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from the Betteridge-Says:-Reduce,-Reuse,-and-THEN-Recycle dept.
For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships to be made into goods such as shoes and bags and new plastic products. But last year, the country restricted imports of certain recyclables, including mixed paper—magazines, office paper, junk mail—and most plastics. Waste-management companies across the country are telling towns, cities, and counties that there is no longer a market for their recycling. These municipalities have two choices: pay much higher rates to get rid of recycling, or throw it all away.
Most are choosing the latter. "We are doing our best to be environmentally responsible, but we can't afford it," said Judie Milner, the city manager of Franklin, New Hampshire. Since 2010, Franklin has offered curbside recycling and encouraged residents to put paper, metal, and plastic in their green bins. When the program launched, Franklin could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton. Now, Milner told me, the transfer station is charging the town $125 a ton to recycle, or $68 a ton to incinerate. One-fifth of Franklin's residents live below the poverty line, and the city government didn't want to ask them to pay more to recycle, so all those carefully sorted bottles and cans are being burned. Milner hates knowing that Franklin is releasing toxins into the environment, but there's not much she can do. "Plastic is just not one of the things we have a market for," she said.
The same thing is happening across the country. Broadway, Virginia, had a recycling program for 22 years, but recently suspended it after Waste Management told the town that prices would increase by 63 percent, and then stopped offering recycling pickup as a service. "It almost feels illegal, to throw plastic bottles away," the town manager, Kyle O'Brien, told me.
Without a market for mixed paper, bales of the stuff started to pile up in Blaine County, Idaho; the county eventually stopped collecting it and took the 35 bales it had hoped to recycle to a landfill. The town of Fort Edward, New York, suspended its recycling program in July and admitted it had actually been taking recycling to an incinerator for months. Determined to hold out until the market turns around, the nonprofit Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful has collected 400,000 tons of plastic. But for now, it is piling the bales behind the facility where it collects plastic.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday March 10 2019, @09:16PM (6 children)
A new system, if the old one can't improve.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Sunday March 10 2019, @09:25PM (2 children)
But that would cost money! It would also require us mortals to change our ways and give up some of the so called conveniences we've become so addicted to!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @09:33PM (1 child)
Such as plastic wrap on everything? Bigger roads and more cars and trucks running 24/7 to get plastic crap to us faster and then the next day take almost all of the plastic away to put in the ocean. Life's peachy in late capitalist society.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Monday March 11 2019, @01:29AM
We don't love Christo, do we? Central Park, they did those horrible "yellow" gates. Made of plastic. And those could have lasted a thousand years. Fortunately they took them out -- what an eyesore! Miami, the islands of Miami -- that was the original Miami vice. And Christo was going to damage, very badly, our magnificent Arkansas River. He was going to put a big plastic tent over that river. But, he canceled that one. When he found out who the "President" of the United States is. President Donald J. Trump. He "never believed" I could become the President. He canceled it because of me. And I should get an award for environmental for that one. Because it was going to be so horrible for our fabulous Bighorn Sheep. And for the drivers on U.S. 50. Can you imagine, you're getting driven down the highway. And you come to the river. What used to be the Arkansas River. And the drivers, they're used to seeing that river, they're not used to seeing 42 miles of silver plastic wrap. Also known as Silvery. Looks exactly like silver, it's not silver, it's plastic. That's something they have now. You're trying to get from Meeting A to Meeting B, you can't. Because all the drivers stop and stare. And possibly crash. I say possibly. Likely, incredibly likely.
And the Bighorn Sheep, I never forget the sheep. And I think sheep are what made our Country great. And can make it Great Again. You're a sheep. You need a drink very badly. So you go to the river, where the river used to be. You don't see the river. You see Silvery. Looks like silver, maybe looks like water, right? Depending on the light and other things. And youre little sheep brain would never think, "oh, they covered the river in Plastic." So you jump in. And you're totally dry -- you landed on the plastic. You try to swim, you can't swim, you're bouncing everywhere. You just jumped on the world's biggest trampoline. Tramp, tramp, tramp -- very hard to get off that one. Because it's too big, it's 42 miles. And maybe you get off, you'll never be the same. Because you lost your mind. The P.T.S.D., so many of our proud veterans have that one. Sheep can get it too. Sheep can get it. But they won't get it. Because you (E.C.) elected me. MAGA!!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 12 2019, @05:04AM (2 children)
"IF". We already have the greatest improvement in the human condition in history due to that "old system" and we already figured out a number of ways to greatly improve that old system. It's amazing how people can completely ignore the past century.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:37PM (1 child)
If you're talking environmentally, awareness has improved massively and some practices are improving slowly over the decades. The trouble is, the improvement is outpaced by the global rate of growth, not just in industry but in sheer population.
If you're talking quality of life, at least in the west, it's certainly much better for most people than it was for most of history up until the second half of the last century. For about the last twenty to thirty years though, it's been getting worse for many westerners.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:12AM
It's not. The global rate of growth in population has slowed greatly over the past few decades, while the improvement in the human condition has kept improving. I grant that there's plenty of environmental problems right now. But poor countries work on other things than environmental problems first. They'll address the environmental stuff when they get wealthy enough. I figure by the end of the century, a lot of present day environmental problems will become things of the past, except perhaps in some small holdouts (like North Korea today).