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Comment by ericglyman | Hacker News Reader

"We eat on compostable plates, and employees sign up to deliver our compost by bike to a local farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn" - Page 93

Etsy's hipster cred is off the charts right now

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I'm not really familiar with compostable plates, but unless they eat from large plant leaves, the plates are probably made somehow. And to make them, someone probably uses resources, like energy and raw material. And they have to be shipped to Etsy.

Compare this with porcelain plates which can be re-used and last a long time, but have to be washed, which uses water and some energy.

Taking all of this into account, I cannot say which is more environment friendly.

Kind of like real Christmas tree vs fake Christmas tree, although in reverse. The reusable tree is not more environmentally friendly.

From the environmental point of view, each ceramic plate must be used at least 50 times to have less impact than a single use biodegradable plate...

http://sustainability.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/LifeCycle...

You know of many ceramic plates that are used less than 100 times?

Yes, the new one I bought a month ago, then dropped it on my tiled kitchen floor smashing it into its component molecule parts. :)

Well, floorless kitchens are pretty hipster as well

So you know one, but you don't know many. ;-)

That's very few actually, given that people eat on average 365 times a day, and said plates last for decades. They only get replaced when someone drops them or when their owners decide they're too worn and ugly.

Eat...365 times...per day

Yeah that sounds like a bit much. Honestly for me, I max out at 4 a day, I really can't do much more than that even if they're small meals.

I don't get how people do it 365 times a day, but then again I was never much of an eater.

It's all in the hips.

I agree that people on average use their plates way more often than 50 times, but 365 times a "day" might be a bit much, even for the USA^^ SCNR

I've been interested in this argument for some time. Does anyone have any additional sources here?

They may have specific reasons to use disposable plates (no staff to wash them). So, the counter argument could be that at least they're using biodegradable ones.

Reusable porcelain plates. I don't know the environmental impact of (for example) washing machine detergents though.

Most workplaces I've worked at use regular porcelain plates, produces far less waste - not to mention they're much nicer to eat off of than, for example, paper plates.

I hate that any increase in efficiency or doing good is cast aside as hipsterism, being different for the sake of being different. Why is it 'hipster', not environmental?

" and employees sign up to deliver our compost by bike to a local farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn"

1. Bike is not an efficient mechanism for delivering compost (in fact, it's probably the least efficient mechanism)

2. Why does it matter that they took it to a local farm and not "the local compost heap"?

IE they specifically mention both in an attempt to make it seem like that's better than "i drove compost to the dump and dropped it at the county compost pile".

That's hipster.

I don't think Kings County/Brooklyn has a municipal compost pile. Nor any active dumps in the city limits.

Also I would guess the "local farm" bit is showing that they are supporting tiny/small businesses which is exactly their target market for sellers.

1. Brooklyn has compost bins at most residences, and elsewhere (or at least it was a pilot program, i haven't visited in a year)

2. There are just amazing number of places to compost in brooklyn.

The local farm bit is just there to make them feel better about themselves. That is, again, hipster.

A non-hipster would just be doing it, without making it seem like it's amazing and that they are doing it in some beautiful unique snowflake way.

I live in Brooklyn and do not have a compost bin at my apartment, do not know anybody with one, and don't know of a single place to bring compost in the borough.

That being said, for the latter point, I haven't tried very hard to find one.

NYC has a pilot program

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/city-pilot-comp...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/nyregion/composting-in-new...

etc It's been expanding gradually.

As for not knowing a single place, seriously, you aren't looking very hard, since "compost pile brooklyn" shows about 50 easy places

Farmer's markets have them.

You're not getting the point.

To me, when I read this words, it paints a very nice picture. I picture someone volunteering to take out waste, use zero emission transportation, and then help out a local farmer. I like that, a lot.

No, you aren't getting the point.

The question what "how is this hipster and not environmentalist" I am explaining how this is more hipster than environmentalist

What does that have to do with whether you like it?

Because to be truly hipster, you have to be doing it before people like it. ;-)

IPO'ing is so mainstream.

Hipsters are just the "long hairs" of our time. Those who use the term in a derogatory way will be sarcastically mocked by future generations for the rest of their lives. It happens any time there's a cultural leap that allows those left behind to externalize their self-consciousness.

Also "Red Hook" is hipster since it's on the frontier of gentrification.

"the least efficient mechanism"

I would say the opposite with respect to oil consumption which I think is what is generally considered in such a case. What did you have in mind?

So you believe that it is more energy efficient for a ton of compost to be moved by humans than by a single truck making one trip? What about all of the oil it takes to generate the food to feed the humans who move the compost? I don't have time to do the math at the moment but I hope someone else does. That sounds dubious at best.

How much extra food does it take? It's not that strenuous to use a bike, just takes time. Also, if the compost is used to grow food, it doesn't take much oil to feed the biker!

It's employees biking for fun and exercise (and good). Sheesh.

I apologize if you thought I was being rude, if it's all for fun and exercise that's cool. If it's more hipsterism then not so much.

"sandwich artisan"

--Subway

Biking in Brooklyn is far more efficient than driving.

Doing this sort of thing at scale would only be efficient if you were using slave labor or something close to it.

If Etsy lets their employees take a bike-break for a good cause, fine. But I feel much better about giving my compost to a unionized garbageman with a big truck than some hypothetical coolie on a bike.

> Doing this sort of thing at scale would only be efficient if you were using slave labor or something close to it.

Interns?

As long as they aren't engineering interns, my sister cleared 30K in a summer in SV during her internship. I was floored because I felt lucky to even get an internship 10 years ago.

I'm a huge environmentalist, but stuff like that is just hipsterism. The actual environmental impact is negligible. One company's illegal dumping wipes out the effort of all the hipsters in Brooklyn.

Hipster - a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream.

They could have just put it in the compost or recycling bin like the rest us.

That depends. Is the bike a fixie?

Fixies are great. Don't knock it until you try it.

Unless, you know, hills....

not many hills in Brooklyn =)

I had to look it up, and the Wikipedia article was really, really good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-gear_bicycle

They should send it by uber-rickshaw

There are no "farms" in NYC. They ship it do a garden in Red Hook. And let us hope this apparent "farm" doesn't use the polluted soil of that region. I've seen enthusiastic people growing vegetables in open fields in Williamsburg. That is a super fund site!

Farming is hard, thankless work that entails high risk. What they do in Brooklyn is not farming. It is gardening.

> There are no "farms" in NYC.

Yes there is a farm in NYC, it's called Added Value Community Farm located in Red Hook Brooklyn and it grows "12 tons of fresh produce" annually.[0]

> They ship it [t]o a garden in Red Hook.

No, they deliver it via cargo bike to the FARM (see above) in Red Hook.[1]

> And let us hope this apparent "farm" doesn't use the polluted soil of that region.

No, they don't use polluted soil they use compost. "At peak performance, the program processes over 225 tons/year of organic material."[2]

> I've seen enthusiastic people growing vegetables in open fields in Williamsburg. That is a superfund site!

Williamsburg is not Red Hook, we are discussing how Etsy delivers their compost to the farm in Red Hook. I encourage you to come take a look first hand at the farm in Red Hook and see how they actually grow produce.

> Farming is hard, thankless work that entails high risk. What they do in Brooklyn is not farming. It is gardening.

Again, let's talk specifics. Yes there are rooftop gardens in Brooklyn, yes they are gardens, but let's not lose the forest in the trees.

Is there a farm in Brooklyn? YES. Does Etsy deliver compost to it? YES. Do I encourage you to visit the farm and maybe volunteer to see how hard, thankless work it is that empowers youth in the area? YES!

Before you get negative on HN and spew a bunch of unsubstantiated "facts" do a little search to find out that yes it is possible to have an urban FARM that has the data to back up the fact that it is a FARM not a garden.

[0] http://added-value.org/accomplishments

[1] https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/office-ecology-composting-at...

[2] http://www.added-value.org/composting-initiative

It's a garden built on top of an old playground. Vegetables grown in NYC don't taste good either, unless you enjoy the taste of exhaust pipes and other local air pollutions.

I'll add that what you guys do is awesome and great for the community. But I still refuse to eat food grown in NYC.

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