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The economics of recycling remains a net cost venture.
I can definitely see some municipalities giving up and just landfilling the lot of garbage that isn't profitable.
The only items I can see as profitable are aluminum cans, and other metals.
The problem is that our society wants new stuff. Why should I spend $200 on a new pair of Nikes if it's made up of used plastic bottles?
Businesses / manufacturers will only use recycled content if it's profitable or marketable.
I say government has to step in and mandate manufacturers:
1) More recycled content... 20% minimum etc.
2) All goods should be easily broken down to be recycled.
3) Bring back deposit bottles / containers.
4) Tax companies that create statistically higher amounts of garbage in packaging etc.
Nothing motivates companies / ppl more than $$$. We won't care about reducing, reusing, recycling unless it hits our pocket books.
Here households pay more $$$ if they want a big garbage bin vs a tiny one.
We do have to reduce our dependence of plastics. And definitely figure out a way to reuse them if possible.
Recycling is for rich people. It would be interesting to see recycling trends in the above-named rich countries as they have become more diverse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CorporateCowboy
There’s a huge difference between nonsensically stating ‘recycling is for rich people’ vs. establishing (or improving) its cost-effectiveness relative to the municipality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtab4994
A lot of things we rich people worry about, are things that poor people would love to worry about instead of famine, war, persecution, and disease. Please think before you dismiss the plight of the poor as "nonsense".
If you read my post (bolded above) in response to yours, you’ll see I didn’t ‘dismiss the plight of the poor’.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtab4994
I believe you. I'm simply wondering if they have kept up their high standards. Their recycling increased from 1991 to 2015, and I couldn't find data after that.
They have; Germany is the top recycling nation in the world.
Because the reality is most things don't recycle well enough to be economically viable. Aluminum does. Plastic does not.
I actually sell aluminum cans and pie tins to a local scrap yard rather than throw it in the recycle bin. In my state of PA and in neighboring NJ there is no 5-cent return on any cans or bottles.
Quote:
A lot of the plastic "recycled" even in towns with recycling programs actually gets landfilled. It was more of a feel good image than anything else.
Sigh. I pay extra to have my recycling hauled away. I have no idea what happens to it once it's on the truck. I've convinced my employer to pay extra for a K-cup recycling program that composts the grounds and recycles the plastic. But it costs money to recycle.
I grew up in the 1990s. Recycling was a major topic back then. Most of our county schools had recycling bins for cardboard, paper, various metals, plastic, glass, etc.
Over the last several years, I've noticed that basically all the recycling in my area has been eliminated. Cardboard and paper are the only bins I can find with regularity. Glass seems to be gone about everywhere. Plastic is rare, but can occasionally be found. The city doesn't offer any recycling services.
What killed off recycling programs?
This seems to be a problem in your specific area. Who knows, maybe you live in an unincorporated area and it costs too much.
Every place I've lived or visited recycles and others are sharing similar sentiments.
Just go outside or for a drive or down to the beach....that crap is blown or washing up everywhere.
If you like to walk, hunt, fish, be outdoors or are a raging tree hugger named Spirit Flower...I don't care...it's nasty to see all the garbage and plastic.
Just go outside or for a drive or down to the beach....that crap is blown or washing up everywhere.
If you like to walk, hunt, fish, be outdoors or are a raging tree hugger named Spirit Flower...I don't care...it's nasty to see all the garbage and plastic.
100% agreed.
I would goto our lovely lake for some beautiful natural break from the city... to encounter plastic bottles, slippers, coffee cups and lids and bottles and ... well everything in the water and on the land.
And this is world wide. You can't escape this nonsense... and it's just the "tip of the iceberg" in the garbage we strewn everywhere.
It's moronic, lazy attitudes that perpetuate the mess that we are creating on this earth.
I wish all the people who think it's just "virtue signalling" magically get ALL this garbage strewn all over their lawns and backyard.
As several people mentioned up thread, bad economics is killing recycling. Right now a lot of what is collected in curbside recycling programs is ending in landfills. Part of the problem is that for PR purposes a lot of plastic has a number inside the ♻️ and consumers assume the plastic is recyclable and these materials are not economic to recycle. There isn't enough demand and used plastic isn't as strong as virgin plastic. A lot of the recycled plastic also has food waste on it and means it's must be cleaned to be used which drives up the cost. Lastly the weight to value isn't very high to it doesn't make sense to ship very far.
If you look what they do in Europe, they burn plastic in really high temperature incinerators. If the temperature is hot enough you can turn plastic into a gas and then burn the gas in place of natural gas. The problem in the US is that natural gas is a waste product of tracking and that means we have the cheapest natural gas world, so the economics of burning plastic are pretty iffy because the environment review costs in the US are high. Residents fear having an incinerator near their house fearing toxic gases, so they litigate to stop them and that means the plastic just gets landfilled instead.
Recycling is virtue signalling because the underlying economics are awful.
The economics of recycling remains a net cost venture.
I can definitely see some municipalities giving up and just landfilling the lot of garbage that isn't profitable.
The only items I can see as profitable are aluminum cans, and other metals.
The problem is that our society wants new stuff. Why should I spend $200 on a new pair of Nikes if it's made up of used plastic bottles?
Businesses / manufacturers will only use recycled content if it's profitable or marketable.
I say government has to step in and mandate manufacturers:
1) More recycled content... 20% minimum etc.
2) All goods should be easily broken down to be recycled.
3) Bring back deposit bottles / containers.
4) Tax companies that create statistically higher amounts of garbage in packaging etc.
Nothing motivates companies / ppl more than $$$. We won't care about reducing, reusing, recycling unless it hits our pocket books.
Here households pay more $$$ if they want a big garbage bin vs a tiny one.
We do have to reduce our dependence of plastics. And definitely figure out a way to reuse them if possible.
Aw, is our rate of inflation not high enoūgh for you?
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