Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the wasting-away dept.

Aaron C. Davis writes in the Washington Post that recycling, "once a profitable business for cities and private employers alike," has become a "money-sucking enterprise." Almost every recycling facility in the country is running in the red and recyclers say that more than 2,000 municipalities are paying to dispose of their recyclables instead of the other way around. "If people feel that recycling is important — and I think they do, increasingly — then we are talking about a nationwide crisis," says David Steiner, chief executive of Waste Management, the nation's largest recycler.

The problem with recycling is that a storm of falling oil prices, a strong dollar and a weakened economy in China have sent prices for American recyclables plummeting worldwide. Trying to encourage conservation, progressive lawmakers and environmentalists have made matters worse. By pushing to increase recycling rates with bigger and bigger bins — while demanding almost no sorting by consumers — the recycling stream has become increasingly polluted and less valuable, imperilling the economics of the whole system. "We kind of got everyone thinking that recycling was free," says Bill Moore. "It's never really been free, and in fact, it's getting more expensive."

One big problem is that China doesn't want to buy our garbage any more. In the past China had sent so many consumer goods to the United States that all the shipping containers were coming back empty. So US companies began stuffing the return-trip containers with recycled cardboard boxes, waste paper and other scrap. China could, in turn, harvest the raw materials. Everyone won. But China has launched "Operation Green Fence" — a policy to prohibit the import of unwashed post-consumer plastics and other "contaminated" waste shipments. In China, containerboard, a common packaging product from recycled American paper, is trading at just over $400 a metric ton, down from nearly $1,000 in 2010. China also needs less recycled newsprint; the last paper mill in Shanghai closed this year. "If the materials we are exporting are so contaminated that they are being rejected by those we sell to," says Valerie Androutsopoulos, "maybe it's time to take another look at dual stream recycling."


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: -1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:09AM (#199795)

    Fuck recycling! People are the real garbage, let them drown in their own shit.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:27PM (#199866)

      Start with yourself

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:37AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:37AM (#199802) Journal

    Who ever thought it was free? I thought the argument was that it was cheaper than landfill. Before I moved, I went to the local tip where they said that the cost of landfill was about £70/ton (I think). From playing Simcity 3000, I also learned that there are physical limits on how long you can stuff things into landfill before it gets full (and the neighbours complain). High-termperature incineration is another option, though the cost of scrubbing the exhaust can be quite high.

    My main objection to recycling in policy is that it's often pushed as a replacement for reuse, rather than as a replacement for disposal. How many things that we buy could be packaged in reusable containers that could be cleaned and reused. Any politicians that really want to make a difference should push to standardise a dozen different bottle sizes and shapes, stick a big tax on any drinks sold in something other than the standard containers, and require that any shop that sells them also collects them for cleaning and reuse. In the UK, we've gone from using glass for milk bottles and returning them for reuse to using plastic cartons and (hopefully) recycling them (more likely, sticking them in landfill). This is not an improvement.

    --
    sudo mod me up
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Francis on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:02AM

      by Francis (5544) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:02AM (#199809)

      Close. I remember when I was a kid it was "reduce, reuse and recycle" in that order. And not without cause. Things that aren't bought are things that don't need to be disposed of. But, you are correct, when possible reuse is better than reducing and some of the horror stories about computers being shpped abroad aren't true.

      Most of the time they get taken apart and reassembled for people that couldn't afford to pay for a new computer even the cheap ones. Here in China I see those sorts of shops all over the place. Loads of used looking computers for dirt cheap.

      I'm not surprised that China isn't as interested as they used to be. Folks here have some money and most of them don't need a lot of things. An apartment here has relatively little in it. A TV, AC and some furniture is usually most of it. Probably some sports goods and some cooking supplies as well.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:03AM

      by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:03AM (#199822) Journal

      Trouble with re-use is that it opens the company up to liability or expenses. Say you sell beer in glass bottles. One of the bottles gets a tiny chip or crack before being returned. Maybe the crack will mean that the bottle will explode during the re-filling stage, screwing up your assembly line. Maybe it falls apart during delivery or on the supermarket shelf. Maybe a customer cuts their lip on the chipped glass and sues you.

      To avoid these problems, every bottle has to be rigorously examined and tested before it can be re-used, and for that kind of money you might just as well buy new.

      Never mind evil customers deliberately fucking with your bottles for the lulz / blackmail. I'm sure somebody could come up with a poison or something that could be put on a bottle and that would survive the washing process.

      • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:53PM

        by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:53PM (#199878)

        Not all of the bottles get completely cleaned either. I lived in a country for a while that reused glass soda bottles. It was common to see stuff in the bottles that shouldn't have been there. I'm attributing it to not thoroughly cleaning the bottles anyways. I'm certain some of those bottles had a short life as a spittoon or something before being recycled. Not a pleasant thought!

        --
        SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:42PM

        by aclarke (2049) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:42PM (#199931) Homepage

        I'll steal a link from sudo rm -rf's post below [soylentnews.org]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation#Canada [wikipedia.org].

        Ontario's system of deposit refunds for beer bottles, through "The Beer Store" (The Beer Store is owned by three international brewers: Labatt, Molson and Sleeman),[10] has close to a 100% return rate. The bottles can be cleaned and reused 15 to 20 times.

        I believe it's illegal to throw your beer/wine bottles in the recycling bin in Ontario. I don't do it, but I think I tried it once or twice when I first moved back here and my recycling wasn't picked up. When I lived in town, if you left your beer/wine bottles and any cans worth anything, someone would come by before the recycling truck and pick them up for the deposit. The same thing happened when I used to live in California.

        While the problem may be cost and liability, that's just an indication of the bigger problem which is the litigious nature of the society in which it sounds like you live. If the bottling companies have to inspect/clean the bottles, they will pass the cost on to the consumer, who in the end should be paying the cost for their waste.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday June 24 2015, @02:37AM

          by anubi (2828) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @02:37AM (#200209) Journal

          There is not that much energy waste involved to completely remanufacture the bottle, given a clean feed. Nor is it that much of a problem to literally steam-clean all the incoming glass. The problem is it has to be the correct glass. Glass has different constituents just like anything else, and the manufacturing process is tuned to a certain mix of glass.

          What this means is manufacturers must get together and agree on ONE formulation for all "consumable" glasses.

          Same with plastics. Either its the clear stuff which will be made into other clear stuff, or its the opaque stuff which can only be used for things where color is not all that important ( Think plastic foundation timber for outdoor construction, possibly layered with a color coat for uniform external appearance. ). I have already seen some rather impressive plastic timber at Home Depot. Recycled plastic. Foamed, Molded into timber shapes. Sawable, drillable, nailable, screwable. Use it for stuff like deck foundations and patio covers which have always been a pain in the arse to keep termites at bay.

          Recycling WILL work. However to make it practical, stuff must be designed with its end-of-life recycling in mind from the start. It snapped together; it must also decompose back into its components when its purpose is done, whether by disassembly or simple crush then sort the pieces.

          Very little stuff I see today was designed with recycling in mind. Especially plastics. We have got to get our act together and settle on a "one size fits all" kind of stuff for consumables. Leave the specialty plastics for special industrial usage. There may be no way to economically recycle unique plastics with thermal decomposition or filler being the only viable method left to dispose of it.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 2) by mojo chan on Wednesday June 24 2015, @12:36PM

        by mojo chan (266) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @12:36PM (#200343)

        Solved long ago. Design bottles so that they don't explode when slightly chipped, and use machine inspection to look for other defects (takes a second with laser scanning, fully automated).

        Poisoning isn't a big concern because the washing process is pretty damn good. So far no-one has found a way to do it, so it seems more like a movie plot threat at this point.

        --
        const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by sudo rm -rf on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:07AM

      by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:07AM (#199824) Journal

      Regarding reuse:
      As I am in a hurry, but also want to add my two cents, I will just drop a link from wiki:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation#Germany [wikipedia.org]
      And I'd like to add: In Germany, when a shop is selling bottles, it is obliged to take bottles back, regardless of brand and wether they are in its line of goods or not (although it is sometimes impossible to convince the cashier).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:59AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:59AM (#199837)

        AFAIK it depends on the size of shop. Every shop must take back the bottles it sells, but small shops are exempt from taking back bottles they don't sell.

      • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:21PM

        by richtopia (3160) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:21PM (#199923) Homepage Journal

        I believe that typically glass/aluminum is not an issue for recycling. Metals in particular are relatively easy to recycle, especially when pre-sorted (achieved with a deposit).

        I've lived in both the US states of Michigan and Arizona, with Michigan having the highest deposit (0.10USD per carbonated container) and Arizona has none. The proof that metals are a good recycling option is that in Arizona there are independent metal recyclers who will pay for your aluminum cans.

        The large issue is plastics and papers. Even with presorting, these are quite energy intensive products to recycle, and they result in an inferior product. Not to mention that the price of natural gas (feedstock for many plastics) is particularly low.

        • (Score: 1) by PocketSizeSUn on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:50PM

          by PocketSizeSUn (5340) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:50PM (#199939)

          Correct.

          Aside from metals and clean poly water bottles the entire rest of the 'recycle' chain is a net negative in terms of both energy *and* environmental impact.
          It costs more in terms of energy and chemicals to recycle paper than to use new wood pulp. The additional positive is that *all* of that wood pulp was purpose grown (planted and harvested) for use as wood pulp / lumber.
          People just get confused because the plant / harvest cycle on trees in a multi-year not the sub 200 days of most agricultural products.

          It's a simple question really ... if you have to pay someone to get rid of it ... it's a net negative.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:53AM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:53AM (#199836)

      High-termperature incineration is another option, though the cost of scrubbing the exhaust can be quite high.

      They closed our local one down 30 years ago. Something to consider is it used a huge amount of natgas to keep the fire burning. If you just try to burn trash without any fuel in your backyard you'll rapidly discover a filthy smoky mess. Incinerate or landfill depends on the ratio of land cost vs natgas cost.

      Ironically the incinerator was next door to the sewage plant and the plant used the process heat from the incinerator to do "something" so now instead of the incinerator burning a zillion bucks of natgas the sewage plant does something with half a zillion bucks of natgas. Probably evaporating sludge to dry it before shipping it away to a landfill? Or preventing the tanks from freezing in the winter?

      Another comment in the newspaper was the incinerator had some maintenance costs because people would throw things like full propane tanks into the trash, magnesium car parts, stuff like that.

      Finally even the incinerator had to dump ash somewhere, so its more like dropping the landfill requirements by a factor of 100 not eliminating entirely.

      So thats the experience of a city that converted from incineration to landfill about 30 yrs ago with innumerable newspaper articles, back when people used to read newspapers.

      There do exist electric powered incinerating stinky toilets at remote telecom offices. I suppose you could power a million of them off millions of solar panels in order to incinerate a city worth of trash in a green-ish manner.

      I wonder if gold plated connectors and rare earth electronics could make distillation of used consumer electronics profitable, given cheap enough energy. Get oil prices high enough and vacuum distilled plastic monomers would probably be profitable for resale.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:46PM

        by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:46PM (#199875) Journal

        Ironically the incinerator was next door to the sewage plant and the plant used the process heat from the incinerator to do "something" so now instead of the incinerator burning a zillion bucks of natgas the sewage plant does something with half a zillion bucks of natgas.

        That's a bit surprising. Normally sewage treatment works produce a lot of methane that needs safe disposal, and the safest way of disposing of it is to burn it (ideally doing something with the generated heat). I'd have thought that the biggest reason for having the two next to each other would be that the sewage works would produce the gas that the incinerator needed.

        --
        sudo mod me up
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:05PM (#199885)

        I wonder if gold plated connectors and rare earth electronics could make distillation of used consumer electronics profitable

        That is mostly a chemical process. A pretty nasty one at that. NurdRage on youtube has a good series of videos on what goes into it.

        Setting it on fire is not one of them :)

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:47PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:47PM (#199935)

          Oh you get things hot enough and anything distills, I assure you of that. It takes lava like heat but it'll work. That's what I'm proposing.

          You are correct that the less energy intensive way to chemically refine gold at room temp has some environmental and safety issues...

      • (Score: 2) by joshuajon on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:31PM

        by joshuajon (807) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:31PM (#200021)

        Waste-to-energy [wikipedia.org] technologies allow energy to be directly recovered from waste in the incinerator plants. This is the reason Sweden is actually importing garbage [aljazeera.com].

    • (Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:30PM

      by Kromagv0 (1825) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:30PM (#199847) Homepage

      There use to be more re-useability of containers but that seems to have gone away. Even glass containers that while they use standard size mouths do not use the standard mason jar threads. It use to be that almost any glass food container would accept either a standard or wide mouth mason jar lid and ring and even if they weren't thick enough for pressure canning would work great for hot water bath canning (tomatoes, pickles, jams), keeping honey in, or storing dry goods with an air tight seal. Even if someone didn't reuse the container those glass containers recycle wonderfully.

      --
      T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:08PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:08PM (#199912) Journal

        I dunno, I keep glass containers from salsa, pickles, and the like around as a kind of game to see how I can reuse them. My wife wanted a salt scrub so I made one from kosher salt, olive oil, rosemary from our plant in the window, and lemon zest grated from the lemons she likes with Coronas and put the whole thing in an old jar for maraschino cherries. Having a variety of shapes and sizes helps as a visual mnemonic so keep re-uses separate; salsa jars are for chemistry applications like ferric chloride I make for brass/bronze/copper etching, smaller unusual shapes are for ointments or toiletries like the aforementioned salt scrub or the baking soda, salt, and mint extract-infused powder I use to brush my teeth.

        If you do want to use jars for canning, you're right that standard, stackable forms are best.

        I have conquered our paper waste stream entirely, too. It all goes into the shredder which turns into bedding for the guinea pigs which goes into the compost box which goes into the garden which goes into the vegetables which return to the table. I've looked into compressing newsprint, circulars, etc into logs for the fireplace, but...we don't have a fireplace and it seems like a process itself. Recycling it into hand-made paper for crafts is another re-use, but, I'd rather teach the kids how to do that from wild plants they gather themselves. Nevertheless it feels good to transform all the avalanche of paper that never does seem to stop piling on my doorstep from a burden into a source of raw material.

        My next project is to build a backyard smelter to use the waste metals and caste them into new, useful objects. The high heats required is a bit intimidating, but it will be fun to conquer that waste stream, too.

        I did think the plastics waste stream would take care of itself earlier, what with 3D printers becoming mainstream. But no one seems to have come up with a "RecycleBot" for that, yet. The plastic-eating microbes from the article yesterday could be one answer, but I'd rather re-use the stuff than just have it eaten.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:50PM

          by Kromagv0 (1825) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:50PM (#199973) Homepage

          Melting most non ferrous metals is fairly simple which would likely be most of what you would be dealing with. For steel and Iron you are going to need something more than waste paper/wood products. If you are interested in this topic here is a page [backyardmetalcasting.com] I found a while ago when I was trying to find out how to build a charcoal furnace for making steel ingots (I don't want to do smelting or casting but blacksmithing) that should provide more info for you.

          --
          T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:06PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @02:06PM (#199886) Journal

      Who ever thought it was free? I thought the argument was that it was cheaper than landfill.

      Not cheaper than landfill but cheaper than creating the raw materials from scratch. The original intent was melting down used cans into new cans or cars was cheaper than digging up the earth and refining ores.

      The common trait among both creating raw materials from scratch via mining, drilling, or logging is energy. And Energy = Oil. The idea is that recycling reduces the energy needed. But recycling has issues and overhead that starts to offset the cost of energy so as to make it unattractive.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @07:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @07:16PM (#200043)

        Eventually the earth will run out of resources and there won't be any raw materials left in the ground. Figuring out how to recycle everything is a good investment for the future, when even tons of dirt won't produce milligrams of raw material and recycling becomes the lowest-hanging fruit.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:55PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:55PM (#200155) Journal

          Eventually the earth will run out of resources and there won't be any raw materials left in the ground.

          Even if that were possible (and it's not due to the presence of a iron core to the Earth), one can always mine landfills in that situation.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:02AM

    by K_benzoate (5036) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:02AM (#199808)

    Recycling is only one part of a complex systems engineering problem. We aren't doing nearly enough to reduce the upstream pressure of material that eventually has to be recycled or disposed of. The most environmental product is the one that never gets made, so we should build things to last and be repairable. So spamming our environment with millions of electronic devices every year (and the paper/plastic packaging), to replace the nearly identical models from the previous year, is simply unconscionable.

    But that also bumps against a cultural problem. We feel it's our *right* to have a new smart phone every year, because we worked for that money. And I don't even disagree, but the negative externalities of those decisions have never been built into the price. They've been deferred to future generations by running up a sort of "ecological credit card" that soon will have to be repaid. The cost to recycle a product needs to be built into the price, and that could mean the price doubling or increasing even more. Will people go for that? Or will they insist that their ecological credit be extended for a bit more so that the party can continue just a bit longer?

    I'm not innocent either. I do a bit better than most. I buy used electronics when I can. I keep my smartphones ~4 years instead of 1. I could do more. But there's a scaling problem which makes it nearly impossible for voluntary individual action to solve these sorts of problems.

    I don't have a solution, but I know that the current state of things has been unsustainable for a long time. The credit we've been living on is going to run out.

    --
    Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:56AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:56AM (#199820) Journal

      to replace the nearly identical models from the previous year, is simply unconscionable.

      Problem is... without the planned obsolescence the exponential growth is almost impossible. Suppose the product you are buying lasts 20 years instead of just 2*... until you next contribute to the company's profit, the growth in the market due to natural birth rate will be surpassed by inflation; how do you think the poor corporate citizen is going to survive that long?

      Why do you hate capitalism? Consumer, it's your duty to consume! Otherwise jobs, profits, your retirement fund, taxes, roads and social security... the whole world as we know tumbles. Doesn't Apple has a right... nay, a duty rather... to put other billions in their stash every year?

      (grin) [soylentnews.org]

      ---

      * my grandfather had a Solingen made butcher-knife [wikipedia.org] he got from his father. But we are speaking of a world almost a century ago

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:47AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:47AM (#199834)

        I was going to say the same thing. It has always seemed bizarre to me that people support an inflationary currency but are against waste and pollution.

      • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:32PM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:32PM (#199928) Journal

        Insightful? Really mods? Lets try thinking about this logically, mmkay? Lets say his "20 years instead of 2" was applied......would you REALLY want to run a PC from say 1997? A phone? Hell even TVs have come a pretty long way since then!

        Lets use myself as an example...I just replaced my 4 year old phone and my 6 year old PC, now did I HAVE to replace those? Nope the Phenom X6 and HTC Evo both worked....but the FX8 and BLU Studio both do more useful work while using less power allowing me to get more done in less time and thus use less power overall. Of course I didn't just shitcan either device, the X6 is now being used by my oldest while the Evo has gone to the wife's daughter whose phone got trashed, but I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to stay on either for the rest of the decade, much less 20 years!

        So I'm sorry but I call bullshit, we are still coming up with new ideas and innovations, especially in mobile, that makes those every other year upgrades worth doing. in other fields where this isn't the case? Things have slowed down, just look at PCs where a Phenom I or C2D from 2007 is still a perfectly usable office box or web surfer and will probably still be so by the end of the decade. But if you thought about it for just a second? You'd see keeping things 20 years when technology is improving so rapidly is just nuts. I mean would you REALLY want to still be watching a 25in CRT TV with some uber lousy resolution that blew through 150w+ when you could be watching on a 40in LCD that does 1080P for less than a quarter the power?

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:07PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:07PM (#199950) Journal

          Yeah, the progress is fast, sometimes blazing fast - considering the consequences of not doing it [abc.net.au], sometimes really worth replacing your washing machine before the 2 years elapsed.

          Look, mate, this life isn't made only from mobile gizmos.
          I have no problem with the progress rate, all I'm saying I'd appreciate things that are functioning fine well beyond 2 years; what I do with them is my business, if you don't like it, that's your business.
          For instance, I might still be tempted to use my 12y old 22" CRT monitor just because 2048x1500 resolution is about 4 times your 1080x768. The solar panels on my roof (guaranteed for 20 years) surely offset those 150W; and no, I don't even dare to think I'd go change those solar panels next year just because... progress or fancy nuts

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 23 2015, @05:26PM

          by WillAdams (1424) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @05:26PM (#199992)

          I was still using my Fujitsu Stylistic ST4121 until very recently --- 933MHz Pentium III w/ 768 MB RAM and a 4GB SSD running Windows XP.

          Still works fine, except that web sites run too much Javascript for it to manage them (and the lack of security updates makes browsing anything other than known sites w/ adblock chancy).

          Still haven't found a replacement for its daylight viewable transflective LCD though, so still using it to control my CNC machine, or to do light editing and design work when traveling by car during the day.

          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday June 24 2015, @05:21AM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday June 24 2015, @05:21AM (#200233) Journal

            And I bet my last dollar that if you slapped a kill-a-watt on that system and compared it to a system built with this chip [newegg.com] you'd find you are blowing through 5 times the power while not getting 1/20th the amount of useful work per cycle!

            I'm sorry but every PC before the Athlon X2 and the Core Duo? REALLY need to be shitcanned, as from 1993-2005 or so we were in the "MHz war" and power usage was not given a single fuck about by the OEMs. The PSUs wasted lots of power as heat, the chips? Just look at the benches of a P4 3.06GHz some time and then look at the power usage (hint: The above chip curbstomps while using a teeny tiny portion of the P4s idle power) or even the chip you named...they sucked.

            So I'm sorry but some things CAN be easily kept, like washers or can openers, but PCs and mobile? Yeah...not unless you just like wasting power and time. Oh and FYI that is the chip I use in HTPCs, it does 1080P over HDMI with an average power draw of just 12w, its a truly great chip and miles ahead of what we had back then.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 1) by WillAdams on Wednesday June 24 2015, @03:57PM

              by WillAdams (1424) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @03:57PM (#200438)

              The thing is, the embodied energy / carbon impact of most electronics is at the time of manufacture, so it's better to keep even older gear running.

              If I could pull the display out and use it in something more modern, I'd be glad to --- similarly, I'd be glad to buy a new machine which had a transflective LCD, but no one is making one anymore, save for a few niche rugged units for military/LEO/construction --- but none of them have the stylus which I need.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Tuesday June 23 2015, @05:45PM

          It depends on the product. Using an example of Computer which is still a maturing technology to invalidate the entire concept is ridiculous. In my own life, The HotPoint refriderator that my Grandparents bought for their first house in 1954, then moved with them, then put in the basement as a soda fridge, that my uncle used in his first house, I in my apartment and now my brother uses still works great. You can't buy a fridge that'll last you 20 years now, never mind 60. The 33 year old pickup truck that I drive, was bought new by my FIL, given to his FIL and given to me. It's still totally functional as a truck to haul stuff and get me from place to place.

          I tend to get 10+ years out of my daily use computers. I'd happy try to get 5years from a smart phone, but they're too damn fragile. As with everything there is a trade off between cost of replacement, difference in running costs, technological improvements etc etc. I think if as a society we cut out "ooh shiny!" reaction a bit, we'd probably be doing the planet a favor.

          --
          My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Marneus68 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:42AM

    by Marneus68 (3572) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:42AM (#199814) Homepage

    > progressive lawmakers and environmentalists have made matters worse [by] demanding almost no sorting by consumers

    Why am I not surprised here? It's sad really because the whole recycling thing was one of the point that made me agree with "progressives". The fact that it turned out being a profitable business for a while made it pick up steam for a while and now it's all over.

    Over here in Europe (or at least in France, where I live) companies in the field of recycling have huge incentives, but the consumer is urged to do a lot of sorting. Besides the basic Trash/Glass/Not Glass distinction we had, we sometimes have distinctions between metal, carboard, glass and plastic in certain regions. This requires work for the end user but it's seen as being a civic duty, as I think it should be.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:09PM (#199857)

      Besides the basic Trash/Glass/Not Glass

      The thing is I have basically paper/metal/glass/plastic.

      The glass part is *maybe* a jar or two a week. There is a hell of a lot more paper. The metal comes from pop cans which I am trying to cut out of my life. So guess what ends up in my recycling? Mostly paper. Pretty low stock paper at that too. Most of it is cardboard that has been printed on in some way. Which means the other end has to bleach it out to use it. I have considered going to a local dude for milk. Just to get glass containers.

      Paper and glass is probably the worst to recycle. As each time you use it the fibers get shorter. Yet we have the most of it. The problem is upstream in our packaging. Very little of it is designed to be reused. Plastic is a pain because there are a few dozen different types and some of them do not mix.

      Then there is the 'can I?' moments. There is tons of stuff that may or may not be allowed in your bin. But you are not sure. So you either recycle it and they toss it. Or you bin it and it possibly could have been reused.

      I do recycle but it is a pain. Were I currently live we have always had 2 stream. One year a new dude decided just 'punish' everyone who did not put the right things in. He left the whole recycle bin behind and only took the bins that were 'right'. Overnight recycling went to near 0 in this area. They had to goto machine pickup to get the rate high again.

      I always figured the most they made was from the metal anyway. Glass/plastic/paper are pretty close to worthless.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by throwaway28 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:23PM

        by throwaway28 (5181) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:23PM (#199864) Journal

        I always figured the most they made was from the metal anyway. Glass/plastic/paper are pretty close to worthless.

        When I toured a boston-area recycling sorting facility (casella) a year ago, they said that while aluminum was resold for 1500 dollars / ton; and paper was almost worthless (40 dollars / ton); they made most of their money selling paper because of the high volume. It takes lotsa aluminum cans, to make a ton.

        And crushed glass, was indeed worthless -- they needed to pay to get rid of it (maybe 15 dollars / ton). But less worthless than pure trash (disposal cost 90 dollars / ton).

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:12PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:12PM (#199915) Journal

        You can compost paper. Mix it with vegetable peels and organics, through in a container of red worms you can get at a nursery, and they'll turn it into light, fluffy potting soil in a couple of months. I do that for my garden and stuff planted in it grows faster than with MiracleGro.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:37PM (#200022)

      That bit sounded crazy to me as well. Sounds more like sorting is dying. No wonder then if nobody wants your mixed waste...

      Yes, there will always be assholes who refuse to sort their trash or even sabotage the effort on purpose. But that's a small minority. It's really not that hard. And it's kinda rewarding to know you're doing your little bit.

      I sort my waste into glass, metal, paper and cardboard and rubbish tip. And electric and hazardous. No sweat.

      If in certain areas or at first extra incentives are needed, perhaps there could be a pledge system where it would get expensive to not sort your stuff. Perhaps waste should be taxed. On the other hand the packaging protects the products, so zero packaging would not be a good solution.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:20PM (#200106)

      Why would anyone bother sorting their waste, pay to have it removed, and then watch the company that takes it away try to make a profit on it. Even after that, you have to pay for garbage pickup for whatever they wont take. That certainly does not feel like a civic duty.

      When recyclers stop charging for pickup, more people will care. It takes both time and money to recycle on top of garbage pickup when it only takes money to toss it in the trash bin. Clearly one is superior for anyone that works full time or has a family, and it isn't working for a recycler's attempt at profit.

    • (Score: 1) by dusty monkey on Wednesday June 24 2015, @12:32AM

      by dusty monkey (5492) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @12:32AM (#200169)

      Over here in Europe (or at least in France, where I live) companies in the field of recycling have huge incentives, but the consumer is urged to do a lot of sorting.

      The thing is that you guys in Europe have issues with the amount of unused land thats available. In countries like the U.S. there is so much unused land that worrying about running out of it is like worrying that the planet will run out of metal because of all the satellites that we put into space.

      Also, when we "fill up" landfills we turn them into parks and golf courses.

      So the arguments that are left are:

      1) reducing the rate of resource depletion

      2) avoiding harmful pollutions

      As far as (1) this sort of recycling isnt the responsibility of anyone anywhere because very little is actually made with rare resources (because rare = expensive.) Paper and aluminum arent even close to being in danger of being depleted by any stretch of the imagination. The plastic recycling is only shallowly justified since the amount of petrochemicals (the primary resource that is being depleted) used to make plastic is so vastly dwarfed by the primary uses of petrochemicals.

      The only recycling that seems to make any sense from a non-business perspective is that which focuses on (2) such as battery recycling. It isnt because we are running out of the resources needed to make batteries, or places to dispose of them, but instead its because they are highly toxic and shouldn't be buried in arbitrary locations.

      So quite frankly I'm fine if nearly all recycling was entirely handled by for-profit businesses which purchase garbage with an aim to sift through it for what they can use. In those cases where its not profitable, just don't do it. There is an extremely absurd amount of land on this earth to dump paper, metal, and plastic. Its a billion-years-from-now problem.

      --
      - when you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil - stop supporting evil -
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:06AM (#199823)

    In Sweden, they recycle 47 percent of their garbage and burn another 52 percent in community-sized incinerators to produce heat and electricity.
    Less than 1 percent of their garbage ends up in the dump.
    They even import trash from Norway and UK [aljazeera.com] (and charge those places to take it off their hands. Heh.)

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Zipf on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:10AM

    by Zipf (2400) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:10AM (#199828)

    Per month. What I found was that all the local (NY) recycling depots of any size were locked into 10 year agreements (or so they told me). I think i got only one return phone call. My conclusion was that there is a lot of corruption in the recycling game.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:52PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:52PM (#199941)

      My conclusion was that there is a lot of corruption in NY

      Just saying its not a unique problem of recycling. I bet recycling is totally Fed up in Alaska and New Orleans too.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:01PM (#199838)

    That the contents of the blue and gray trash bins in the office end up in the same dumpster.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by rts008 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:55PM

      by rts008 (3001) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:55PM (#199855)

      That happened at the state university I used to work at. The people working in the recycling dept. told me that they did not have the time or budget to sort the materials sent in, and as a result, ended up just filling up the dumpsters with the vast majority of the 'recycled' trash.

      They tried imposing stricter rules on the people to combat this, but the results ended up with even more trash, as people lost interest/could not be bothered. The whole 'going green' initiative they embarked on was/is a posterchild for the Peter Principle.(Oklahoma State University, if anyone is interested)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:28PM (#200108)

        MSUFCU, the credit union of Michigan State University had a huge green building initiative when their headquarters was going up. Their goal was something like a 97% reduction in construction waste. I delivered those materials at the time.

        They made their goal, how did they do it? By doing something no other construction project I was a part of has ever done: made us take trash away after we delivered materials and throw it away at our facility instead of their construction site.

        If only I knew it was so simple to reduce my waste by using my neighbor's trashcan.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:17PM (#199841)

    I know I am not supposed to put pizza boxes with the cardboard, but that's what they told me to do. I suspect that recycling is no longer conserving resources.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @12:23PM (#199845)

    China doesn't want to buy our garbage any more

    That's understandable, but they should give Windows 10 a chance.

  • (Score: 2) by morgauxo on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:05PM

    by morgauxo (2082) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:05PM (#199856)

    If we bury our used paper in airless landfills where it cannot rot aren't we removing carbon from the carbon cycle? I've heard of people advocating for raising and harvesting fast growing trees just to bury them, replant and repeat as a way to sequester CO2. Why would we do that while at the same time we go to great pains to recycle our paper and cardboard, also made from trees?

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:18PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:18PM (#199920) Journal

      I have occasionally read sites that advocate bamboo for sequestration, which makes amazingly good sense. Bamboo is an exceptionally versatile material, and it grows fast. You can make virtually anything out of the stuff. Some of the best flooring you can get is bamboo. You can make bikes out of it. If you rett it, you can turn it into yarn, cloth, and anything else you make with fibers; my wife is an avid knitter and bamboo yarn is the silkiest, strongest stuff. There are also many varieties of bamboo whose shoots you can eat. You can make paper from it, too.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by gnuman on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:22PM

        by gnuman (5013) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:22PM (#199961)

        Some of the best flooring you can get is bamboo.

        Really? It's better than hardwood? You do understand that bamboo is a grass and very soft. It's just as crappy as cork flooring - it wears out in a few years and then you have to replace it. On other hand, oak floors can last generations.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:04PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:04PM (#200008)

          It would want to, oak trees take a fair while to grow compared to bamboo.

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:05PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:05PM (#200009) Journal

          I don't have bamboo flooring myself, but I've seen model homes built entirely out of bamboo in museums like Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. So what I wrote is based on memory of what I read there. But here's a link to a site [about.com] with more info on bamboo flooring:

          Durability: There are certain types of bamboo that can be extremely strong, hard, and durable. Natural, un-carbonized bamboo that was properly harvested and manufactured can be as durable as red oak. Strand woven bamboo can be manufactured even harder than that.

          Another site says this [builddirect.com]:

          Durable

          The Janka Hardness Scale, used to determine the hardness and strength of particular species of wood, rates solid bamboo flooring as a 1762 and engineered bamboo flooring ranks at a 1690, making both choices harder than both Red and White Oaks, Caribbean and North American Walnut, and Brazilian and North American Maple, among others. The Janka Hardness Scale rating is determined by how much force it takes to drive a .444-inch steel ball into a plank of wood .222 inches in diameter. The higher the rating on the scale, the harder and thus more durable the flooring is expected to be.

          Bamboo flooring is a highly durable flooring choice for any location subjected to extensive usage and can stand up very well to the abrasion caused by children and pets. It is tough enough to resist the impact of falling objects in the kitchen, as well as in high traffic areas such as the living rooms and hallways.

          Bamboo has a greater compressive strength than concrete and about the same strength-to-weight ratio as steel when subject to tension, yet it kinder to the body. When compared to standing on hardwood or concrete, the legs, feet, and knees do not experience as much strain and stress while standing on bamboo.

          Climatic Suitability

          Compared to hardwood and other flooring options, bamboo has a high climatic suitability because it grows in the tropics. This makes it a suitable option for the kitchen and laundry rooms, areas where hardwood does not work so well. Bamboo also does well in both arid and humid climates because it does not swell and contract like hardwood.

          Maybe there are flooring experts or those who've had bamboo floors for a long time who can chime in. But what I read sounds like bamboo is pretty amazing stuff.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:14PM

          by richtopia (3160) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:14PM (#200013) Homepage Journal

          I believe that seamless chemical flooring is the best by most metrics. Insulative so it is not cold on your feet, elastic so dropped objects do not shatter, smooth and water proof so cleaning is easy, and relatively inexpensive.

          If you want hard flooring perhaps concrete is a good alternative.

      • (Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:41PM

        by morgauxo (2082) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:41PM (#200583)

        Sure, but bamboo or otherwise, why make an extra effort to recycle one plant material while simultaneously farming another just for the purpose of landfilling it for carbon sequestration?

        If bamboo is better why not just make all our stuff out of it then landfill the stuff when we are done?

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by goodie on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:35PM

    by goodie (1877) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:35PM (#199869) Journal

    Ever since I became a father, I have been appalled at the amount of packaging used for packaging toys for kids and babies. It's just incredible how much crap they use to tie-wrap etc. a stupid plastic truck or car which, to begin with, are not exactly great in terms of carbon footprint I'm sure. I always thought electronics were the worst but nope, now I believe that toys are really worse than that.

    A few years ago, I saw on TV (it was in FRench but I don't remember the name of the show) a piece on the difficulty or impossibility to repair pretty much everything we make nowadays. They were showing that some LCD tv makers were purposefully (i.e. running lab tests to optimize this) building the devices so that they would break literally 3 weeks after the warranty expires. Then they had a repairman compare the inside of a washer, vacuum cleaner etc. from the models made 15-20 years ago or more. Everything was made so much cheaper and in a way that simply renders repairing impossible. For example, pieces are fused together to save money and assembly time but this means that the whole mechanism must be replaced if there is an issue etc. It was very eye-opening to hear from people who knew what they were talking about. And then they showed how a bunch of "broken" LCD tvs, once shipped to Africa, were fixed by the locals in 10-15 min by fixing up fried boards and so on. Of course after that the same people were throwing wires into an open fire to resell the copper they contained, all the while inhaling some pretty nasty fumes.

    Anyway, all this to say that recycling sounds like a good idea but to me it should be a last resort after trying to fix or use things for a different purpose if possible.

    • (Score: 1) by wolfinator on Tuesday June 23 2015, @05:27PM

      by wolfinator (3173) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @05:27PM (#199994)

      Another echo on the topic of children's toys. It's not just the packaging - it's how disposable the toys themselves are. They're made cheap, they're not recyclable, they die so fast...

      As a father of some young uns, I got turned on to Green Toys (http://greentoys.com/). I'm not affiliated with the company, but the approach they take makes so much sense. they're toys are made out of #2 plastic, so if a toy dies, the entire thing can just be recycled like a milk jug. They're very sturdy. Their packaging is just a bit of origami with a cardboard box.

      I wish more manufactures attempted to be even 1/3 as good. (Fischer Price, I'm looking at you!)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @07:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @07:32PM (#200049)

        c0lo hit [soylentnews.org] the problem dead-on - planned obsolescence is an inevitability under capitalism. If you make washing machines, for example, that last generations, then once everybody has one you've put yourself out of businesses. shoddy manufacturing ensures their revenue stream.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:00PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:00PM (#200063)

          If you make washing machines, for example, that last generations, then once everybody has one you've put yourself out of businesses.

          Not necessarily. If you're a good manufacturer, you make better and better models so that people want to upgrade later because the new ones have new features and better performance, not because it broke. In fact, you want the old ones to be uber-reliable so that people don't worry about it ever breaking, and tell all their friends how great and reliable they are too. Japanese cars were like this (and still are to a good extent).

          With washing machines, there's some limits to how much you can improve things, but in comparison to 20-year-old machines for instance, new machines (the high end ones at least) do a much better job cleaning clothes, and do it with a lot less water too. Efficiency can be a big selling point.

          Same goes for cars of course: fuel efficiency is important, so while you may like that your old car was very reliable and never broke down, you may want to pony up some money for the new model because it gets 30% better fuel economy with more power, plus it has a bunch of new features like better crashworthiness, adaptive headlights, blind spot and rear cross traffic warnings, etc.

          Personally, if I have a product that falls apart right after the warranty expires, guess which manufacturer I generally avoid when shopping for a replacement?

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:31PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @11:31PM (#200144) Homepage

    See subject line.

    The key tenant of recycling is reusing. Now imagine if everyone reused their cars, washing machines, kitchen appliances, and Apple devices for decades. Whatever would corporations do?

    Recycling cannot exist in a vacuum, the entire ecosystem must support it. That means companies must be devoted to producing easily reusable (read: repairable and long-lasting) and recyclable products. Unfortunately, capitalism (consumerism) has effectively driven most, if not all, such companies to extinction a long time ago. So much for the invisible hand.

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!