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Comment by MisterBastahrd | Hacker News Reader

We should really have three bins: organic waste, recyclable waste, everything else. We should be composting organic waste, not simply throwing it in a giant pile with everything else where it can sit be useless. Think of all that topsoil that has gone into creating the remains of the leftover food in these landfills, and instead of using it to create more fertile soil, it just sits there and rots with old televisions and refrigerators and pizza boxes.

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In Australia organic waste bins are becoming more common as councils adopt some sustainability guidelines. One of the biggest issue they have is people placing "cardboard", like coffee cups, that are lined with plasitc or have toxic inks. The amount of contamination isn't insignificant unfortunately making the whole program a bit less promising in the long term.

The amount of confusion with the multiple bins is surprising at first glance

As an Australian, and as someone who is relatively switched on and pays attention to things in general, I do not know what I can and cannot recycle -- it has changed a few times in the past few years, and of course whenever I move to a new council area I have to contend with new rules.

What can you recycle? Who knows. Bottles, usually, but only if they're clear, green, or brown glass. And not if they're broken. Definitely no glass from mirrors. Also, probably not the bottle lids, or the the triggers from spray bottles. Aerosol cans? Sure. But not their caps. Aluminium foil, yes, but only if it's not got food contamination on it, so no. Same with aluminium baking tins and tin cans (actually steel!) from canned food. Can I recycle my pizza boxes in this council? Currently, yes, but only if they're not too greasy. What's too greasy? Still who knows. Coffee cups are recyclable in some councils, but not all, by the way. The lids are recyclable in basically all of them. As an aside, there are issues with recycling soft plastics, even if the plastic is actually recyclable, so be careful to make sure that even if it has the right symbol on it, it's not too bendy.

All of that, and ... well, it doesn't matter what I do, because my neighbour just yeets literally everything that smells like plastic or paper into their recycling bin, so my careful work is just commingled with garbage anyway.

This feels like an over-wrought analogy for a lot of things in my life, really.

> And not if they're broken.

And that's extra confusing because some of the bins use a wineglass with a broken rim as the symbol for glass, but the council flyer goes and states no broken glass.

Other countries have even more garbage separation categories. Germany and Japan have four:

https://handbookgermany.de/en/waste-separation

https://thesmartlocal.jp/garbage-disposal-japan/

That’s exactly how it has worked at every place I’ve ever lived in California.

> We should really have three bins: organic waste, recyclable waste, everything else

This exists in some US cities, at least.

Green, Blue, and Black bins, respectively.

In my city, it’s brown, blue, and green bins, respectively. They are slowly changing the green bins to black ones, presumably for consistent messaging with the rest of the state, but it will take years.

How is composting organic waste any different from burying them in a landfill? Aren't landfills just giant compost bins?

Usually not - modern landfills are completely enclosed (sealed in plastic) and primarily composed of things that don't compost at all, like metals and plastics. The materials in a landfill aren't recovered.

By comparison, the point of composting is to break down the organic waste where it can be reused as soil and fertilizer.

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