Recycling, a rant

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

If the SUV soccer mom is such an invalid stereotype, why are most of the auto manufacturers stopping manufacturing of small and medium-sized cars in favor of pickup trucks and SUVs? Because that’s what’s selling and they make more money per sales unit.

Two different concepts, and soccer moms don't much go for pickups, I believe.

Trucks and SUVs continue to exploit a ratings loophole, and of course cheap (subsidized!) gas makes them affordable to drive.

So your solution is to build the EVs and we will solve the infrastructure and recycling problems along the way or later.

EV production will ramp up, infrastructure will ramp up, and I expect that recycling will ramp up too. If your point is that there should be more emphasis now on the recycling part... I'm with you. With the caveat that we don't 100% know what the dominant battery technology will be in 10 or 15 years. Can't make recycling plans for what doesn't exist yet.

Originally Posted by Bycrick

Of course the producers externalize the costs. What do you expect? The whole idea of business is to get somebody else to pay. Things are packed in plastic because it’s easier for the manufacturer. Better protection in shipping. Easier for the store to stock. Less theft because the package is bigger. Encourages the customer to buy more than they might need. Everybody "benefits." Do you seriously believe that’s going to be changed by ranting about the environment?

No, I seriously believe it must be changed by government mandates about how much plastic and what type is used in packaging and other single use items, a unified recycling list, a requirement that recycling must be done in the country of consumption, favouring cardboard packaging over plastic, etc. THEN economics will do what it does best: to do the required at lowest cost.

[Bycrick]

Of course infrastructure for EVs will ramp up as there are more of them. But recycling costs money. Somebody has to pay for it. You can’t really collect on the back end. If I decide to charge everybody $10/lb to dispose of their plastic, there will be people who just drive down the road at night and throw it in the ditch. Or pitch it in the ocean rather than carrying it ashore and paying $500/truck load to supposedly have it trucked to an approved disposal site, worldwide regulations and mandatory trash disposal placards notwithstanding. For comparison, look at the ongoing problems of disposing of REALLY hazardous waste.

So if you want to avoid having to dispose of pollution, you have to stop it’s creation. That’s going to cost people money, and force them to change the way they live. . And, the liberals, environmentalists and world standards enforced by governments proponents aside, most people aren’t going to give up their rights to make sure that world-wide standards are enforced worldwide. You can’t level the playing field unless you can force everybody, everywhere to live by exactly the same rules, all the time. Thankfully, that’s not bloody likely.


That’s the reality. If I scare the world about "global warming," I’m likely to have trouble convincing people to give up their air conditioning to cut electrical usage. If I scare the world about COVID, and encourage people to stay at home and order food delivery in disposable packaging, I’m not going to reduce the amount of plastic waste. Want to drastically reduce disposable packaging? Shut down Amazon, Costco and GrubHub and their ilk. Do you want to run for office on that platform?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

Of course infrastructure for EVs will ramp up as there are more of them. But recycling costs money. Somebody has to pay for it. You can’t really collect on the back end..... For comparison, look at the ongoing problems of disposing of REALLY hazardous waste.

I don't disagree. What's happened with toxic dumps and pools, abandoned mines and oil wells, etc, left to be cleaned up at taxpayer's expense, is criminal. So I completely agree that full life-cycle costs (and responsibility) must be more up-front. And it's happening in some jurisdictions. For example, here in Ontario, we now pay a small surcharge on electronics purchases to offset the cost of recovering and recycling old electronics properly. Also here, we have greater than 90% return rate on beer wine and liquor bottles because of a long-standing deposit on them (a dime on bottles and cans, 20 cents for larger bottles)

...most people aren’t going to give up their rights to make sure that world-wide standards are enforced worldwide.

Worldwide standards are not yet possible. But that's no excuse for not acting responsibly to the extent a country can, especially the wealthier ones.

And where is it written that people have the right to the cheapest possible stuff, regardless of its environmental impact?

That’s the reality. If I scare the world about "global warming," I’m likely to have trouble convincing people to give up their air conditioning to cut electrical usage. If I scare the world about COVID, and encourage people to stay at home and order food delivery in disposable packaging, I’m not going to reduce the amount of plastic waste.

In a roundabout way, that's very close to my main point: that the same set of ideologies and beliefs has more or less the same set of people pitted against meaningful action on climate change, pollution, sustainable energy generation, conservation, ecology... all of that.

[Bycrick]

Long-term change in a democracy only happens when enough people agree that the change is necessary. But that involves the long, tedious process of convincing a majority that the overall goal is worth the pain of the changes. Well-meaning measures, driven by the advocates and activists, don’t usually work: alcohol and drug prohibitions come to immediate mind. Plastic packaging is so widely used because it serves "useful" if not universally "good" purposes. To change this, you have to change the entire system. That isn’t easy, because the system has been built up over decades and there are too many people with too much invested in the status quo. Mandates don’t make people comply. Unpopular laws make people dissent or revolt.

[Bycrick]

Lake Effect, you just proved my point. "In a roundabout way, that's very close to my main point: that the same set of ideologies and beliefs has more or less the same set of people pitted against meaningful action on climate change, pollution, sustainable energy generation, conservation, ecology... all of that." "Meaningful action" seems to mean what you think is necessary. "Climate change" needs to be broken down into what is inherent in the earth's climate and what might be caused by humans. That in turn depends on convincing people, individually and in the aggregate, that they should all dramatically change their lifestyle and desires. "Conservation" of what? Do I preserve the Amazon rainforest or do I raise cattle to feed the people? Do I save the snail darter or build a dam to provide electricity for the postulated millions of EVs? You make it sound sooooo easy. But it’s not. When CA is short of water and electricity, does it really help the planet to get rid of the dams on the Klamath River, to benefit the Native American salmón runs and some activists' ideas of restoring nature?

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

If the SUV soccer mom is such an invalid stereotype, why are most of the auto manufacturers stopping manufacturing of small and medium-sized cars in favor of pickup trucks and SUVs? Because that’s what’s selling and they make more money per sales unit.

So your solution is to build the EVs and we will solve the infrastructure and recycling problems along the way or later. That sound exactly the approach we’ve taken with plastic.

Yeah, wouldn't want to look out the window as you are driving around when you can discount it by yelling "stereotype".

Oddly, the manufacturers also show the proverbial soccer mom in a big SUV on their commercials...I'm sure they haven't done any research on who buys their vehicles.

PS: With the advent of big 4 door pickups, some do seem to have transitioned to pickups.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

Of course infrastructure for EVs will ramp up as there are more of them. But recycling costs money. Somebody has to pay for it. You can’t really collect on the back end.

Thanks for restating what I've been saying. I guess we agree . You can't collect it at the back end (which is essentially what we're trying to do with most of the current recycling programs). It's a bandaid that masks the problems and doesn't push anyone to do anything to reduce -- not until the whole system crashes, which is where we're getting in some areas of recycling.

That's why the cost must be right up front; at the producer and then the retail/consumer side. This problem is ideally suited to a true market solution.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

Lake Effect, you just proved my point. "In a roundabout way, that's very close to my main point: that the same set of ideologies and beliefs has more or less the same set of people pitted against meaningful action on climate change, pollution, sustainable energy generation, conservation, ecology... all of that." "Meaningful action" seems to mean what you think is necessary. "Climate change" needs to be broken down into what is inherent in the earth's climate and what might be caused by humans. That in turn depends on convincing people, individually and in the aggregate, that they should all dramatically change their lifestyle and desires. "Conservation" of what? Do I preserve the Amazon rainforest or do I raise cattle to feed the people? Do I save the snail darter or build a dam to provide electricity for the postulated millions of EVs? You make it sound sooooo easy. But it’s not. When CA is short of water and electricity, does it really help the planet to get rid of the dams on the Klamath River, to benefit the Native American salmón runs and some activists' ideas of restoring nature?

Here's the difference: I want to do something. You seem to be nonstop with the excuses why we can't/shouldn't/won't do anything. And it's all across the board, from CC to recycling.

Long-term change in a democracy only happens when enough people agree that the change is necessary. But that involves the long, tedious process of convincing a majority that the overall goal is worth the pain of the changes. Well-meaning measures, driven by the advocates and activists, don’t usually work: alcohol and drug prohibitions come to immediate mind. Plastic packaging is so widely used because it serves "useful" if not universally "good" purposes. To change this, you have to change the entire system. That isn’t easy, because the system has been built up over decades and there are too many people with too much invested in the status quo. Mandates don’t make people comply. Unpopular laws make people dissent or revolt.

Oh please. This isn't a moon shot, or prohibition. Most people wouldn't give a rats ass whether a product is in some elaborate plastic presentation blisterpak, or a simple windowed cardboard box. With Amazon, the pretty online pictures are enough, and the product comes in a brown carton... So we're not talking changes that the consumer would violently oppose. And you've apparently ignored the fact that the fossil fuel and related industries have lobbied hard to delay and defer the hard (but not that hard) choices about single-use plastic. Other countries are managing to do better. Enough with the excuses...

[Bycrick]

DoIng something, just to be doing something, is not, to my mind a valid plan. It’s theater, politics or virtue signaling. Whatever gets done has to have the support of a significant number of the stakeholders, whether they agree with you or not. It will not happen quickly, or without compromises that each side will dislike and resist. And calling your opponent names will just create more resistance.

My local big box store won’t give single use bags, but they’ll sell you expensive multiuse bags. But that does nothing to stop them from taking a box of 48 cans of insecticide and breaking it down into 24 pairs, each wrapped in plastic. Or Amazon taking an order for 4 different sizes of socket wrenches, each in a blister pack, and shipping them as 4 separate items, each in its own package, because that’s quicker, easier and cheaper.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

DoIng something, just to be doing something, is not, to my mind a valid plan. ...

Nor is it mine. I'd like to see us closer to the "make a valid plan" stage, but it seems you have every excuse for not even doing that.

...taking a box of 48 cans of insecticide and breaking it down into 24 pairs, each wrapped in plastic. Or Amazon taking an order for 4 different sizes of socket wrenches, each in a blister pack, and shipping them as 4 separate items, each in its own package, because that’s quicker, easier and cheaper.

You just identified a bunch of simple things that could probably be done better. The businesses would make those changes themselves if there was incentive (carrot and/or stick) for doing so.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

...You just identified a bunch of simple things that could probably be done better. The businesses would make those changes themselves if there was incentive (carrot and/or stick) for doing so.

Here is the stick:

A law requiring the manufacturer to define how their product (including the packaging) will be properly disposed of or recycled and to set aside the money to do that. When they realize how expensive and difficult it is to recycle bubble wrap they will have plenty of incentive to stop using it.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Here is the stick:

A law requiring the manufacturer to define how their product (including the packaging) will be properly disposed of or recycled and to set aside the money to do that. When they realize how expensive and difficult it is to recycle bubble wrap they will have plenty of incentive to stop using it.

Bang on Wing! This is how we can solve the problem that all of us here agree exists. It's actually quite simple, and as I keep saying, a perfect "free market" solution.

[Bycrick]

So, the manufacturer is in China. It’s packaged in Vietnam, it’s sold to say, Walmart and 100 other distributors. Who collects the tax? Who gets to spend the money? For what? These are not just niggling, trivial details, that in my "nastiness" I bring up to shoot down your dream. They’re the kind of serious questions that need to be more-or-less answered before anyone will take your pipe dreams seriously.

I suggest you read "The story of a T-shirt in the global economy" available on Amazon. Then figure out how your going to collect a recycle tax on something really complicated.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

So, the manufacturer is in China. It’s packaged in Vietnam, it’s sold to say, Walmart and 100 other distributors. Who collects the tax? Who gets to spend the money? For what? These are not just niggling, trivial details, that in my "nastiness" I bring up to shoot down your dream. They’re the kind of serious questions that need to be more-or-less answered before anyone will take your pipe dreams seriously.

I suggest you read "The story of a T-shirt in the global economy" available on Amazon. Then figure out how your going to collect a recycle tax on something really complicated.

What tax? There is no tax, there is a law which say the producer is responsible for the life cycle of the product. Just like we put all manner of other requirements on producers -- including those in China or Vietnam -- so too with this.

You sure work hard to avoid doing anything...

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

So, the manufacturer is in China. It’s packaged in Vietnam, it’s sold to say, Walmart and 100 other distributors. Who collects the tax? Who gets to spend the money? For what? These are not just niggling, trivial details, that in my "nastiness" I bring up to shoot down your dream. They’re the kind of serious questions that need to be more-or-less answered before anyone will take your pipe dreams seriously.

"Pipe dream"? On a global scale of difficulty, recycling is small stuff. Your concerns are noted; but I think you're overcomplicating the issue. Like with the many other regulations imposed on products that are allowed to be sold in North America...safety standards, electrical and noise certifications, paint and other toxicity, food additives etc... they figure it out and manage to still make bank.

The fee/tax question is easy: if something is sold in country A, then country A collects the recycling fee, to pay for recycling or disposal in country A. No matter where the something came from.

By the way, the packaging industry doesn't seem to share your negativity; they're girding their loins for anticipated legislation.