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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 FatPhil on Monday March 11 2019, @09:02PM (10 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:41AM (2 children)
Externalities is just another word used to rationalize treating your fellow humans in ways that are fundamentally wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 12 2019, @09:56AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 12 2019, @12:34PM
Works for me. I prefer dead to enslaved.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:03AM (6 children)
Are those EXTERNALITIES real or imaginary? There's no good reason to acknowledge the latter. One doesn't need to put hands over ears, close eyes, and chant to do that.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 13 2019, @08:16PM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:46PM (4 children)
The only externality you ever mentioned [soylentnews.org] was the oceanic plastics pollution. Africa and Asia apparently are responsible by themselves for more than [soylentnews.org] an order of magnitude more such pollution than the rest of the world combined. At that point, you're not speaking merely of "worse" places, but rather the entire problem.
Once again, it's remarkable just how little support there is for the assertion that landfill disposal of plastics is environmentally harmful. Meanwhile we ignore the considerable environmental harm from recycling, particularly the waste of human effort and time (plus the fact that so much of it isn't actually recycling in the first place, but phony, costly theater to placate environmentally minded voters. Who knows how much of the plastic released by Asia and Africa came from recycling programs in the developed world?). I see you wrote [soylentnews.org] on that:
In other words, like so many other things thoughtlessly done by governments, generic recycling is a huge money sink that wouldn't make sense at all, if a private business were to consider doing it. And only by imposing large fees [soylentnews.org] on usage can one get compliance.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 14 2019, @08:11AM (3 children)
The list currently contains: everything.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @05:19PM (2 children)
Uh huh. "We lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume."
Such cutting wit! A threat to mashed potatoes everywhere!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 15 2019, @12:36PM (1 child)
You appear unable to understand why 5 in the top 30 most profitable companies in the world have fabs (one of which is *nothing* but a fab), yet there are no mom'n'pop fabs.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2019, @05:13PM
Fabs != recycling. And 30 most profitable companies != mom'n'pop anything. You're compare Buicks and Cuban cigars.
Further, I imagine that there's a fair number of impressive logistics systems among those 30 most profitable companies. Recycling a waste stream is not that big a deal for a large business. Just because it's not worth it at any scale doesn't mean it can't be done.