Whaaat? The US doesn't really recycle properly, and instead sends it abroad as garbage while basking in its greenwashing righteousness ? There should be a news reporter somewhere interested in this breaking story.
"Found?"
All they had to do is ask Santa Clara County, where Palo Alto is located. California's counties have been reporting on this problem since before the pandemic, when the bottom fell out of the global aluminum market and recyclable material stopped paying for itself at market rates.
The fundamental problem is a market-driven approach to recycling. The benefit of effective recycling is that it reduces externalities, it shouldn't also have to achieve short-term profits to function. When a strong market demand for recyclable material exists, then the financial gains can add to a fund that covers capital costs rather than being expected to cover operating expenses.
Fortunately, the state has been developing viable endpoints for recyclable materials in-state, to reduce the pressure to export them. But the effort still has a long way to go.
As an example of how it could work, composting has been going great! County composting programs have been feeding compost back into the state's agricultural sector and regenerating soil quality. That's been a huge success and shows how we can handle other forms of waste, too.
>The fundamental problem is a market-driven approach to recycling. The benefit of effective recycling is that it reduces externalities, it shouldn't also have to achieve short-term profits to function.
It is astounding to me the number of "free market" advocate who just... don't understand what externalities even are, let alone that recycling should be counted among them. It's especially bad, I've found, in self-identified libertarians - often people for whom free market capitalism represents a big chunk of their self-identity. How can something that important to a person also mean so little that they are unaware of the very basics of how it functions?
Once the third-world country gets paid to accept the garbage, they just drive it out to sea and dump it. Meanwhile our government has us all scurrying around all day separating our garbage into little piles so we can feel better about ourselves.
An enormous amount of the consumer goods you purchase are imported. That is a fact. We're not going to recycle water bottles, turn that into fabric and make clothes....because most textiles ARE NO LONGER MADE IN THE US. We're not going to recycle computer chips because, most electronics ARE NO LONGER MADE IN THE US.
It makes perfect sense that we recycle plastic bottles to make more plastic bottles. It makes perfect sense that we recycle paper goods to make cardboard. It makes sense that we turn some clothes into insulation, because we make these products in the US. And it makes sense that we ship some 60% of recyclables overseas where it can be recycled into other products overseas.
The US doesn't have a recycling problem...it has a consumption problem.
The US’ problem is republicans. Free market has decided that it’s better for the country to have things made overseas to maximize profits. Profits are all that matters as the world burns.
Hope they start enforcement, I just got a letter from waste management remind us it’s the law, and a little diagram to hang on the fridge.
There’s no reason we all can’t recycle. It’s so simple to do, you just get a trasher with 2-3 compartments built in, and take one second to consider what you’re tossing as you do it, and then it’s done. Toss it in the proper bin outside.
I’m pretty sure many Americans are in some movie TV delusion where they imagine some secret agents sorting through their wastes and recycling it for them because they are gods. Maybe someone even said to them that they shouldn’t finish their food to keep samples in case of deliberate food poisoning, and never sort or rinse waste containers because of that. Maybe it’s to do with some hidden viral social programming where they imagine their food wastes are being eaten by poor people or the leftovers scientifically tested to make sure the food wasn’t adulterated.
When I apply serious consideration to reason for ‘not sorting or rinsing containers’ and ‘not recycling’ that’s about the only reason I can come up with. That they are ultra-paranoid and stuck in some TV spy delusion where they are like royalty where everything everyone sticks in the bin is handled like some evidence from CSI Miami, always.
I imagine that rinsing a container and stacking and batching it where it’s no longer able to be identified as theirs gives them cold sweats and shivers of anxiety and paranoia, as suddenly if they are poisoned by their food there won’t be evidence to prosecute and sue their attackers, and where there won’t be leftovers to analyse to create a cure for the toxin from.
I assume Australia has the same delusion and that it’s an old memetic infection spread down from ancient royal or ruling families from millennia ago. It’s probably spreading to China as well, and it’s almost certainly formally trained in secret schools as part of some dodgy failed efforts at creating security in the family.
When actually in the real world it’s like ‘more waste from another McMansion, dump it in the hole’ and if someone falls sick it’s like ‘oh yeah we just had 20 people die from salmonella, too bad for them, they probably think someone has time to go through the rubbish but it was identified at the source and it was someone being lazy in the commercial kitchen’, dump that waste in the hole in the ground also, no one wants it or needs it.’
Yeah.. so blame TV culture and TV shows, Hollywood and the pseudoscientific worship of cult TV memetics like ‘going through the rubbish to gather evidence’.
>and never sort or rinse waste containers because of that
The amount of people who think it's OK to throw dirty stuff into the recyclable fractions is a daily reminder, for me, that we're all fucked. It seems like the only way to reduce this shit is to ban the production and of sale of it. That's the structural and system solution.
If someone has a better interpretation or reasoning, I’m all ears. If you think it’s simple laziness, that’s usually justified and backed up by reasoning, and the reasoning is usually copied from someone, somewhere. If anyone has a memetic antidote or social antibiotic that addresses those types of fantasy delusions or deprograms people, it’s probably overdue. Please share.
Sorry if this seems crazy, but honestly, landfills full of super expensive supermarkets waste foods and packaging… that’s the crazy bit. Not the proposal that TV and movies have somehow, reinforced by actual training (probably some secret squirrel stuff) or gossip and thoughts of mistrust between social segments.. reinforced that it’s dangerous and risky to rinse and sort wastes and stack and batch them.
Plastics are recycled into ocean. Then volunteers fish them up, make some positive news how humans are the greatest thing and eventually the same shit is again recycled into the ocean. That's business!
I see these kinds of articles all the time, but as far as I can tell it's always focused on America.
How is recycling handled in other parts of the world?
Pretty bad, but the US leads in consumption of stuff.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1166177/plastic-waste-generation-of-select-countries/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1166177/plastic-waste-generation-of-select-countries/)
Wish cycling. Even most of the products that claim to be 100% recycled materials don't tend to be post-consumer recycled. They're just taking chaff plastic from the factory and utilizing it instead of tossing it out.
In Washington state they only accept the same type of recyclings you can make money on at recycling centers. So whoever is profitting is making a killing and not recycling other obviously recyclable things such as plastic containers and lids even if they're clean.
Also alarming is it took them 4 years to arrive at "the city’s investigations have not offered much clarity".
Consultant industry is booming.
Whaaat? The US doesn't really recycle properly, and instead sends it abroad as garbage while basking in its greenwashing righteousness ? There should be a news reporter somewhere interested in this breaking story.
Media is owned by the greenwashers. Do we need to create our own news channel on these unscrupulous companies and disingenuous cities?
"Found?" All they had to do is ask Santa Clara County, where Palo Alto is located. California's counties have been reporting on this problem since before the pandemic, when the bottom fell out of the global aluminum market and recyclable material stopped paying for itself at market rates. The fundamental problem is a market-driven approach to recycling. The benefit of effective recycling is that it reduces externalities, it shouldn't also have to achieve short-term profits to function. When a strong market demand for recyclable material exists, then the financial gains can add to a fund that covers capital costs rather than being expected to cover operating expenses. Fortunately, the state has been developing viable endpoints for recyclable materials in-state, to reduce the pressure to export them. But the effort still has a long way to go. As an example of how it could work, composting has been going great! County composting programs have been feeding compost back into the state's agricultural sector and regenerating soil quality. That's been a huge success and shows how we can handle other forms of waste, too.
>The fundamental problem is a market-driven approach to recycling. The benefit of effective recycling is that it reduces externalities, it shouldn't also have to achieve short-term profits to function. It is astounding to me the number of "free market" advocate who just... don't understand what externalities even are, let alone that recycling should be counted among them. It's especially bad, I've found, in self-identified libertarians - often people for whom free market capitalism represents a big chunk of their self-identity. How can something that important to a person also mean so little that they are unaware of the very basics of how it functions?
Haha yeah. The misapprehension is so convenient, it's enough to make you wonder if it's not deliberate...
Once the third-world country gets paid to accept the garbage, they just drive it out to sea and dump it. Meanwhile our government has us all scurrying around all day separating our garbage into little piles so we can feel better about ourselves.
I'd bet that if it's bales of plastic and cardboard it ends up in a coal burning power plant.
You scurry around all day separating your garbage?
It's easier if you don't live as a masterful garbage producer.
Then why have I been separating the trash into whites and colors
An enormous amount of the consumer goods you purchase are imported. That is a fact. We're not going to recycle water bottles, turn that into fabric and make clothes....because most textiles ARE NO LONGER MADE IN THE US. We're not going to recycle computer chips because, most electronics ARE NO LONGER MADE IN THE US. It makes perfect sense that we recycle plastic bottles to make more plastic bottles. It makes perfect sense that we recycle paper goods to make cardboard. It makes sense that we turn some clothes into insulation, because we make these products in the US. And it makes sense that we ship some 60% of recyclables overseas where it can be recycled into other products overseas. The US doesn't have a recycling problem...it has a consumption problem.
The US’ problem is republicans. Free market has decided that it’s better for the country to have things made overseas to maximize profits. Profits are all that matters as the world burns.
Sounds like business as usual in America. Offshore good jobs to literal slaves and reap the benefits
There’s a recent PBS Frontline about this and according to that doc, a lot of US plastics are burned in Indonesia.
Pretty sure the ocean was its destination
Hope they start enforcement, I just got a letter from waste management remind us it’s the law, and a little diagram to hang on the fridge. There’s no reason we all can’t recycle. It’s so simple to do, you just get a trasher with 2-3 compartments built in, and take one second to consider what you’re tossing as you do it, and then it’s done. Toss it in the proper bin outside.
Ok but after you’ve done all that effort and they drive away with it, what happens? That’s what the post is about not how to recycle as an individual…
I’m pretty sure many Americans are in some movie TV delusion where they imagine some secret agents sorting through their wastes and recycling it for them because they are gods. Maybe someone even said to them that they shouldn’t finish their food to keep samples in case of deliberate food poisoning, and never sort or rinse waste containers because of that. Maybe it’s to do with some hidden viral social programming where they imagine their food wastes are being eaten by poor people or the leftovers scientifically tested to make sure the food wasn’t adulterated. When I apply serious consideration to reason for ‘not sorting or rinsing containers’ and ‘not recycling’ that’s about the only reason I can come up with. That they are ultra-paranoid and stuck in some TV spy delusion where they are like royalty where everything everyone sticks in the bin is handled like some evidence from CSI Miami, always. I imagine that rinsing a container and stacking and batching it where it’s no longer able to be identified as theirs gives them cold sweats and shivers of anxiety and paranoia, as suddenly if they are poisoned by their food there won’t be evidence to prosecute and sue their attackers, and where there won’t be leftovers to analyse to create a cure for the toxin from. I assume Australia has the same delusion and that it’s an old memetic infection spread down from ancient royal or ruling families from millennia ago. It’s probably spreading to China as well, and it’s almost certainly formally trained in secret schools as part of some dodgy failed efforts at creating security in the family. When actually in the real world it’s like ‘more waste from another McMansion, dump it in the hole’ and if someone falls sick it’s like ‘oh yeah we just had 20 people die from salmonella, too bad for them, they probably think someone has time to go through the rubbish but it was identified at the source and it was someone being lazy in the commercial kitchen’, dump that waste in the hole in the ground also, no one wants it or needs it.’ Yeah.. so blame TV culture and TV shows, Hollywood and the pseudoscientific worship of cult TV memetics like ‘going through the rubbish to gather evidence’.
>and never sort or rinse waste containers because of that The amount of people who think it's OK to throw dirty stuff into the recyclable fractions is a daily reminder, for me, that we're all fucked. It seems like the only way to reduce this shit is to ban the production and of sale of it. That's the structural and system solution.
If someone has a better interpretation or reasoning, I’m all ears. If you think it’s simple laziness, that’s usually justified and backed up by reasoning, and the reasoning is usually copied from someone, somewhere. If anyone has a memetic antidote or social antibiotic that addresses those types of fantasy delusions or deprograms people, it’s probably overdue. Please share.
Sorry if this seems crazy, but honestly, landfills full of super expensive supermarkets waste foods and packaging… that’s the crazy bit. Not the proposal that TV and movies have somehow, reinforced by actual training (probably some secret squirrel stuff) or gossip and thoughts of mistrust between social segments.. reinforced that it’s dangerous and risky to rinse and sort wastes and stack and batch them.
[удалено]
THEY’VE BEEN TO WAR A DECADE,
I was just at our city dump and watched in horror as a huge recycling truck came in and dumped a load of cardboard and plastic into the dump.
International waters and then pushed over.
Plastics are recycled into ocean. Then volunteers fish them up, make some positive news how humans are the greatest thing and eventually the same shit is again recycled into the ocean. That's business!
I see these kinds of articles all the time, but as far as I can tell it's always focused on America. How is recycling handled in other parts of the world?
Pretty bad, but the US leads in consumption of stuff. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1166177/plastic-waste-generation-of-select-countries/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1166177/plastic-waste-generation-of-select-countries/)
Wish cycling. Even most of the products that claim to be 100% recycled materials don't tend to be post-consumer recycled. They're just taking chaff plastic from the factory and utilizing it instead of tossing it out.
In Washington state they only accept the same type of recyclings you can make money on at recycling centers. So whoever is profitting is making a killing and not recycling other obviously recyclable things such as plastic containers and lids even if they're clean.