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Comment by dimal | Hacker News Reader

> Recycling is the most obvious way to cut down on plastic waste.

I would think that the most obvious solution is to not use a material that lasts thousands of years for disposable packaging that’s only needed for a few months. Seems like these types of “revolutionary” new processes to make recycling finally work come out every year, and yet nothing changes. I can’t imagine this will be any different. As long as it’s cheaper to create new plastics than it is to recycle them, nothing will change.

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Yeah, I've heard that much of the recycling campaigns from the late 80s were actually spearheaded by the plastics industry in what was ultimately a successful attempt to shift blame from the producers to the consumers.

And that a lot of what’s recycled is rejected by industrial manufacturing as unusable and sent to a landfill anyway. I have to admit I don’t know the numbers, but the fact that these issues aren’t more widely discussed makes me suspicious that the popular positive consensus around recycling is the product of marketing and politics which would be par for the course.

This is optimistic - what actually happens is the plastic is shipped to Asia for sorting, where they may put the low quality stuff in landfill, or may just throw it in the nearest river.

Ironically, putting most plastic waste in the landfill bucket is probably more environmentally sound than “recycling” it.

This is exactly how the great Pacific garbage patch was formed, since the rivers will eventually empty into the oceans.

For decades plastic was sent to East Asia to be "recycled" but recently even those countries have refused to import it. Since then we've seen western governments freaking about about plastic waste.

Agree. Also recycling plastics was mostly a lie. I used to think that small triangular icon with a number in it on plastic containers meant it can be recycled as it looks almost exactly the same with the recycling icon. It turned out I was too naive. Those icons were actually called Resin Identification Code or RIC, which actually have nothing to do with recycling but rather to make you think it can be recycled. The dire fact is that it's uneconomical to recycle most of the plastics, especially those tiny plastic pieces, i.e. bottle caps. Since it's cost more by using recycled plastics, you would see some genius solution by exporting plastics to other countries like China. Now China has realized that and soon will the other countries. So the plastics waste exporting practice is about to come to its end. But before that, I don't see why they would stop using plastics as they are really cheap and versatile.

> Those icons were actually called Resin Identification Code or RIC, which actually have nothing to do with recycling

"have nothing to do with recycling" is too strong a statement; knowing what type of plastic it is helps with sorting. But you're right that having the triangle doesn't automatically mean it can or will be recycled.

Regulation is the way

yeah this seems like something on a scale that's worth regulating, if we stopped now we'd probably still be mitigating the effects 50 years from now

Make a disposable plastic container cost an extra dollar paid at time of manufacture. Double the cost every year. We will be 100% migrated by the end of 2023.

Someone will have to mandate the price of something. That sounds an awful lot like a "regulation", doesn't it ?

Also, ironically, if you start regulating it (bannings plastics straws, disposable packaging, etc...) you'll get trashed on twitter _by_ the most ardent environmentalist, (and mocked by comedians) because it is "obviously not on the scale of the problem and just green washing that is not going to help anything vote for us instead."

(source : this is what the EU is doing, and everyone is making fun of them.)

Whereas if you develop a techno enzyme to eat the plastic and sell it expensively, you'll get your bonus.

_shrug_

> this is what the EU is doing, and everyone is making fun of them

Is everyone making fun of us, or is it just the americans? The ban on free plastic bags in stores had widespread support and worked out quite well. The only not strictly positive thing I've heard about the proposed plastic tax is that we need to use that money to actually do something like fund cleaning of the environment or developing sustainable materials, which is a fair and obvious point and as far as I know, that is the plan.

The left in general is mocking the (mostly center to center-right) politicians who championed the ban of single-use plastic, explaining that its way too little an effort. Or that the whole industry should be banned yesterday.

Example : https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2019/12/14/la-major...

(They have the luxury of note exactly being in power, so not having to implement any of the groundbreading and radical changes they advocate.)

I see a big difference in mocking the policy vs mocking the people proposing it or the reason they're doing it. "Greenwashing" as I understand it is the act of doing something that doesn't help or helps the environment very little, but makes it look like you care and are trying to help it. This is a description of the person and process, not as much the policy itself.

I think most people would agree this is a weak policy and clearly done because its low-effort, agreeable and doesn't harm their corporate overlords much. So I can't say calling out the politicians isn't in order, but the policy itself is not actually bad. At least in my tiny corner of Europe, most of us in The Left (caps important) get this difference, but we do still have many idealists that don't, and they are usually the ones that get in the news. Maybe (I hope) it's the same over there.

// I don't have any translation software handy at the moment, so I couldn't read the article, sorry

Some cities in the us have banned plastic bags too. Mine has. Very nice to not see them entangled in trees anymore.

Not that simple. Something would have to replace all those plastic containers, and it might not be any better.

Similar to banning plastic bags, we could replace all our disposable water bottles with higher quality *non* disposable plastic bottles. It would be slightly more expensive for companies to produce, but drastically cheaper than paying the proposed tax. Consumers may or may not treat them as disposable anyway, and there's huge health concerns over reusing plastic bottles, especially after exposure to heat.

A simple manufacturing tax wouldn't work though since we'd just start importing bottles from neighboring countries instead

The obvious alternative is glass. Although it might take a vary long time to degrade its less of a problem if it doesn't.

And glass is actually recyclable.

Companies will just pass the cost to the consumer, blame regulation, and keep using plastic because it's easier and there's nothing we can do to stop them.

I used to think like that too, but in many fields, there is a huge pressure against "passing it on" because of some producers that optimise price over everything else.

If your only competitive advantage is being cheaper than the rest and now everyone is raising prices, doing the same will not only hurt your appearance as the "reliable value brand", but you'll be wasting a huge opportunity to grab a big new chunk of the market (customers tend to looks for alternatives when prices increase). These are the companies that will use alternative materials, even if they are inferior (e.g. paper straws and cups), because it's the cheaper option.

Bag taxes are already passed on to customers though.

Yes, but there are also many paper and multi-use bags available now that weren't before the tax. Because they knew the price increase would anger customers, they created alternatives that don't fall under the tax and thus give the customer a better value than the old option now with tax.

(plastic bags are, however, a pretty unique case, as they used to be free and the dynamics of "free vs paid" are way different than "paid vs paid but slightly more expensive)

You can just ban it after a phase out period where it is made progressively more expensive. If the choice is to spend $0.20 more on glass or try to pass $8 on to the consumer then the merchant will choose not to commit suicide.

Thats fine, customers can pay for the long-term costs of the products they use. It will help create a market for biodegradable or fully recyclable alternatives.

Same principle as the carbon tax. Actually, you don't even need to be that aggressive on price increase, it seems that small but steady increases is enough to send a strong signal to markets.

I wouldn't even mind a deposit fee, like with aluminum cans, for example

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