Why recycle when celebrities fly on private jets" or to make it more obvious "Why should I be good if another person isn't"
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      Whataboutism is a bad term. I think of it as the socialist slaveowner problem: "You can't call me a bad socialist, I'll release my slaves when everybody releases their slaves. Compared to world slavery, I'm just a drop in the bucket (I own barely 5% of them.) Actually, your obsession with me instead of the real problem says a lot about you. So convenient for you to ignore the 95% and indulge your petty, childish bigotry against equestrians." There's no ethical consumption under capitalism!
parker_mountain 3y ago
Remembering and focusing intently. Why is nothing getting done about this?
billti 3y ago
Or even the different scales of your own waste. Whenever I'm worrying about which bin to put my coffee stirrer in, I sometimes think about the shear volume of landfill that got hauled from our house when we did a major renovation. I'm sure 10 lifetimes of coffee stirrers wouldn't come close. I think worrying about things like single-use shopping bags and compostable straws is great from a "keep pollution out of the environment" perspective, but I doubt they make a huge difference from a landfill usage perspective.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  America seems determined to do as little recycling as possible for weird culture war reasons, but even in the US construction rubble is fairly widely re-used and recycled: https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-and-demolition-materials https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-... > 600 million tons of C&D debris were generated in the United States in 2018, which is more than twice the amount of generated municipal solid waste. > Demolition represents more than 90 percent of total C&D debris generation, while construction represents less than 10 percent. > Just over 455 million tons of C&D debris were directed to next use and just under 145 million tons were sent to landfills.
pjc50 3y ago
My personal bugbear, and that of quite a few people in the Firth of Forth, is the Mossmorran Flare: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt At one point I estimated that's about a hundred plastic straws worth of ethylene per second. There's not a lot of individual recycling that can be done about that.

henrikschroder 3y ago

Backfired? > While recycling campaigns can help limit what heads to the landfill Oh, backfired in the US. Gotcha. Right. And because it didn't work out in the US, there's absolutely no way that any other country could have this shit figured out, right? Landfills. Jesus.

vore 3y ago
Is incineration really that much better? You’re trading off one kind of pollution for another: toxic emissions and toxic byproducts that still have to be disposed of in some way… One way or another, countries have to deal with non-recyclable, non-compostable waste, and all solutions to it are pretty nasty.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  You get toxic ash for a landfill, if you have a proper smoke treatment, but you could argue that the waste was already toxic before the burning and far less so now since many toxins are destroyed in fire. Also the volume is smaller for the ash.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    The thing is, with incineration you also lose all the raw materials and the energy contained within them, as well as release all the CO2 and other greenhouse gases - not a good thing given that most of the stuff ending up in incinerators is fossil in origin. Landfills at least can be mined in the future when we develop at-scale actual recycling capabilities for plastics (e.g. GMO bacteria/fungi that break down the polymers in the waste into precursors that can be used to create new plastics).
    - uoaei 3y ago
      The thing is, virtually every single incineration plant also generates electricity, typically at smaller scales than dedicated plants to serve smaller regions, but distributed/decentralized generation is a big win for resilience of the grid overall. Also please provide at least one citation where "maybe we'll totally reverse the negative effects of this thing we put into our environment" has been fulfilled. I can only think of failures to live up to that expectation: PFAS, microplastics, oil spills, etc.

defrost 3y ago

The short form (6 paragraphs) futurism 'source' paraphrases the long form work of the primary researchers who discuss their own work first hand at: Decades of public messages about recycling in the US have crowded out more sustainable ways to manage waste https://theconversation.com/decades-of-public-messages-about-recycling-in-the-us-have-crowded-out-more-sustainable-ways-to-manage-waste-208924 https://theconversation.com/decades-of-public-messages-about... In our research on waste behavior, sustainability, engineering design and decision making, we examine what U.S. residents understand about the efficacy of different waste management strategies and which of those strategies they prefer. In two nationwide surveys in the U.S. that we conducted in October 2019 and March 2022, we found that people overlook waste reduction and reuse in favor of recycling. We call this tendency recycling bias and reduction neglect. (21 hours ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36860103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36860103 (6 minutes ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36873964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36873964

yomlica8 3y ago
Isn't this by policy design? Recycling is the only R that doesn't implicitly call for reduced consumption so it is the only one that is pushed. Reduce and reuse will curtail economy activity.
hgsgm 3y ago
I'd love to have a job like that, where I get paid to research and repeat basic facts that have been known for decades.

cik 3y ago

It's important for each of us to do our part. It's even better when we help others do theirs. But, we really need to not lose sight of the fact that the (extreme) majority of pollution is industrial, and private outsized use. It's fun that X airline does carbon offsets. But, at the end of the day that private flight that someone took, his a significantly outsized impact.

cal85 3y ago
> It's important for each of us to do our part. It's even better when we help others do theirs. I challenge these assumptions. I suspect the “everyone must do their part” mentality is at best useless, and perhaps a major blocker, for devising effective techniques and systems to address the wide variety of issues that have been thrown together under the banner of “climate”.
- 542354234235 3y ago
  100% agree. The average consumer shouldn’t have to the think about it at all. There are an insane number of potential problems in the world that need to be solved. Putting the cognitive load on individuals to each do a tiny bit on each individual problem is a stupidly ineffective and inefficient way to do almost anything. Much better to have either change made to how industries operate, or redesign how the system works so that whatever the desired outcome for individuals becomes the easiest and simplest option.

PlunderBunny 3y ago

It really depends on the type of recycling you do. I recycle (after reducing and reusing) obsessively, while also being painfully aware of the problems with recycling. One of the things I recycle are soft plastics [1], which are made into fence posts (among other things) [2]. I recently bought 58 of these posts, and asked the company that makes them to do the maths on how much plastic was diverted. It surprised me - the 58 posts are the equivalent of "17,694 milk bottles and 79,098 bread bags". (These posts are warrantied for 10 years, and are expected to last for 50 years. I don't know what happens at the end of those 50 years). 1. https://www.recycling.kiwi.nz https://www.recycling.kiwi.nz 2. https://www.futurepost.co.nz https://www.futurepost.co.nz

brutusborn 3y ago
This is interesting. After the recent collapse of a recycling company in Australia I was under the impression that soft plastic recycling wasn't economical. Are the posts particularly expensive? Or maybe are the definitions of 'soft plastic' in each case different? https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/redcycle-softplastics-recycling-scheme-collapsed-owing-5-million/news-story/918c7c202339790da52fea4b9ac03424 https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/redcycle-sof...
- bawolff 3y ago
  I imagine there is a rather limited market for fence posts relative to the amount of soft plastic being recycled.
  - PlunderBunny 3y ago
    Depends on how many old wooden posts you have - in a country like New Zealand, there's a lot. Several years ago, they (the soft-plastic recycling company) did get too much plastic at one point, and had to pause collection for several months while they sorted out new suppliers, and found new uses for the product. I think they have now exceeded the original amount being collected, but they roll out new collection areas cautiously to ensure supply matches demand. It helps that we're progressively banning some types of soft plastic too (e.g. shopping bags are already gone).

Animats 3y ago

"In a series of experiments, the UV researchers first asked participants first to list "reduce," "reuse," and "recycle" by order of efficacy — the correct answer being the same one in the old slogan — finding that a whopping 78 percent got it wrong. In a second experiment, the researchers had participants use a computer program to virtually "sort" waste into recycling, compost, and landfill bins. Unfortunately, the outcome of that survey was even more stark, with many incorrectly putting non-recyclable waste, such as plastic bags and lightbulbs, into the virtual recycle bin." That doesn't mean that recycling has "backfired". It just means that it's not occupying much consumer attention. Which it shouldn't. It's not about virtue signaling. It's about bulk materials handling. As I pointed out the last time this came up on HN, the machinery that sorts recyclables today does a far better job than humans. It's not even clear that it's even worth having people sort out trash from recyclables. Here's a plant that takes in ordinary trash and sorts it.[1] About 25% goes to the landfill, the rest is recycled. San Jose has two such plants. Total capacity over 200 tons per hour. This problem is routinely being solved by mostly boring but useful heavy machinery. The non-serious players talk about "green" and "eco" and want "awareness". The serious players in recycling talk about tons per hour. Modern recycling plans aren't that big. The one that does all of San Francisco is about the size of a Target store. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUCHnAzlgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUCHnAzlgw

winrid 3y ago
It's also the fact that the recycling systems are still behind consumer expectations. Many would look at a plastic bag and expect that it could be broken down and reused, or that the glass in a lightbulb could be recovered. If we cared more about reuse than cost, we would. Hopefully sorting machines will continue to improve and be able to sort out bags without getting clogged all the time. I agree it hasn't "backfired" in any way.
- runsWphotons 3y ago
  had no idea you cant recycle plastic bags. really? why not?
  - 3y ago

secretsatan 3y ago

I do seem to have more plastic waste now then 10 years ago in my food shopping, one I find particularly annoying is what used to be loose fruit and veg is now packaged in set portions, which seems to double the waste, not only do I have to buy more than I need and have to throw some away (to the compost disposal), but they seem to use even more packaging

gampleman 3y ago
So I read somewhere that apparently packaging can greatly increase the shelf life of the produce and so the overall waste is actually reduced by using packaging.
- modo_mario 3y ago
  Waste for the seller and potentialy consumer no? I'd argue the plastic wrap is more of a long term issue than the cucumber.
  - gampleman 3y ago
    As far as I understood from a pollution perspective yes. But not from a carbon perspective. Farming, shipping, selling, etc. a cucumber to a consumer produces far more CO2 than a small piece of plastic wholesaled to a producer. So if you can reduce the waste, you need fewer cucumbers and apparently this adds up to a carbon reduction overall. Of course I think this shows the limits of the kind of thinking that reduces all environmental impact to just a single metric like carbon emissions.
    - gampleman 3y ago
      See for instance this paper: > In light of increasing public pressure, retailers strive to remove plastic packaging as much as possible from fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the environmental impacts along their supply chains. Plastic packaging, however, also has an important protective function, similar to the fruit's peel. For cucumbers transported from Spain and sold in Switzerland, our investigations in the form of a life cycle assessment study showed that the plastic wrapping has a rather low environmental impact (only about 1%) in comparison to the total environmental impacts of the fruit from grower to grocer. Hence, each cucumber that has to be thrown away has the equivalent environmental impact of 93 plastic cucumber wraps. We found that plastic wrapping protects the environment more by saving more cucumbers from spoilage than it harms the environment by the additional use of plastic. If, by using the plastic wrap, we reduce cucumber losses at retail even by only 1.1%, its use has already a net environmental benefit. Currently, in the cucumber import supply chain from Spain to Switzerland, the use of plastic wrapping lowers the cucumber losses at retail by an estimated 4.8%; therefore, it makes sense to use it from an environmental perspective. The environmental benefit of food waste reduction due to plastic wrapping the cucumbers was found to be 4.9 times higher than the negative environmental impact due to the packaging itself. Alternative strategies to preserve fresh cucumbers without using plastic wrapping will have to compete with this challenging limit. https://www.empa.ch/documents/56164/19450914/2021.07.29_Cucumber+packaging+LCA_Preprint_V1.pdf/44baa51d-e218-4c85-a970-03d6e6edc86e#:~:text=The%20supply%20chain%20of%20cucumbers%20without%20plastic%20wrap%20has%20an,is%20used%2C%20namely%204.6%25 https://www.empa.ch/documents/56164/19450914/2021.07.29_Cucu....

xeyownt 3y ago

What is this even saying? I saw nothing mentioned that was backfiring, even less so spectacularly.

hnbad 3y ago
Did you read past the headline? "Reduce, reuse, recycle" means "avoid buying more things, use the things you already have and recycle instead of throwing away". The inclusion of "recycle" led to a hyperfocus on that last, least effective, part of the guidance at the cost of the other two. It backfired by making consumers think they're doing their part by buying products that include recycled materials or throwing their trash in the recycling bin, rather than simply buying less or not buying things or buying things that last longer and continuing to use them. Of course this isn't on the consumers but the producers. The article explicitly says the focus on reycling hasn't helped reduce overproduction, which isn't a surprise as the economy grows by producing (and selling) and recycling is orthogonal to that whereas reducing/reusing runs counter to it.

kristiandupont 3y ago

I am not sure if this is supposed to be an exception, but looking at the authors other articles, it seems like they are satire or comedy of some sort: https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai

ki_ 3y ago

horrible article, title is super clickbait and totally not what the article represents. There is no backfire and all it says is that some people dont know what can or cannot be recycled...

pyrale 3y ago

Considering recycling is mostly promoted by consumer brands to avoid acting on their own end (for instance, by setting up deposit schemes to reuse parts), it's not very surprising that recycling is not really successful.

photochemsyn 3y ago

Corporations whose profit margins rely on continuation of current patterns of consumption say any deviation from this program is unwise.

dgan 3y ago

IMHO, asking end consumer to "correctly sort" the trash is a non-scalable, non-solution. First of all, packaging isn't even standardised: you need to assume all the information about materials used to be available to end consumer, and the consumer must follow the guidelines to separate them. If packaging were standardised (with a limited number of options, not like two hundreds different things) it would be much much simpler and more efficient. Plus, even in France (just example), sorting instructions vary from town to town, which makes everything even more complicated But even in the case above where everything is as simple and efficient as possible, and end consumers are 100% benevolent, why would you want to rely on N millions agents, each making some mistakes, when you could rely on a couple (of dozens) sorting plants, with professionals paid to do just that ? For me it's just blaming and punishing the weak (end consumer) , because coward and mediocre politicians don't want to tackle the strong (industry)

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Ironically, it was the trash handling companies that complained when the county introduced separating plastic from other general waste, because they had just invested in new machinery that could do it. And they have to keep that machinery and staff because not everyone will separate their waste properly. But even then, what's the point? The separated plastic is bundled up and... then what? Exported or sold to the highest bidder, who will do whatever with it. Some is recycled / reused performatively, but I'm sure a lot is just put in landfill or burned. See I don't even mind so much that plastic can't be reused as well yet, but it has to be stored responsibly. Landfill, concrete / impermiable basin, neatly stack the compressed plastic bales there, cover it up, and just forget about it until it can be "mined" again as a resource. Else, it'll just sit there and (naively of me, I know), be inert and harmless until it won't matter anymore.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Why would the companies complain if they still had to use their machinery? They didn't buy it in vain; the only difference is consumers waste a tiny bit more of their time.

andrewstuart 3y ago

Landfill is demonized. And yet for plastic waste it’s the best destination. Our society is obsessed with “keeping plastic out of landfill”. Why? Are we running out of landfill? No. We’re so obsessed with keeping plastic out of landfill that we come up with ideas like putting waste plastic into roads. Sounds great doesn’t it? Until you realize cars and trucks drive in those roads, grind them down. Grind out the plastic into microplastic as that go into air water soil food animals people. But hey, the important thing is the plastic was kept out of landfill, right?

pjc50 3y ago
> Are we running out of landfill? No Varies by country.
- andrewstuart 3y ago
  You should put it in roads.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  Then the free market will solve that problem too: those who have excess land will take the stuff of our hands for a small fee. Put it into old coal mines as an example.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. Libertarians in the US have been landfill stans for decades because they are funded by the people who provide the inputs for non-recycled plastics, namely fossil fuels. The only thing they hate more than recycling is single use plastic bans, again because that means less fossil fuel sales. Ironically, their anti-recycling propaganda has been so successful that people have just started supporting outright bans. And now they have to embarrassingly suggest that bans are unnecessary because single use plastics can be recycled instead.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > Landfill isn't demonised. It just happens to be the worst option for most stuff. This would be what to expand on. Without this, you have no foundation for the rest of your comment. I'll happily listen to why landfills are bad, I don't care about a bunch of motives and associations that rely on your audience already agreeing with you that landfills are bad to have any relevance. That's how propaganda works. It often leads by assuming the question, skips right past it into invective and speculation about the opponents' evil motives and associations; then when the audience asks about the question you skipped, it turns to speculation about the audience's evil motives and associations. Landfill isn't demonized, it's just bad! I'm not going to tell you why, though, I'm going to talk about the character of the people who disagree with me.

andrewstuart 3y ago

Recycling plastic is a pile of garbage.

pimpampum 3y ago

Recycling was pushed forward by companies so they wouldn't have to cut down on plastic. It's like carbon credits for oil companies.

scotty79 3y ago

Plastic manufacturers should be taxed on their output. Let's start with 50% of their sales price and see how it goes.

jmclnx 3y ago
I agree with this, and surprised no one brought up how hard it is to recycle plastic. By hard I mean the cost in money and energy, thus more CO2. It is time to eliminate plastic containers and force the use of containers that are easy to recycle, glass and paper. Yes that will be a pain, but I remember when everything came in glass and paper. People were able to deal wit it, but that was in a day when you bought things at ma and pa stores. It is all the large companies that push plastics, it moves the cost from them to someone else.

wunderland 3y ago

We’re staring the obvious in the face for decades: overconsumption is unsustainable. But our entire economy is based off this wasteful mode of production, so we’re sold lies and happily latch onto fantasies to convince us that we can somehow overcome the negative externalities of profit maximization. As long as there are economic incentives to create trash, we will fill the oceans with garbage. I used to believe that we could solve this with “market solutions” which incorporate the true environmental cost of wasteful production, but this is just another fantasy. Even if the real cost of pollution could be known, there is no profit incentive to enact such a scheme. We’ve got about 20 more years of maximizing shareholder value before we run off an ecological cliff.

taylodl 3y ago
People are going to learn the hard way that The Market they've been worshipping is a false idol. Don't get me wrong - I advocate for a regulated market economy, but the key point is "regulated." We have 200-300 years of experience now showing the kinds of problems vaunted market is unable to solve.
- drc500free 3y ago
  Agreed. Until you get rid of the ability to just take someone else's stuff by force or fraud, there isn't oxygen for actual productive and creative work to flourish in the market. A "pure" free market doesn't ensure the positive feedback cycle that re-invests value back into the people and processes who created it. Instead, people are free to use their accumulated power to take value that others create.
ip26 3y ago
As much as I would prefer to believe otherwise, the only way to completely eliminate trash is with a gigantic step-function increase in energy usage. Lowering consumption won’t do it alone.

darkclouds 3y ago

I dont think there is a perfect solution, be it heavy machinery or human sorting at the waste depot, or human sorting at the home, but a KISS approach tends to help. Barcode backgrounds. Red for waste Green for recycle. Different background patterns to represent the different elements of packaging which can be recycled. Bottle with no outer wrapper. Two elements, top half of barcode background represents bottle top. Bottom half represents the bottle. ---------------- | RED | ---------------- | GREEN | ---------------- Bottle with an outer wrapper. -------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | BOTTLE TOP | | | -------------- | | | BOTTLE | | | -------------- | | WRAPPER | --------------------- Plastic trays ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | | | | | TRAY | | | | | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Tray with food sauces contain in plastic ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | TRAY | | | | ------- | | | | |SAUCE| | | | | ------- | | | | TRAY | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Glossy Magazines ---------------------- | COVER | | ------------- | | | | | | | INNARDS | | | | | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Bottle no plastic label plastic wrapped Multi packs ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | TOP | | | | ------- | | | | BOTTLE | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Bottle with plastic label plastic wrapped Multi packs --------------------------- | WRAPPER | | ----------------- | | | LABEL | | | | ---------| | | | | | TOP | | | | | ---------- | | | | | BOTTLE | | | | | ---------- | | | | LABEL | | | ----------------- | | WRAPPER | -------------------------- Basically the principle of working from the out in and where there are joins like bottle tops they get split in half. Dont know if the Red and Green would affect barcodes and colour blind people much though. Or a phone app where every barcode scanned shows what can and cant be recycled on the product, maybe organised through a trade body of sorts. I think the barcode background is wasted though. Edit. The ascii art hasnt come out well on here but hopefully the gist can be understood.

pharmakom 3y ago

Is this not inevitable? No corporation is going to push Reduce and Reuse over Recycle. It’s incompatible with growth (in a narrow sense).

_8j50 3y ago

At the grocery store today, I can get soft drinks in a glass bottle as well as in cans and plastic, I can get forzen food in paper based containers as well as plastic, I can get pringles in a cardboard tune bit lays stax is in plastic, I go out of my way to buy things in cans instead of plastic, delivery food arrived in cardboard containers sometimes but most of the time it comes in styroform inside plastic bags, I use a water filter instead of buying plasic bottles and I can buy metal forks, spoons and straws for at least around a dollar a piece which is not a big addition to any delivery order. Not too long ago, a world existed without plastic and styrofoam all over just fine. Electronics can be stored in glasses or metal enclosed cardboard (and it would look cooler!). I don't really care that much about recycling and I am doing all this now. I mostly refuse to recycle after finding out most places here just mix them up anyways and throw them in landfills. But my more important reasoning is that similar to "carbon footprint" this is a government problem not a consumer problem. Producers can use expensive products but if only a few do it in a few states then it is too costly for the producer and prices will increase. But if the government bans and regulates material usage then although material costs increase, so long as producers have a profit margin and competition the consumer will not see too much of a price increase. But even in competition and fighting price gouging governments are sucking big time. There is no reason every chip isn't in cardboard because pringles can turn a profit just fine and soda makers already have glass stored products for quite some time so they have no excuse. An argument I've heard is the other materials are hard to make at scale, but I already see them at scale. Even apple from what I hear has eliminated all but 4% plastic from their iPhones (not sure what the material is now). I am convinced that just like governments can solve climate change with nuclear power, water centric infra buildout and reducing cars (not replacing with evs), so can they solve waste that isn't degradable. I have said it before, the root cause in my opinion is the US needs constitutional reform and the rest of the world will catch on, even China will if their export economy depended on it.

brewdad 3y ago
I mostly recycle because my town charges more for a larger garbage can but gives you a huge recycle bin for free. I could even request a second giant recycle bin, twice the size of my trash bin, for free if I somehow needed it. Even if it all ends up in the landfill (I try to follow their guidelines to avoid this), recycling saves me money every month.

pabs3 3y ago

I feel like recycling solves the problem at the wrong end of the material pipeline. Why do we buy so much single-use packaging, so many things that are unrepairable, too costly to repair, hard to disassemble, or that have externalities that were not solved before the product went to market? Require anyone who sells a new physical product have to accept returns of that physical product at the end of its lifetime. Don't throw out food packaging, return it to the supermarket. Don't throw out a dead TV, return it to the electronics store. Stores will send those dead products back upstream. Companies will quickly figure out how to make products that are reusable, repairable, disassemblable and recyclable.

veave 3y ago
>Why do we buy so much single-use packaging, so many things that are unrepairable, too costly to repair, hard to disassemble, or that have externalities that were not solved before the product went to market? Because it's easier, cheaper and better? >Require anyone who sells a new physical product have to accept returns of that physical product at the end of its lifetime. That will translate into even more expensive products for consumers. Thanks but no thanks.
- c22 3y ago
  It's cheapest for consumers not to pay for trash pickup at all but instead to just dump their refuse in the nearest gully.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  > Because it's easier, cheaper and better? Cheaper to whom? Better to whom? > That will translate into even more expensive products for consumers. You know what's even more expensive for consumers in the long run? But of course you don't think in the long run. Or anybody else than yourself. Or anything at all, really. I'm sorry that people like you exist. So blinded by cheap bling. One generation of wealthy Western people filling their homes with crap because it's "cheap" and "easy", blissfully unaware or unwilling to think about the very real external costs borne by other people somewhere else. Or somewhen else for that matter – so incredibly selfish that you're entirely willing to make the world worse for your children and their children, just in order to enjoy limitless consumerism for a few decades. Feeling good about that?

omgmajk 3y ago

> Unfortunately, the outcome of that survey was even more stark, with many incorrectly putting non-recyclable waste, such as plastic bags and lightbulbs, into the virtual recycle bin. In some countries there are recycle bins for this, where was this study conducted?

slantaclaus 3y ago

This is exactly what I thought the article would be talking about--people not knowing what is recyclable in the first place.

rednerrus 3y ago

We could make a huge dent in this problem by simply reusing glass containers for things that are appropriate. Start with beer and soda. Move on to canned beans, soup, etc. Setup programs to make returning the containers easy. We use 80,000,000,000 aluminum cans, 35,000,000,000 plastic bottles, and 16,000,000,000 glass bottles a year in the US.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
Indeed, the energy cost of machine-washing glass bottles is surely an order of magnitude less than that of recycling the broken glass into new bottles. However, I don't think you can replicate that with aluminium cans. They preserve their contents better than glass bottles do, so glass bottles can't necessarily replace them. The seal of aluminium cans also breaks when they're opened, so you can't directly wash and reuse the cans.
- genman 3y ago
  I have seen aluminum bottles (for beer). Heavier than cans but lighter than glass.
callalex 3y ago
We could streamline this process and increase participation by having local governments provide a bin that they collect in a big truck every week…

ldehaan 3y ago

[dead]

JohnFen 3y ago

Yes. I remember being taught in grade school that "reduce, reuse, recycle" is the order of importance. Reducing consumption is the most important thing. Keeping existing things in use is next up. Recycling is the worst of the three options -- it's just better than the landfill.

grecy 3y ago
Another way to say it - "Of the things you should be doing, recycling is the worst".

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

DIY is one of the best ways to reduce conspicuous consumption and consumerism. Learn skills to make what you need rather than buying it. Learn to reuse materials as part of that process, and repair things back into working order. My favorite example of this is IKEA wood bed frames. I used to cruise around cities just picking up truckloads of perfectly good solid wood that people left on the street, and then would have endless supplies for building. I've built raised garden beds, new custom bed frames, awnings for porches, bird feeders and houses, tables, stools, shelves, and more, just from junk left on curbs. One time I found a pretty much fully functional sewing machine on the curb. That's when I learned how to sew, and have since repaired jeans, shirts, socks, and made little tote sacks as gifts out of old clothes. Once you learn a DIY skill it serves you for the rest of your life, saves you money, and helps the environment.

klipt 3y ago
That's great if it's your hobby but if I value my time at my current wage, darning socks is incredibly more expensive than just buying a pack of new ones. You just can't beat the efficiency of factory machines.
- shadowfoxx 3y ago
  My only problem with this logic is that you and I both know you aren't getting paid for the time you spend not at your job and that you don't spend all of your time in pursuit of work. I don't mean, "You don't get paid to brush your teeth" (But I am willing to bet you don't consider your hourly rate when you do an activity you are interested in or hanging out with your friends) but that you don't completely fill your day with money making activities. I think the logic here reframes the 'blame' off of you and onto something external. But its perfectly okay to say that the benefits the previous poster mentioned aren't worth more to you than the convenience + quality of just buying a new pair of socks. Because the truth of it is that darning your own socks costs almost nothing.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  I don't darn socks, I just sew the hole shut when one starts to form. You value your time? The next time you sit down to watch a TV show, pull out your travel sewing kit and the sock and sew as you watch. You'll be done way before the end of the episode, and you'll have gained value, not lost it.

pluto_modadic 3y ago

we should be emphasizing "regulate"-ing plastics and industrial waste. Or "replacing" whole entire commercial pipelines. "regulate, replace, revolution".

ggm 3y ago

Reduce is deflationary. And, atagonistic to profit so no entity driven to profit (sell) is going to emphasise it. Rationing is not held in high regard even when its socially useful. Those "only 2 rolls of toilet paper" signs come to mind, and how people acted and felt when told to be reasonable. Reuse is expensive to implement because it bigs up the cost of packaging to make it capable of reuse, demands reuse collection, and processes. Or, shifts in sales to allow bulk -> own-container which does exist, but it has all kinds of little niggly problems. It's still the least-worst option (after reduce) but it does not always appeal. Manufacturers at scale struggle with accepting full life cost of re-use, milk bottles aside. The old school distribution and dairy coop model worked well and maybe we should stop driving to least cost, and re-explore locavore for packaged goods? Recycle is broken. everyone knows this. It was broken at birth because under the sheets a lot of recycling was bad, dirty, polluting externality to poor nations but unwinding recycling is also broken because again least-cost wins hard. I still support the triad, the order is right. Its just harder than people think and I believe (perhaps wrongly) corporates have exploited the guilt elements in recycle to avoid reduce/reuse costs they'd wear as impacts to profit. TL;DR yes. the article is right.

exabrial 3y ago

It's "recycle"able is the easiest way for a company to greenwash their products though, while absolutely making 0 actual environmental impact. It sells well and consumers buy it up.

10g1k 3y ago

Tip: All matter, 100% of it, every last molecule, is biodegradable. The only differences are the time it takes, and the damage caused to other things while it degrades. From this you can figure out that the recycling industry operates by calculating what it can recycle or safely degrade for a profit, and where it draws the line for "too hard, not profitable".

user6723 3y ago

I put a month's worth of trash in a pile, pour kerosene on it, and burn it. Local codes are cool with it. Feels good man.

systems_glitch 3y ago

Can you trust an article where they refer to the University of Virginia as UV and not UVA?

1letterunixname 3y ago

I remember when curbside recycling was implemented in the mid 80's in the San Jose area. 3 plastic recycling stacking crates: yellow, lime, and green colored. Recycling was, and is, a scam by the plastics industry to encourage consumption and shift the responsibility from producers and the waste stream onto consumers. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/plastics-industry-insiders-reveal-the-truth-about-recycling/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/plastics-industry...

andersrs 3y ago

Recycling is a meme created by corporations that benefit from filling the planet with junk. That little numbered recycling triangle on every plastic bottle - public relations stunt. They even made a TV advert featuring an Italian actor as American Indian shedding a tear. Decades ago glass bottles used to be taken back to the factory, washed and reused. These days every package is a unique shape because of marketing ensuring each package is incompatible with other brands. We need a shipping container (docker) concept for packaging. Consumers are not going to solve this problem as we're easily tricked by greenwashing produced by PR and marketing teams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnJ8mK3Q3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnJ8mK3Q3g

klyrs 3y ago
Wow... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody
sschueller 3y ago
This is true for the US but I there are good functional recycling concepts that work in Europe and probably even in some places in the US. What I would like to see is a limit on which plastics can be used in packaging which is destined for trash incinerating so that no additives are present that are difficult to filter. Most trash here where I live is incinerated to produce electricity and heat for the surrounding building.
yMEyUyNE1 3y ago
Reduce is attacked by advertising and marketing. Reuse is squeezed under social pressure. Recycle (lends itself well for business) is targeted by businesses.
- sharemywin 3y ago
  The whole global system would collapse under Reduce.
throwawaymobule 3y ago
I've seen reused plastic bottles, and even bought and returned one filled with orangeade before. German company, I think. Dead giveaway was the outside looking super scuffed up, and it being thick as hell. Also, it having a deposit added at the checkout.

bensonn 3y ago

Somewhat related- I am often disappointed and surprised at how many new houses are being marketed as "green". 4200 square feet, 3 bed 4 bath, 3 car garage- but it has solar panels, low-flow faucets, and "natural" granite counter tops. New houses and neighborhoods are cookie-cutter to reduce costs. The land is flattened and natural vegetation removed. Three floor plans with tons of windows are repeated, regardless of orientation to the sun. Then concrete roads, lawns, ornamental plants are added. Recycling addresses the symptoms but not the cause. Reducing addresses the cause. There are probably national, regional, and local laws preventing this but why is property taxes not progressive? Ignoring lobbying, is there a legal reason why progressive property taxes can't be created? Is there a region that does this?

ccamrobertson 3y ago

“ the growing waste production catastrophe.” Or maybe waste production isn’t a “catastrophe” and reuse should be dependent on economic rationale rather than virtue signaling.

Spasnof 3y ago

Key takeaway is that people don't consider it ( the three R's) an ordered list in terms of preference. What made this most clear to me was a full list of 5 R's. Refuse > Reduce > Reuse > Recycle Rot

pmlnr 3y ago

It's also missing "repair". It should be reduce, reuse, repair, recycle.