Ask HN: How can we improve the U.S. recycling industry?

I think one factor which has to be dealt with is that supply and demand for commodities is always changing.

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s my dad and I would ride our bikes all over Manchester NH and pick up Aluminum cans and make nearly $100 every weekend. Pretty soon we made enough money to buy a fancy new Aluminum bicycle!

At that point the demand for Aluminum was high and it was worth picking up the cans even without a bottle deposit.

At the moment Chinese reprocessors don't want recyclables from the U.S. but now that there is a glut on the market, people here will look for ways to use them and fewer recyclables will come on the market until things come into balance again.

It's not a bad thing or a good thing that commodity prices are this way, but it is just a reality you have to face.

Maybe put a plastic tax on producers.

I don’t think the problem at a psychological level is getting people to recycle correctly (although we should get as many people to recycle). People/businesses will generally do what’s easiest/cheapest to do. The problem is making biodegradable containers more attractive than the ones that are not. Currently, I believe, this is impossible since we don’t really have the capabilities to manufacture anything like it(formable, heat resistant, durable, flexible, transparent, cheap). There are people experimenting, but we’re pretty far away from a solution.

I really think that the only solution that will work at a psychological level is to get companies to pay fully for their environmental impact. Unfortunately, This can’t happen unless all companies around the world play by these rules, and even then we’re talking about corporations that twist to avoid taxes.

Having said that, why can’t we just ban plastics/non-biodegradable materials like its cancer? We survived millennia without it? I’m sure we can figure something out.

We can think about making existing products reusable or creating new products from previous materials.

There are a few furniture manufacturers who are taking plastic from the ocean and recreating them into high-end designer furniture.

When creating new products, the functionalities need to closely replicate what plastic has been able to do. There's not enough net benefit to convince people to switch to alternatives at the moment.

We need to start thinking about how to make products reusable, not just recyclable. Encourage glass bottles that last longer, and are easier to clean to refill.

Another way to tackle this problem is to stop generating so much waste. Discourage people from buying one-use items that can be replaced with reusable alternatives. I get that plastic water bottles are convenient and quick, but we generate so much waste (albeit recyclable) just through water bottles alone.

I think we should look to industrial engineering and package design.

I was in trader joes and was looking at bags in produce section. They are made from corn and start to biodegrade in 180 days.

We probably have to switch away from single-stream recycling. It increases the cost of sorting and the amount of contaminated material.

Shift demand with mandatory recycled content mandates, inclusive of imports.

Shift supply with vendor lifecycle recovery requirements.