Reducing is strategic.<p>Reusing and recycling are tactical.<p>If your strategy is in place, use all the tactics that contribute to it. But if you don't have your strategy in place, tactics can do nothing or even move you backward.<p>Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of reduction.<p>We are stepping on the gas, thinking we're stepping on the brake.<p>Covered in episode 183 of Leadership and the Environment: <a href="http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-volume-6" rel="nofollow">http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-volume...</a>
How about this information from CT's DEEP which quotes the EPA for the majority of it's information? Compared to virgin materials, using recycled materials more efficient by:<p>- 40% for paper<p>- 60-74% for steel and tin cans<p>- 33% for plastics<p>- 30% for glass<p>- 5% for aluminum cans<p>These numbers appear to be referencing the generation of new products using recycled vs new materials, but do they fail to take in to account the cost of actually getting those recycled materials (ie going from trash to the recycled paper pulp)?<p>I always thought the 3 R's are in the order they are for a reason.<p>Reduce - first step realize that happiness is not automatically linked to consumption. This is harder than it seems because this extends beyond product consumption to other forms of material consumption like traveling by plane or car (IC vs EV vs hybrid is a whole other debate)<p>Reuse - once you have something, get the full use out of it, and try to repurpose it for other uses too if possible.<p>Recycle - once you have used something to the point that can no longer serve it's purpose adequately because it's worn out, place it or parts of it in a recycling bin if possible.<p>What this article and discussion has prompted me to do is research further into which parts of something deserve to be placed in the recycle bin (whether or not there is an established way to recycle them, ie plastics) and if certain reduction techniques aren't all they're cracked up to be (reusable straws and shopping bags)<p>Reference: <a href="https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2714&q=440320" rel="nofollow">https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2714&q=440320</a>
We really shot ourselves in the foot with this whole pointless "recycling paper and plastic" thing huh?<p>The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization and one of life's little pleasures, and we had to ruin it by acting like it's wrong when it's actually not.<p>When I walk up to some wastebins holding a papery-plasticky object with a bit of food stuck to it, my heart sinks. Now I have to think about classifying it into one of 2-4 inconsistent-looking bins, and I feel guilty that the classification isn't perfect - which would be okay if it was for a good cause, but the whole concept of recycling paper and plastic was a net-negative to begin with.<p>Recycling is one of those things that feels like it solves a problem but doesn't at all - like hybrid cars, US-style airport security, or donating cans of food.
Just want to say that my grandfather, while working at Hughes, was one of the earliest proponents of aluminum recycling, but everybody was mad at him because they had to pay CRV (which is a terribly-designed incentive actually). Then he was one of the earliest opponents of recycling plastics, and he received nearly universal excoriation, including from my own family. Now the facts are slowly trickling out of the cultural taboos, and perhaps rationality will prevail either way, but it’s been about 50 years now, and it seems like maybe cultural consensus on technical topics is a poor indicator of fact.
Point 5 misses a bit of facts. The reason the US and the UK don't seep garbage into the ocean is we export a bit[0] of it to...guess where? Places like China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. This[1] is relevant. Idk, that refutation alone makes one wonder how effective landfills are in the west if we must send our trash to other countries to keep from filling our own landfills.<p>As mentioned elsewhere in this comment section, the right answer is for people to reduce first and recycle last. On that front, the west (and America in particular) is chief in exhaustion of resources and consumption.<p>[0] I originally said "half" which was just me using colorful speech. This comment deals with facts so I don't want to include a number and have people think it's literal.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-like-trash-south-east-asia-vows-to-return-mountains-of-rubbish-from-west" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-...</a>
As a meta observation, he seems to assume that materials production and disposal would improve over time while recycling technology would not, and that the economics wouldn't change either. Some of the sources he cites for the inefficiency of recycling date from the 1990s and he's obliged to find something more recent.<p>Arguably recycling technology has more potential to improve since large-scale recycling efforts in the US have only been around since the 1980s. Landfills have been around forever.
Honest question: From a climate change point of view, burying anything that contains carbon is basically the definition of sequestering that carbon. Why is it bad to bury anything that contains carbon?<p>The obvious response, I think, would be that if we consume and bury 'stuff', then we'll just make more 'stuff', but what's wrong with that? Is it the energy required (presumably from burning fossil fuels) to produce more 'stuff' that's really the problem? It doesn't seem like we have the whole picture on how much energy is actually spent preparing recycled materials for re-use to make an accurate comparison.
Enforcing landfills is a government problem, but recycling is a free market problem.<p>Mining 1 ton of iron takes 2 tons of ore plus another couple tons of coke and lime. It takes 4 tons of bauxite for one ton of aluminum (plus all the other things). There's also a huge amount of cost involved in reaching those tons of ore.<p>When mining a landfill gives bigger returns than the current deposits for the same cost of extraction, we'll see our recycling problem go away. Remaining burnables will simply reduce the amount of coal/coke needed to refine.<p>Government is critical in enforcing landfills though. Otherwise, trash winds up in little piles everywhere (or worse, in the ocean).
NYC ships its garbage hundreds, and even thousands of miles in some cases:<p><a href="https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/nyc-trash-trains" rel="nofollow">https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/...</a><p>There’s even a poop train to Alabama:<p><a href="https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/20/a-poop-train-from-new-york-befouled-a-small-alabama-town-until-the-town-fought-back/?outputType=amp" rel="nofollow">https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/...</a>
> Plastics come from oil, which we are gradually running out of, though not quickly.<p>I guess it depends on your definition of "quickly", or it would be good to see a citation on this one.<p>Personally, I believe that if we encourage recycling more, that creates an opportunity for companies to innovate in that space and come up with better recycling methods. So in that respect, I'd prefer to over-recycle than under-recycle.
There should be law that makes companies directly responsible for what happens to their packaging materials. Whatever a company brings into this world is their responsibility to recycle. Yes it adds overhead, but it makes people a lot more aware, and forces them to take responsibility of the impact they are having.<p>Why shouldn’t packaging be designed to be easily transformed into something useful, or even into functional community art projects?<p>A temple of coke cans for example. If they going to last forever it might as well be in a form that benefits communities.<p>Plastics have already been banned in certain countries.<p>Or are there to many lobbying in the wrong direction?
three main issues: 1) yes the Earth is huge but cities really don't have easy access to landfill, and many are in fact running out of it because transporting garbage is expensive. 2) podcasts aren't convincing sources for a debate. 3) the real debate is "how do we reduce waste", not "landfill vs recycling".
Eventually, robots will go through all of the landfills and recover a lot of the materials in it.<p>And they might get all the energy they need to do it from the garbage itself. Hey, if insects can do it, robots will eventually be able to do it.
Whatever happened to the plasma furnace for waste disposal touted a few years back?<p>Here's an article I found on a quick search: <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/</a>
"By contrast, reusable metal straws and canvas bags require something like 10-100x the energy and materials to manufacture, and need regular cleaning to avoid spreading disease. So unless you use them many times, they end up being worse for the environment. I lose them much faster than that, and have better things to do with my attention than remember to bring bags with me everywhere I go, so I just use those old-school plastic bags whenever I can."<p>This is not a valid argument. A bad habit should not be a justification for a devious behavior.
I would even argue it is easier to bring your reusable container of choice when going shopping, and if that habit is really formed, then you wont be able to exit your home or car without it, because something will seem to be missing.
Take for example the backpack or "granny cart". They are much more comfortable to use when compared to lugging around many plastics bags around your hands, and the granny cart is much better for your back.
As clickbait, I have to applaud the author.<p>tl;dr: As a sustainable (heh!) solution to the current waste crisis, landfilling everything is not a good solution. We tried it for many centuries and are still paying the price for that approach today. The only people who will benefit from a 'landfill everything' strategy will be 23rd century archaeologists.<p>As the UK is mentioned a couple of times in the article, I'll add a link to the Wikipedia article on UK National Waste Strategies, as it includes links to the various strategies published by various Governments across the UK since 2000 - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Waste_Strategy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Waste_Strategy</a><p>While those documents are a bit on the long side, they are very informative about the many, many (many!) complex systems that contribute to planning for, managing, and attempting to reduce waste in a large, rich European nation state.<p>(Disclaimer: I was part of the team that developed and published the Waste Strategy for England in 2000).
Two of this article's sources are John Tierney who has had it out against recycling since the 90s, and has written other anti-environmentalist pieces, including a hit piece on Rachel Carson in 2007 that sang the praises of DDT spraying in third world countries [1]. For a takedown of the FUD in that one see [2].<p>Simply put if this author trusts Tierney it's a reason not to trust this author.<p>1 - <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html</a>
2 - <a href="https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/06/06/john-tierneys-bad-science" rel="nofollow">https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/06/06/john-tierneys-ba...</a>
Every time I clean a yogurt container I feel torn. What is a better environmental trade-off: not running water for 90 seconds or recycling the plastic? I think it would be really helpful if there was some kind of universal unit that would describe the real environmental impact of producing, trashing, recycling of goods and materials.
The unit would appear on packagings of goods, specs of materials, landfill/recycling bins etc. I created a pdf to visualize the idea (all values in the pdf are made up): <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi51serx6hwn8e/EarthHarm.pdf?dl=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi51serx6hwn8e/EarthHarm.pdf?dl=0</a> I realize how complex such a project would be. Inherently, the choice of how the unit works would be a political one. How to compare and calculate the different environmental challenges and wrap them up in one unit? What institution would have enough authority and expertise to deploy it? Setting this all aside, I think unit like this would be a really helpful tool letting people have some baseline they can refer to. It could inform people what is the impact of their actions and where to seek for a real change. (a simpler version of this project would be a well-researched website that compares these environmental factors with each other)
Some stats from <a href="https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/municipal-waste/municipal-waste-management-across-european-countries" rel="nofollow">https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/municipal-waste/munic...</a> which show that landfill is decreasing in popularity here in Europe:<p>1. The rate of municipal waste landfilling for the 32 EEA member countries fell from 49 % in 2004 to 34 % in 2014.<p>2. Overall, the rates of landfilling decreased in 27 out of 32 countries. Between 2004 and 2014, the largest decreases occurred in Estonia (57 percentage points), Finland (41 percentage points), Slovenia (41 percentage points) and the United Kingdom (41 percentage points).
Recent Planet Money podcasts on how recycling got started in the US, and whether it's 'worth it' to recycle.<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739893511/episode-925-a-mob-boss-a-garbage-boat-and-why-we-recycle" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739893511/episode-925-a-mob-b...</a><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-should-we-recycle" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-shou...</a>
Not a single person in the world (rounded down – I’m sure you might be able to find someone) is opposed to people using plastic straws for medical purposes. Just as not a single person in the world is opposed to allowing disabled people access via cars, even if in general cars might not be allowed.<p>These kinds of arguments are such obvious strawmen. I‘m always so confused when people use them, apparently even in good faith, thinking they hold any kind of water. I’m always disappointed when someone uses arguments like that, it’s so absurd.<p>Overall I would just argue that straw bans and the like are often not enough or waste valuable political capital, even if they might be effective. That much is certainly true. The focus on personal responsibility is toxic and derailing since climate change categorically cannot be solved with appeals to personal responsibility.
Slightly off-topic and irrelevant for many urban people (or suburban with strict association rules) but it's possible to reduce your food waste to <i>literally zero</i> by keeping 2 or 3 or 4 laying hens.<p>Every bit of leftover food scraps are just thrown at the chickens ... and turned into eggs.<p>It's so pleasing and efficient that if I am at a function with food scraps and it is simple and unobtrusive to do so, I will <i>bring home</i> the scraps to save them from the landfill (and turn into eggs).
> Incinerating waste and generating electricity from it is an alternative form of rubbish disposal that is good for the environment and solves the problem permanently, but expensive to operate up front.<p>well, I think you are slightly off the mark there.<p>If pumping out more CO2 that would normally be sequestered, or dumping out a boat load of particulates with nitrogen dioxide is an environmental thing, then yes.<p>My heating and how water did come from a very well run incinerator, but its not exactly the paragon of cleanliness.
>Properly run landfill doesn’t hurt the environment in itself.<p>>[...] But a well run landfill site has [...] electricity generation from gases produced by decaying matter,<p>This sounds like a pipe dream. We don't even have reliable estimates on how much landfill outgas <i>there</i> is, much less a good system for burning it. It's believed to be largely methane, which would be valuable without further processing if it could be captured.<p>Incidentally, the word "methane" does not appear in the article at all, and no systems describing such a gas capture apparatus are mentioned. But just think about it: a landfill is enormous; they are some of the largest things humans ever build, and some of them are visible from low Earth orbit. How do you plan to capture all of the gas coming out of that? Be honest!<p>Meanwhile, incinerators (of various designs) work <i>today</i>, have almost all of the upsides of landfills with none of the downsides. The article dismisses incineration with a single reference (b), which is actually an article from <i>Planet Money</i> focusing on recycling. The actual source is probably a footnote within a footnote, because that's as much attention as Americans will pay to incineration, I guess.<p>I agree that we need to talk about recycling less, but the <i>correct</i> alternative is incineration, not landfills.
“Reusable straws and bags are often more resource intensive than single-use ones. Ever noticed that plastic bags and straws are both incredibly thin and incredibly cheap? Almost no resources go into making each one — it’s kind of amazing.“<p>I’m confused by these new plastic bag rules in some cities. What is the underlying reasoning that was used to advocate for them?
I find it maddening to get accurate information on recycling<p>- what can be recycled?
- what state can that material be in (cleanliness, prewashing)?
- is it being recycled or just being shipped off to china or burned?
- what efficiencies are involved in the various materials?<p>This seems to change on a year-by-year basis (for example, china stopped taking our trash, uh recycling).<p>Currently I desperately try to turn single use plastics to double-use. Plastic bags and covering can be used as poop bags, wrap for trash that could drip, and to hold more trash.<p>I try to use used paper towels for washing dishes and wiping up counters, and also for gross trash.<p>Most plastic containers of food from stores and takeout can be reused a few times for leftover storage and other purposes.<p>Best thing about double-use is that it usually helps ensure the single use plastic stays in the landfill by weighing it down.
I would add that compost is underrated.<p>I also think that recycling allows companies to waste more, because consumers are more comfortable generating recycling waste than landfill waste, even though for plastics there isn't really much you can do to recycle them.
My take:<p>Landfills should be utilized much less for municipal waste, but doing this would require much better waste separation.<p>It's probably better to burn or recycle things that don't decompose readily, such as plastic. Landfilling plastics just takes up a lot of space for a long time. Recycling or burning plastic also reduces litter.<p>Recycling paper doesn't matter as much, since it is very biodegradable. I suspect that recycling paper leads to energy savings in the pulp & paper industry.<p>Aluminum is one of the best candidates for recycling as it is very efficient and cuts down on the need for aluminum ore. Steel is somewhat less efficient.<p>Organics should always be composted if possible.
This article gave a different look at landfills and was honestly quiet eye opening for me. I had not considered the effects recycling could have if not done correctly, and what benefits landfills have when monitored well.
This is why markets should make decisions about this stuff (with appropriate taxes for externalities) rather than politicians with their gut instinct...<p>"We're doing nothing for the environment" doesn't get one elected tho...
found these gems on recycling on NPR:
Episode 925: A Mob Boss, A Garbage Boat and Why We Recycle - <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?i=1000444175121" rel="nofollow">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id2907834...</a><p>Episode 926: So, Should We Recycle? - <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?i=1000444348345" rel="nofollow">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id2907834...</a>
Some interesting arguments.<p>I think the argument that he has better things to do then think of taking a bag "everythere". You do not need a bag small in hand purchases and when you really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go shopping.<p>When it comes to regulations I would trust the US with nothing. The EU has probably way better regulations for landfills like for food and other things. While at the same time probably do a way better job at actual recycling.
> I lose them much faster than that, and have better things to do with my attention than remember to bring bags with me everywhere I go, so I just use those old-school plastic bags whenever I can.<p>And so ultimately people (consumers) get what they want. If you don’t want to commit to taking steps in a more sustainable fashion, then you contribute to the problem of disposable waste.
Glossed over electronics. Good or bad to recycle?<p>Or do electronics fall under metals and are worth recycling. Or if tossed we could always mine landfills for iPhones in the future, which the article touches upon.<p>As an aside, this article seems to only be about minimizing energy use or cost and not about maximizing sustainability.
>>> Almost all of the litter that escapes into nature, especially the sea, comes from poorer riverine countries with bad rubbish collection practices, such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Rich countries like the UK or US have rubbish collection rates approaching 100% and are responsible for almost no new waste reaching the oceans.<p>... Yea, b/c the developed nations of the world don't send their trash to "poorer riverine countries" to get dumped in the ocean. /s<p>[0] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-like-trash-south-east-asia-vows-to-return-mountains-of-rubbish-from-west" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-...</a>
The real problem is we are using a long term material for short term purposes only because it seems cheap. All plastic will be with us for generations if not forever in terms of human time. We can and should produce an alternative and not poison the environment if we work at it. Yes it's not as bad as we thought but it certainly is bad. Plastic has a place in our daily life but not as a use once and throw away.<p>I'm one that believes the use of taxes as way to change consumption. So charging a tax to help reflect the true value of plastic, to reduce usages and find alternatives. It's a hard issue but burning it or dumping is not the solution.
Landfills are going to become a gold mine when someone finally invents a Wall-E robot. With the advances in AI going on right now, it seems like a feasible thing to happen soon.
This is true enough (in some markets and some circumstances, yada yada), but sort of missing the point. A world where all the Good Liberals are trained to recycle everything into hand sorted artisinal bins that they keep next to their compost containers is one where people think about what they purchase and push for public policies that worry about resource consumption in ways that benefit all of us.<p>A world (we live in it) where libertarians tell everyone that "landfill is underrated" is one where people buy and dispose of way too much junk, and create the problems all us communists are vainly trying to solve via personal recycling.<p>I mean, sure, a world of scientists might be able to handle rules like "recycling that aluminum can is a big win, but the polypropylene bottle with the same product in it is mostly a wash". A world of real people is just going to hear "throw out all the things".