Hacker News Reader

Comment by kbos87 | Hacker News Reader

If you want to have your eyes opened about just how little of the material you probably think you are recycling actually gets recycled, watch the recent Frontline episode called “Plastic Wars”.

The sad truth is that while recycling is worthwhile, it’s also a woefully insufficient solution that has been held up by the petroleum industry as a cure all to prevent a backlash against plastic. Even products that are labeled recyclable often aren’t once they are processed.

One thing that sticks with me (and this is just one representative example) is that almost none of those plastic salad containers that have overtaken supermarkets are ever recycled.

https://youtu.be/-dk3NOEgX7o

View on HN

>while recycling is worthwhile,

I'm not sure it's that worthwhile for most things. Glass is made of sand, which we have plenty of. Cardboard is trees which are renewable. Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it. Metal is rarer and some of that is worthwhile to recycle but again not like we're running out of iron ore. We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in.

The thing we should focus on is carbon footprint. Reducing that is an immediate need and has long term benefits. We should not be burning more carbon to conserve the things we have plenty of.

It appears your comment about sand is somewhat misguided. Sand is consumed a lot nowadays. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...

> Glass is made of sand, which we have plenty of.

On this point specifically, glass is made of a specific type of sand that is high in silica, which we are running out of: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...

Sure, I'm not arguing that we shouldn't recycle things when it makes economic sense. I just don't think it should be a goal in of itself. Or at least we should not be spending truly scare resources (mostly carbon capacity of the atmosphere) to conserve resources that aren't.

And recycling can be one strategy to reduce carbon footprint. E.g. it takes almost double the energy to turn sand+X into glass than re-melting and re-using existing glass (while also not needing to dig up more landscape to get sand, and covering more landscape in old glass).

It is a similar story for aluminum. It takes much less energy to re-use recycled aluminum than to manufacture new. [0, about 2/3 of the way down the page].

[0] https://www.aluminum.org/aluminum-advantage/facts-glance

Also the aluminum association is a trade organization so they are obviously promoting the use of aluminum. But still some of the facts are quite interesting.

The process of smelting ore has a significant carbon footprint that can be skipped entirely if you start with nearly-pure iron scrap.

It's a shame your comment has basically no replies, I'd like to read a counterpoint.

> Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it.

> We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in.

> The thing we should focus on is carbon footprint.

Is this a joke?

... No. Which part do you disagree with?

I'm finding a huge disparity with your ideas. Saying that we need not worry about using too much glass, paper, or plastic because we have plenty of sand, trees, and land to bury waste, then saying we need to reduce our carbon footprint doesn't make sense.

Do you not think creating waste and dumping it in landfills, in oceans, in nature, is part of our carbon footprint? Do you not think the processes to make and transport and dispose of these materials is part of our carbon footprint? Even if trees are renewable, we in no way are using them in a sustainable way. Another commenter also linked an article about running out of sand.

Recycling is not a good answer, even doing more harm than good, but that doesn't mean to give up on reducing and reusing. And I don't mean (only) at a consumer level. We need large scale industrial and societal changes in how manufacture, consume, and dispose of goods.

Carbon footprint refers to atmospheric carbon, typically combustion products. Burying carbon, assuming it stays buried, does not contribute to carbon footprint. It is in fact how fossil fuels were formed in the first place.

And many cities subsidize waste by charging money for trash hauling but not for putting trash in the recycling bin.

Seattle even introduced a punitive fine for NOT contaminating the recycling stream!

Regular trash costs extra money after a couple bags, here, so we're encouraged to put anything in recycling that can go there. Our city has us put recycling out at the curb, unbagged and uncovered, in plastic bins.

Meanwhile, wind exists.

It's more of a littering program than a recycling program, really.

You can request an extra recycling bin free of charge in Seattle. I believe you can even do it via the app

Do they still have a plastic bin? Where does it go I wonder, now that China isn't taking it.

Oh it's much worse. It's all mixed up together, no sorting. I doubt any of it actual gets recycled, except maybe the metal. It's such an obviously terrible program that surely it only exists to funnel money to someone's cousin, or something. Ineffective, and directly causes several trash-devils swirling down the street every year. Been that way for at least a decade, and there's little or no agitation to eliminate or fix the program.

[EDIT] that is, I meant the bins are all made of plastic, so light and prone to blowing around or tipping, not that it's a bin dedicated to plastic. We don't sort, here, all the metal, cardboard, and plastic goes in the same open-topped plastic containers. No glass collection is done whatsoever, as it's not permitted in regular trash or recycling, so you have to sort that out on your own.

> It's such an obviously terrible program that surely it only exists to funnel money to someone's cousin, or something.

Primarily, it makes people feel good about their excessive consumption and it helps people win elections by letting them claim they did something.

But really, the only solution to prevent or reverse environmental damage is drastically reducing consumption. Reusing isn’t going to work, recycling definitely doesn’t work, but no one will win political points for that viewpoint and who really wants to reduce their consumption.

But if people around the world became united against this issue, the solution would be dead simple. Hit fossil fuels with a huge tax. A tax big enough to make prices for everything rise and we will immediately see a reduction in consumption.

Can you explain how Seattle has a fine for NOT contaminating the recycling stream?

I know there's a fine for putting compostables in your trash, but I've never heard of another fine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com