3 ms·

I've become more and more cynical about the incentives involved in recycling. There's not much transparency regarding what happens to to the various types of

I've become more and more cynical about the incentives involved in recycling. There's not much transparency regarding what happens to to the various types of materials we all collect, sort and "recycle". Localities and countries compete to claim that they "recycle XX% of XYZ" but no-one's actually looking at what happens to the containers of XYZ once they're taken away from your recycling point. "The European Union’s decision to ban exports of plastic waste in and outside Europe is threatening to collapse the market for the collection and recycling of plastic packaging"[0] Although in this case banning exports of plastic waste might actually be the right thing to do, you do wonder* what was happening to all that plastic waste that was "recycled" over the decades. [0] https://www.euractiv.com/section/circular-materials/news/recycling-market-in-europe-faces-collapse-after-eu-waste-export-ban/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/circular-materials/news/rec... * Spoiler: much of it wasn't recycled at all...

alienicecream 3y ago
In my county they banned the collection of any recycling that was bagged. So if you put your recycling in a bag to contain it, the garbage man won't pick it up. So now what happens is everyone puts their recycling loose in a blue bin and the wind blows all the bins over and scatters the recycling all over the neighborhood and eventually into the nearby ponds and ravines. If you complain about the policy they tell you that it's because the recycling plant can't deal with the bags, it clogs up their machines. So in an age of automated assembly plants and advanced robotics the entire county here is at the mercy of a recycling plant that can't obtain a machine that can cut a bag open. It just goes to show what a farce the whole program is. Now they're talking about making the rules even more restrictive, like using clear garbage bags so people won't put recycling in the garbage, even though that is going to increase the trash accumulating in the environment. It's a bureaucratic box-ticking and back-patting scheme.
- logifail 3y ago
  > If you complain about the policy they tell you that it's because the recycling plant can't deal with the bags, it clogs up their machines[...] Machines?! Most press photos that show the inside of plastic recycling sorting plants show a surprising number of Mk I human beings standing at a conveyor belt helping sort out the, err, rubbish.
  - alienicecream 3y ago
    Yeah, they could just hire some people for minimum wage to do it, but apparently that's too much to ask too, they would rather focus on vanity measures that will make things worse for the environment and more difficult for people to comply with, but will look good in a press release. This is the natural product of environmentalism and bureaucracy.

alienicecream 3y ago

In my county they banned the collection of any recycling that was bagged. So if you put your recycling in a bag to contain it, the garbage man won't pick it up. So now what happens is everyone puts their recycling loose in a blue bin and the wind blows all the bins over and scatters the recycling all over the neighborhood and eventually into the nearby ponds and ravines. If you complain about the policy they tell you that it's because the recycling plant can't deal with the bags, it clogs up their machines. So in an age of automated assembly plants and advanced robotics the entire county here is at the mercy of a recycling plant that can't obtain a machine that can cut a bag open. It just goes to show what a farce the whole program is. Now they're talking about making the rules even more restrictive, like using clear garbage bags so people won't put recycling in the garbage, even though that is going to increase the trash accumulating in the environment. It's a bureaucratic box-ticking and back-patting scheme.

logifail 3y ago
> If you complain about the policy they tell you that it's because the recycling plant can't deal with the bags, it clogs up their machines[...] Machines?! Most press photos that show the inside of plastic recycling sorting plants show a surprising number of Mk I human beings standing at a conveyor belt helping sort out the, err, rubbish.
- alienicecream 3y ago
  Yeah, they could just hire some people for minimum wage to do it, but apparently that's too much to ask too, they would rather focus on vanity measures that will make things worse for the environment and more difficult for people to comply with, but will look good in a press release. This is the natural product of environmentalism and bureaucracy.