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Comment by munificent | Hacker News Reader

I love this comment because it's a great example of how the exact same data can be used to support opposing narratives. The raw data here is that California sees a certain quantity of bottle recycling and has a certain level of social safety net.

* One narrative is that the high bottle recycling rate shows a problem with the social safety net.

* Another narrative is that recycling rate shows that it is itself functioning as part of the solution to the social safety net.

Sort of like how a high rate of airbag use could make a statement about how safe or unsafe driving is.

I don't know which of these narratives is closer to the truth, but I think it's good example to use to help train ourselves to realize that many narratives are possible and part of critical thinking is not jumping too quickly from raw data to any one particular interpretation.

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> Another narrative is that recycling rate shows that it is itself functioning as part of the solution to the social safety net.

In my experience, no one in good faith argues that bottle deposits are a part of the social safety net, let alone a functional part.

Edit: to clarify, mine is a US centric experience. I think the argument for recycling collection as a tool of economic mobility is perfectly sound as long as it's not economically coercive (i.e. if the safety net is adequate without resorting to roaming the streets collecting recyclable material).

Doubling the bottle deposit to help the homeless was a suggestion made by the German satirical party „die PARTEI“.

Äh, 'Tschullijung? Sie ham de Pfandring verjesse!

https://duckduckgo.com/q=Pfandring

It is a part of the safety net, whether it was designed that way or not. Note that I'm not claiming that it should be.

Unfortunately it puts the collectors at risk, because it incentivizes them to root through garbage cans full of potentially dangerous material without any protective equipment. And in the end its a complete waste of their time. If the government wants to earmark that money for them, they should just do that, and let those people do something meaningful like job training, or raising grandchildren, or whatever, instead of being up to their elbows in broken glass and used condoms in the middle of the night. Most of the recyclable material was already in somebody's recycling bin already, so it's not like they're cleaning up the environment or any other social good.

The solution is more data. Let's see how CA rates compare to that of say... MA, which has a significantly less population of homeless.

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