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Comment by apacheCamel | Hacker News Reader

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. I am happy that Malaysia is taking a stand and is refusing to be a dumping ground for trash. I am sad that all of this plastic is coming back to the US where I am honestly unsure on what they will do with it. I am mad that it has gotten this far and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.

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They’ll just incinerate it, which is probably what they should have done in the first place. Companies in third world countries bidding unrealistically low for recycling contracts has made recycling seem more viable than it actually is.

And it’s cheaper to dump it in the ocean than to dispose of it safely.

Cheaper to ship it to Malaysia and have them dump it in the ocean than convince a bunch of 1st world NIMBYs that a modern incinerator plant won't give their children a .000001% increased chance of cancer.

Landfill is better then incinerating. Burning it releases toxic chemicals and is effectively dumping it in the air (vs dumping it in the ocean). Landfill (dumping in the ground) is the least worst of all the options. From what you may believe there is plenty of land available.

Incineration works well when modern technology is brought to bear. It also doesn't create later water/land pollution problems. In any cases, one solution might work better than the other depending on the context.

Burning, recycling or burial all could be OK if they were done right. But doing them right involves more costs than doing them wrong. The US and other countries hire companies and pay them to do the disposal. Sure, the companies get paid for the estimated cost of doing the disposal right but companies make all their extra profit from doing the disposal wrong. The entire approach of subcontracting is misguided but given vast vested interests behind the subcontracting approach, given you know this stuff is going to be done wrong, which wrong to do you do want? Pollution of the air, the earth or the water?

> Companies in third world countries bidding unrealistically low for recycling contracts

This is a false impression, they are not bidding to be paid for recycling, rather they pay for the recycling, because they purchase it.

The trouble is when it's mixed with garbage, they remove the good stuff, and the rest? Well, who knows.

There is this storyline that first world companies are dumping their trash on other countries. That's not the truth.

The story in the article is someone bought recycling, and was shipped trash. They don't care about the trash, they are upset they didn't get what they purchased.

Nowhere in the article did it say Malaysia paid for this recycling. In fact, often times recycling is costs more than its worth, and municipal systems pay recyclers rather than the other way around.

The only recycling that someone might make more than the effort put in would be e-waste.

This article did not mention it, but that is in fact how it works: Other countries pay for the recycling.

> and municipal systems pay recyclers rather than the other way around.

Yup, because the value of the recycling is not quite enough, but the recyclers then sell the recycling. That's why there is a whole list of what they won't accept.

It's not because they can't reprocess it, it's because there is no one to sell it to.

If this is news to you, well, now you've learned something new.

Incineration solves the problem of storing recycling but is worse in every other way.

> It also doesn't create later water/land pollution problems.

Where do you think all that carbon goes?

It's interesting which topics certain communities are ready to outrage over and completely forget about quantifying... I say this because I've been under the impression recently that:

* The USA actually properly landfills the vast majority of its waste these days

* Most of the plastics entering the ocean come from improperly disposed waste, and from countries outside the US

* The illegal waste shipping to asian countries is mostly from a small pool of shady, bad actors

Any waste coming back to the US can be more properly disposed of; we have the infrastructure in place it's just apparently more expensive than scamming Malaysia. I would like to see some actual data before getting all outraged at entire countries and depressed that the USA is shipping all its plastics overseas(it isn't).

Movies from 80/90 made the view of NY trash barge kind of iconic, when did cities like NY stop just dumping their trach into the ocean? Google came up with 1992 NYTimes article declaring the end.

Consumers could always use less plastic. I don't see how anyone could think Malaysia is obliged to fix this mess for the West, they already take in large amounts for processing.

I've never been asked how I want the product I buy packaged, or what material its shell should be made of. I'm also never asked whether I'd prefer the product without a design flaw that makes it trash in a year or two (if not immediately). Doesn't help that the shops' shelves are full of equally bad trash products. Race to the bottom, baby.

At least if richer nations take their trash back home, there is a lower chance it will end up thrown in a river or dumped in a forest without serious government and/or watchdog intervention.

It's also naïvely irresponsible of richer nations to export trash and recycling to multiple countries in the bottom 55% of the Corruption Index (that are also known to mismanage waste) and then act all surprised when facts emerge that waste is not being processed properly. Like, no shit an awful CEO or crime boss in a corrupt country is going to care only about the money ($, €, £) and not about where the waste is dumped. And the local authorities look the other way while they are paid off.

the US actually has more space for landfill than malaysia

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