
Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated - robertwiblin
https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/what-you-think-about-landfill-and-recycling-is-probably-totally-wrong-3a6cf57049ce
======
spodek
Reducing is strategic.

Reusing and recycling are tactical.

If your strategy is in place, use all the tactics that contribute to it. But
if you don't have your strategy in place, tactics can do nothing or even move
you backward.

Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of
reduction.

We are stepping on the gas, thinking we're stepping on the brake.

Covered in episode 183 of Leadership and the Environment:
[http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-
volume...](http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-volume-6)

~~~
viraptor
> Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of
> reduction.

What do you mean by "promotes growth" here? You pay for your recycling just
like your trash. Why would any company like it more than reducing overall
waste?

~~~
spodek
It promotes their growth -- say packaged good companies like Coca-Cola, Trader
Joe's, or Starbucks. Clothing companies like H&M and Zara. Most unnecessary
material stuff.

A statistic from The Story of Stuff [https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-
stuff](https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-stuff) comes to mind that
something like 99% of things Americans buy end up in landfills within one
year.

Manufacturers slap the word "recyclable" on those products to get people to
buy more of them, hence growth.

~~~
smsm42
> 99% of things Americans buy end up in landfills within one year.

What "things" means here? A car is a "thing" and a toothpick is a "thing". I
can use the car for 10 years and I use several toothpicks per day. So on
average, I throw nearly everything very quickly, but the picture seems to be
misleading if we remember we're comparing toothpicks to cars...

~~~
c0vfefe
How exactly is it misleading? I know that things are things, and include both
short- & long-lived things.

~~~
smsm42
Averaging over categories of wildly distinct things is misleading. It's like
taking average temperature of all human bodies in the hospital and judging
public health by that measure - ignoring the fact that some of those are dead
bodies in the freezer and some are running high fever. Or, another example, if
you look at average wealth of people in a pub, and Bill Gates and Warren
Buffet walk in to have a pint, the average wealth would jump up, but nobody
really became any richer. Conclusions made on this kind of measures make sense
only in specific conditions, but when we could a huge expensive car as one
thing and 1000 tiny toothpicks as 1000 things and averaging over that, it can
not help but being misleading.

------
contactlight11
How about this information from CT's DEEP which quotes the EPA for the
majority of it's information? Compared to virgin materials, using recycled
materials more efficient by:

\- 40% for paper

\- 60-74% for steel and tin cans

\- 33% for plastics

\- 30% for glass

\- 5% for aluminum cans

These numbers appear to be referencing the generation of new products using
recycled vs new materials, but do they fail to take in to account the cost of
actually getting those recycled materials (ie going from trash to the recycled
paper pulp)?

I always thought the 3 R's are in the order they are for a reason.

Reduce - first step realize that happiness is not automatically linked to
consumption. This is harder than it seems because this extends beyond product
consumption to other forms of material consumption like traveling by plane or
car (IC vs EV vs hybrid is a whole other debate)

Reuse - once you have something, get the full use out of it, and try to
repurpose it for other uses too if possible.

Recycle - once you have used something to the point that can no longer serve
it's purpose adequately because it's worn out, place it or parts of it in a
recycling bin if possible.

What this article and discussion has prompted me to do is research further
into which parts of something deserve to be placed in the recycle bin (whether
or not there is an established way to recycle them, ie plastics) and if
certain reduction techniques aren't all they're cracked up to be (reusable
straws and shopping bags)

Reference:
[https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2714&q=440320](https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2714&q=440320)

~~~
AmericanChopper
> first step realize that happiness is not automatically linked to consumption

I’ve always thought that framing the issue like this is both smug and
dishonest.

Smug because you’re essentially saying that people are wrong about the things
they believe bring them satisfaction and comfort.

Dishonest because reduce in this context will always mean a reduction in
quality of life.

Aside from being an ineffective way to convince people of anything, it also
seems counterproductive in the sense that it alienates people from caring
about the issue.

~~~
m0zg
This is a profoundly consumerist point of view, IMO. It presupposes that
buying more stuff necessarily brings more satisfaction and comfort (which is
not true in general once one's basic needs for security, food, shelter, and
healthcare are met), and that having less stuff means "a reduction in quality
of life" (also not true, having less stuff leads to an increase in quality of
life for many people).

There are demonstrably a lot of unsatisfied, uncomfortable people who have a
lot of stuff and whose quality of life is quite poor, all things considered.

~~~
AmericanChopper
This position erroneously presupposes that life satisfaction and quality of
life are the same thing. Many people are satisfied with a lower quality of
life, and are more than happy to invest tremendous effort into things that
others may expect to be more convenient. But the point of view in the parent
comment is essentially “if you do not derive satisfaction in life from the
same things that I do, then you are wrong”, which is remarkably arrogant and
closed minded.

~~~
kilburn
Quality of life is a subjective issue [1], of which material possesion is just
one amongst several dimensions. Therefore, it is perfectly possible for a
person to improve their quality of life by consuming less: by the very
definition of quality of life, it is enough for said person to feel that their
quality of life improved as a result of consuming less for it to be true.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life)

~~~
AmericanChopper
Nearly all of the metrics used to track quality of life relate directly to
consumption. Perhaps I would have been better to say ‘standard of living’,
which exclusively measures consumption. But none of that changes my point,
which is when you say ‘reduce’ in this context, you’re not being honest about
what you’re reducing, and basically saying that the only correct way to derive
satisfaction from life is the way that you do it (or at least the way you’re
proposing it should be done).

------
Liron
We really shot ourselves in the foot with this whole pointless "recycling
paper and plastic" thing huh?

The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization
and one of life's little pleasures, and we had to ruin it by acting like it's
wrong when it's actually not.

When I walk up to some wastebins holding a papery-plasticky object with a bit
of food stuck to it, my heart sinks. Now I have to think about classifying it
into one of 2-4 inconsistent-looking bins, and I feel guilty that the
classification isn't perfect - which would be okay if it was for a good cause,
but the whole concept of recycling paper and plastic was a net-negative to
begin with.

Recycling is one of those things that feels like it solves a problem but
doesn't at all - like hybrid cars, US-style airport security, or donating cans
of food.

~~~
yongjik
> The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern
> civilization ...

I think you got it backwards. Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life
before modern civilization arrived, just like defecating wherever you find
convenient, hunting animals for dinner, or riding hoses on whatever side of
road you like.

The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that
it's no longer feasible to just "throw away" stuff we don't need. Just like
modern cars necessitated speed limits, stop signs, and annoying lane-changing
rules, mass production requires one to think about how to dispose stuff
without ruining ourselves.

So, yeah I think you got it backwards. Maybe recycling doesn't work as well as
advertised, but that doesn't mean we are off the hook. It just means we need a
different solution.

~~~
nordsieck
> Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization
> arrived

What? Absolutely not. Things were precious and labor was cheap back in the
day.

Anything that could be repaired was. Ever heard of "darning socks"? Yeah - no
one would do that today, but it was common 100 years ago.

> just like defecating wherever you find convenient

Lol.

People found out pretty quickly that you have to give a crap about where you
give a crap or people get sick and die. This is 2000 BC social technology.

> The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff
> that it's no longer feasible to just "throw away" stuff we don't need.

BS.

The earth is big. Really big. Stupendously big. Conceptually it's trivial to
make a landfill large enough for anything we will make in the next 100 years
with space left over.

We don't do this because it's cheaper to have small landfills closer to
cities, but that's an economic limitation, not a technical one.

~~~
yongjik
> The earth is big. Really big. Stupendously big.

The wonder (and horror) of modern civilization is that this kind of thinking
is obsolete. Pregnant women are advised not to eat tuna, caught anywhere,
because we managed to pollute the entire ocean with mercury. We're producing
so much chemical fertilizers that we create more biologically available
nitrogen than the rest of nature combined. And of course we're warming the
planet itself.

Even ancient Americans, with their stone tools, managed to exterminate
virtually every large animal in the Americas.

> Conceptually it's trivial to make a landfill large enough ...

Conceptually it's also trivial to stop global warming. We just have to stop
making any more CO2 (and maybe suck up a bit from the air). Doesn't mean it's
easy in practice.

~~~
lenkite
Unfortunately just stopping will not be good enough.
[https://phys.org/news/2017-10-global-doesnt-
emissions.html](https://phys.org/news/2017-10-global-doesnt-emissions.html)

------
jl2718
Just want to say that my grandfather, while working at Hughes, was one of the
earliest proponents of aluminum recycling, but everybody was mad at him
because they had to pay CRV (which is a terribly-designed incentive actually).
Then he was one of the earliest opponents of recycling plastics, and he
received nearly universal excoriation, including from my own family. Now the
facts are slowly trickling out of the cultural taboos, and perhaps rationality
will prevail either way, but it’s been about 50 years now, and it seems like
maybe cultural consensus on technical topics is a poor indicator of fact.

~~~
Aloha
I think if we only used two kinds of plastic for food or consumer packaging,
plastic recycling would make more sense, we unfortunately use like 10, which
means s high labor cost for sorting.

~~~
jacobush
Plus a myriad of additives in the plastic, plus various contaminants. Which
makes it kind of hard of to recycle without seriously degrading the end
product, even if we had everything nailed to spec and not the chaos we are in
now.

I my book, we need to make energy production seriously cheap (renewables, plus
maybe nuclear) and put some of the energy excess into transporting heavier but
inert packaging such as glass, metal and carton. And by decree lock down the
types of plastic and additives which are allowed to use.

~~~
pfdietz
In a 100% renewable economy, there will be a need for storable chemical energy
for filling rare prolonged outages of wind and solar. Refuse, and in
particular high energy density refuse like plastics (made from renewables
feedstocks), would be good for this.

------
pizza234
> Properly run landfill doesn’t hurt the environment in itself.

... and properly written software has no security vulnerabilities.

~~~
tomatocracy
Part of the problem with landfill is that the economics are largely 'profit
first, cost later'. We don't really have a good model to ensure that long term
maintenance and care of a landfill site post closure is always adequately
funded so there's always a risk that an owner who might well have made all his
capital investment back, and more, before the landfill closed just runs out of
money and walks away no matter how you provide privately. This is a bit like
the issue you have with defined benefit pensions and longevity, only you have
less certainty on the costs.

Because the potential environmental consequences of just leaving the site
unmaintained or poorly looked after are high, in the developed world
government almost always ends up providing a backstop to this. This could be
described as 'socialised losses and privatised profits' when it gets used, and
we would be right to be very wary of this model, even to pay a premium to
avoid it.

~~~
hakfoo
I always thought there was a fortune to be made in buying the mining rights to
old landfills.

I'd expect compressed old consumer goods to be a rich "ore" for many valuable
materials compared to many natural sources, and having the mining operation
there would provide an endgame for the landfill that ensured it was being
monitored and managed.

The problem is that it assumes that mining operations are well regulated,
which I suspect would not be the case.

~~~
timthorn
Radio 4 had a programme on mining landfill a while back:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03c3cnb](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03c3cnb)

------
noobermin
Point 5 misses a bit of facts. The reason the US and the UK don't seep garbage
into the ocean is we export a bit[0] of it to...guess where? Places like
China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. This[1] is relevant. Idk, that
refutation alone makes one wonder how effective landfills are in the west if
we must send our trash to other countries to keep from filling our own
landfills.

As mentioned elsewhere in this comment section, the right answer is for people
to reduce first and recycle last. On that front, the west (and America in
particular) is chief in exhaustion of resources and consumption.

[0] I originally said "half" which was just me using colorful speech. This
comment deals with facts so I don't want to include a number and have people
think it's literal.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-
like-trash-south-east-asia-vows-to-return-mountains-of-rubbish-from-west)

~~~
c048
Us sending our garbage to places like China, India, Indonesia has no bearing
on us dumping our garbage in the ocean or not.

Those countries willingly bought our garbage and chose to dump whatever wasn't
useful in the manner that they did, all by themselves. Insinuating that, if we
didn't sell it, we'd also dump it in the ocean is more wishful(?) thinking
than anything else.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
Then why is trash being sent illegally, labelled as fuel?

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/asia/southeas...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-
asia/article/2185888/five-years-canadas-dumped-garbage-still-causing-big-
stink)

Also is you know it will end up in the ocean, and you still send it, you are
responsible. Just like supplying known criminals with a gun is a crime

------
drongoking
As a meta observation, he seems to assume that materials production and
disposal would improve over time while recycling technology would not, and
that the economics wouldn't change either. Some of the sources he cites for
the inefficiency of recycling date from the 1990s and he's obliged to find
something more recent.

Arguably recycling technology has more potential to improve since large-scale
recycling efforts in the US have only been around since the 1980s. Landfills
have been around forever.

------
nsb1
Honest question: From a climate change point of view, burying anything that
contains carbon is basically the definition of sequestering that carbon. Why
is it bad to bury anything that contains carbon?

The obvious response, I think, would be that if we consume and bury 'stuff',
then we'll just make more 'stuff', but what's wrong with that? Is it the
energy required (presumably from burning fossil fuels) to produce more 'stuff'
that's really the problem? It doesn't seem like we have the whole picture on
how much energy is actually spent preparing recycled materials for re-use to
make an accurate comparison.

~~~
Wohlf
>if we consume and bury 'stuff', then we'll just make more 'stuff'

There is also a flawed assumption here that these are connected. We will make
more stuff whether or not we bury other stuff.

~~~
dwild
Recyclable stuff make that connected though. Paper can be recycled a bunch of
time, plastic too. Sure we can't reuse 100% of what we waste, but any percent
is better than none.

------
hajile
Enforcing landfills is a government problem, but recycling is a free market
problem.

Mining 1 ton of iron takes 2 tons of ore plus another couple tons of coke and
lime. It takes 4 tons of bauxite for one ton of aluminum (plus all the other
things). There's also a huge amount of cost involved in reaching those tons of
ore.

When mining a landfill gives bigger returns than the current deposits for the
same cost of extraction, we'll see our recycling problem go away. Remaining
burnables will simply reduce the amount of coal/coke needed to refine.

Government is critical in enforcing landfills though. Otherwise, trash winds
up in little piles everywhere (or worse, in the ocean).

------
melling
NYC ships its garbage hundreds, and even thousands of miles in some cases:

[https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/...](https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/nyc-
trash-trains)

There’s even a poop train to Alabama:

[https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2018/04/...](https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2018/04/20/a-poop-train-from-new-york-befouled-a-small-alabama-town-
until-the-town-fought-back/?outputType=amp)

~~~
dehrmann
Shipping by rail and sea is incredibly efficient. Some googling tells me rail
is 471 ton-miles per gallon. The average American produces 1600 lbs of trash
per year, so you can ship one person's trash for a year almost 600 miles with
one gallon of fuel. Even long-distance trash transportation is a negligible
contributor to someone's oil use.

~~~
benj111
Could you not extract the methane, and run the train on it, and transport it
for free?

Poopetual motion? (sorry for the shit jokes)

~~~
thebluehawk
Sure, if you can invent a methane extraction process that needs no expensive
equipment, has no maintenance, and is safe, then it would be "free".

------
guitarbill
> Plastics come from oil, which we are gradually running out of, though not
> quickly.

I guess it depends on your definition of "quickly", or it would be good to see
a citation on this one.

Personally, I believe that if we encourage recycling more, that creates an
opportunity for companies to innovate in that space and come up with better
recycling methods. So in that respect, I'd prefer to over-recycle than under-
recycle.

~~~
pier25
Recycling consumes energy. The better strategy is by far designing products
that last longer or can be reused.

~~~
cobookman
Or are compostible.

All grocery packaging should either be multi use or compostible. I hate how
plastics are used where they don't need to be

~~~
celeritascelery
I love plastics bags because they get multiple uses in my house as lunch
sacks, garbage can liners, etc. those are things that I would have to buy
otherwise but now I get to resuse cheap plastics.

------
drewbt
There should be law that makes companies directly responsible for what happens
to their packaging materials. Whatever a company brings into this world is
their responsibility to recycle. Yes it adds overhead, but it makes people a
lot more aware, and forces them to take responsibility of the impact they are
having.

Why shouldn’t packaging be designed to be easily transformed into something
useful, or even into functional community art projects?

A temple of coke cans for example. If they going to last forever it might as
well be in a form that benefits communities.

Plastics have already been banned in certain countries.

Or are there to many lobbying in the wrong direction?

~~~
opwieurposiu
Every house a beer can house!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Can_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Can_House)

~~~
drewbt
[https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/green-
architectura...](https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/green-
architectural-design/434746-4173052-123rcu5z/index.html)

Or wine bottles.

------
rahimiali
three main issues: 1) yes the Earth is huge but cities really don't have easy
access to landfill, and many are in fact running out of it because
transporting garbage is expensive. 2) podcasts aren't convincing sources for a
debate. 3) the real debate is "how do we reduce waste", not "landfill vs
recycling".

~~~
kja1123
To reduce waste, you'd have to make things more repairable -> But the labor
costs in developed economies discourages that

If you make things more repairable -> net consumption might go down -> this
might lead to loss of jobs.

Does my analysis make any sense?

~~~
mikeash
Seems to me that your two points oppose each other. If the cost of repair is
too high because of labor costs, that indicates that it would create jobs, not
destroy them.

~~~
pdonis
_> If the cost of repair is too high because of labor costs, that indicates
that it would create jobs, not destroy them._

Not if people, foreseeing high repair costs, simply figured out how to do
without the items altogether and stopped buying them.

------
Hnrobert42
This is part of an ongoing attempt by the Koch organization to astroturf
Hacker News

~~~
robmusial
It seemed to me to coincide with NPR's recent Planet Money episode

[https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-
shou...](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-should-we-
recycle)

------
stretchwithme
Eventually, robots will go through all of the landfills and recover a lot of
the materials in it.

And they might get all the energy they need to do it from the garbage itself.
Hey, if insects can do it, robots will eventually be able to do it.

~~~
grive
That's just magical thinking. Nothing suggests that it is in the realm of
possibility.

What is the energy potential in the materials in a landfill? How much is
wasted by scouring them and trying to properly extract it? Compared to
preventing the capture of those materials there in the first place?

Putting the survival of our species on the possibility of some pixie dust is
not rational. It is hard to face the truth, but burying your head in the sand
is counter-productive.

~~~
aeternus
It's not magical thinking, landfill mining has been in-use since the 1950s:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_mining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_mining)

If certain resources do get more sparse, it will easily become economically
viable to expand landfill mining and we already have the technology required
to do so. At the end of the day, it's an energy question more than anything.
With cheap solar plus the fact that landfills produce their own free energy
(methane) there is no need to be alarmist and consider them a threat to our
species.

------
Smoosh
Whatever happened to the plasma furnace for waste disposal touted a few years
back?

Here's an article I found on a quick search:
[https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/](https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/)

------
lopespm
"By contrast, reusable metal straws and canvas bags require something like
10-100x the energy and materials to manufacture, and need regular cleaning to
avoid spreading disease. So unless you use them many times, they end up being
worse for the environment. I lose them much faster than that, and have better
things to do with my attention than remember to bring bags with me everywhere
I go, so I just use those old-school plastic bags whenever I can."

This is not a valid argument. A bad habit should not be a justification for a
devious behavior. I would even argue it is easier to bring your reusable
container of choice when going shopping, and if that habit is really formed,
then you wont be able to exit your home or car without it, because something
will seem to be missing. Take for example the backpack or "granny cart". They
are much more comfortable to use when compared to lugging around many plastics
bags around your hands, and the granny cart is much better for your back.

~~~
tylergetsay
I would consider losing a metal straw or canvas bag as negligent, but devious?

------
rikroots
As clickbait, I have to applaud the author.

tl;dr: As a sustainable (heh!) solution to the current waste crisis,
landfilling everything is not a good solution. We tried it for many centuries
and are still paying the price for that approach today. The only people who
will benefit from a 'landfill everything' strategy will be 23rd century
archaeologists.

As the UK is mentioned a couple of times in the article, I'll add a link to
the Wikipedia article on UK National Waste Strategies, as it includes links to
the various strategies published by various Governments across the UK since
2000 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Waste_Strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Waste_Strategy)

While those documents are a bit on the long side, they are very informative
about the many, many (many!) complex systems that contribute to planning for,
managing, and attempting to reduce waste in a large, rich European nation
state.

(Disclaimer: I was part of the team that developed and published the Waste
Strategy for England in 2000).

~~~
cperciva
_We tried it for many centuries and are still paying the price for that
approach today._

Can you elaborate on this? I'm not aware of centuries-old landfills clogging
up the landscape and (to any meaningful extent) impinging upon the
availability of land.

~~~
rikroots
Happily. Old landfill sites are not built to modern standards and are thus
liable to erode, with the potential to contaminate the surrounding areas with
a range of interesting toxins. They can also collapse (if they contained a
significant amount of biodegradable waste) which is unfortunate if your house
is built on top of it.

A quick Google search gave me this link to some ongoing research conducted by
Queen Mary College, London, into the risks surrounding historic landfills -
[https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-
projects/histo...](https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-
projects/historiclandfill/) \- that page does a far better job of explaining
the situation than I can.

~~~
cperciva
Ok, but isn't the answer to "old landfill sites are not built to modern
standards" that new landfill sites _should_ be built to modern standards?

~~~
celeritascelery
Exactly. It’s like saying that old sewage systems were not built to modern
standards and that led to disease transmission. Therefore sewage systems are
bad. That is the whole point of “modern standards”.

------
spopejoy
Two of this article's sources are John Tierney who has had it out against
recycling since the 90s, and has written other anti-environmentalist pieces,
including a hit piece on Rachel Carson in 2007 that sang the praises of DDT
spraying in third world countries [1]. For a takedown of the FUD in that one
see [2].

Simply put if this author trusts Tierney it's a reason not to trust this
author.

1 -
[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html)
2 - [https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/06/06/john-tierneys-
ba...](https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/06/06/john-tierneys-bad-science)

------
pawsys
Every time I clean a yogurt container I feel torn. What is a better
environmental trade-off: not running water for 90 seconds or recycling the
plastic? I think it would be really helpful if there was some kind of
universal unit that would describe the real environmental impact of producing,
trashing, recycling of goods and materials. The unit would appear on
packagings of goods, specs of materials, landfill/recycling bins etc. I
created a pdf to visualize the idea (all values in the pdf are made up):
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi51serx6hwn8e/EarthHarm.pdf?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi51serx6hwn8e/EarthHarm.pdf?dl=0)
I realize how complex such a project would be. Inherently, the choice of how
the unit works would be a political one. How to compare and calculate the
different environmental challenges and wrap them up in one unit? What
institution would have enough authority and expertise to deploy it? Setting
this all aside, I think unit like this would be a really helpful tool letting
people have some baseline they can refer to. It could inform people what is
the impact of their actions and where to seek for a real change. (a simpler
version of this project would be a well-researched website that compares these
environmental factors with each other)

------
3stripe
Some stats from [https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/municipal-
waste/munic...](https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/municipal-
waste/municipal-waste-management-across-european-countries) which show that
landfill is decreasing in popularity here in Europe:

1\. The rate of municipal waste landfilling for the 32 EEA member countries
fell from 49 % in 2004 to 34 % in 2014.

2\. Overall, the rates of landfilling decreased in 27 out of 32 countries.
Between 2004 and 2014, the largest decreases occurred in Estonia (57
percentage points), Finland (41 percentage points), Slovenia (41 percentage
points) and the United Kingdom (41 percentage points).

------
rconti
Recent Planet Money podcasts on how recycling got started in the US, and
whether it's 'worth it' to recycle.

[https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739893511/episode-925-a-mob-b...](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739893511/episode-925-a-mob-
boss-a-garbage-boat-and-why-we-recycle)

[https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-
shou...](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/741283641/episode-926-so-should-we-
recycle)

------
arrrg
Not a single person in the world (rounded down – I’m sure you might be able to
find someone) is opposed to people using plastic straws for medical purposes.
Just as not a single person in the world is opposed to allowing disabled
people access via cars, even if in general cars might not be allowed.

These kinds of arguments are such obvious strawmen. I‘m always so confused
when people use them, apparently even in good faith, thinking they hold any
kind of water. I’m always disappointed when someone uses arguments like that,
it’s so absurd.

Overall I would just argue that straw bans and the like are often not enough
or waste valuable political capital, even if they might be effective. That
much is certainly true. The focus on personal responsibility is toxic and
derailing since climate change categorically cannot be solved with appeals to
personal responsibility.

~~~
benj111
The UK is banning straws but will still allow people to buy straws from
pharmacies. That seems like a good balance.

Our local high street only allow disabled drivers to park. So the
'pedestrianised' high street is full of the cars of disabled drivers. That
doesn't seem to be such a good balance.

Ps I feel there's a good rhyme hiding somewhere with your straw man straw ban.

~~~
skybrian
What's wrong with handicap parking? Is it being abused?

~~~
safanycom
Aging population

------
rsync
Slightly off-topic and irrelevant for many urban people (or suburban with
strict association rules) but it's possible to reduce your food waste to
_literally zero_ by keeping 2 or 3 or 4 laying hens.

Every bit of leftover food scraps are just thrown at the chickens ... and
turned into eggs.

It's so pleasing and efficient that if I am at a function with food scraps and
it is simple and unobtrusive to do so, I will _bring home_ the scraps to save
them from the landfill (and turn into eggs).

~~~
runeks
It’s never been a challenge to recycle organic matter like leftovers, as far
as I’m aware — regardless of whether you use animals or a compost heap. It’s
the plastics and metals that are difficult to handle.

------
KaiserPro
> Incinerating waste and generating electricity from it is an alternative form
> of rubbish disposal that is good for the environment and solves the problem
> permanently, but expensive to operate up front.

well, I think you are slightly off the mark there.

If pumping out more CO2 that would normally be sequestered, or dumping out a
boat load of particulates with nitrogen dioxide is an environmental thing,
then yes.

My heating and how water did come from a very well run incinerator, but its
not exactly the paragon of cleanliness.

~~~
thereisnospork
It's more nuanced: environmentally landfills literally displace acreage of
environment (which in my semi-uneducated opinion is often overstated) and have
sporadic local issues e.g. material leaching into ground water.

Whereas power generated from incineration of trash displaces CO2 emissions
from fossil fuel emissions.

'''Do the benefits of incinerating trash for electricity outweigh the costs
thereof in comparison with costs of equivalent conventional electricity and
costs of burying aforementioned trash?''' Absolute issues (e.g. NOx or CO2
emission) not in the context of opportunity cost are irrelevant to misleading.

------
scythe
>Properly run landfill doesn’t hurt the environment in itself.

>[...] But a well run landfill site has [...] electricity generation from
gases produced by decaying matter,

This sounds like a pipe dream. We don't even have reliable estimates on how
much landfill outgas _there_ is, much less a good system for burning it. It's
believed to be largely methane, which would be valuable without further
processing if it could be captured.

Incidentally, the word "methane" does not appear in the article at all, and no
systems describing such a gas capture apparatus are mentioned. But just think
about it: a landfill is enormous; they are some of the largest things humans
ever build, and some of them are visible from low Earth orbit. How do you plan
to capture all of the gas coming out of that? Be honest!

Meanwhile, incinerators (of various designs) work _today_ , have almost all of
the upsides of landfills with none of the downsides. The article dismisses
incineration with a single reference (b), which is actually an article from
_Planet Money_ focusing on recycling. The actual source is probably a footnote
within a footnote, because that's as much attention as Americans will pay to
incineration, I guess.

I agree that we need to talk about recycling less, but the _correct_
alternative is incineration, not landfills.

~~~
gambiting
I mean, to answer your methane question - after our local landfill was filled
up, it was covered with foil, then several layers of soil and finally grass -
it's a public park nowadays. The methane is collected at the highest point of
the hill that was the landfill, I imagine the layer of foil forces it to go up
to the single outpipe at the top.

~~~
tomatocracy
Yes, there really are several successful companies who specialise in landfill
gas recovery, it's profitable and practical. But I don't think it's
neccessarily a reason to continue with landfill in itself.

------
svd4anything
“Reusable straws and bags are often more resource intensive than single-use
ones. Ever noticed that plastic bags and straws are both incredibly thin and
incredibly cheap? Almost no resources go into making each one — it’s kind of
amazing.“

I’m confused by these new plastic bag rules in some cities. What is the
underlying reasoning that was used to advocate for them?

~~~
zifnab06
Wikipedia covers this pretty well: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-
out_of_lightweight_pla...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-
out_of_lightweight_plastic_bags)

Roughly, plastic bags are bad for wildlife and enough of them don't make it
into the landfill that it's a problem.

~~~
svd4anything
It was this section of the posted article which caught my attention:

“The problem of rubbish polluting the sea, rivers and land can be most cheaply
addressed by improving rubbish collection and making sure everything gets to
landfill.

Almost all of the litter that escapes into nature, especially the sea, comes
from poorer riverine countries with bad rubbish collection practices, such as
China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Rich countries like the UK or US have
rubbish collection rates approaching 100% and are responsible for almost no
new waste reaching the oceans.

Focussing on recycling is a distraction from making sure everything gets
collected and cheaply buried underground — something which many countries
already do successfully.”

------
AtlasBarfed
I find it maddening to get accurate information on recycling

\- what can be recycled? \- what state can that material be in (cleanliness,
prewashing)? \- is it being recycled or just being shipped off to china or
burned? \- what efficiencies are involved in the various materials?

This seems to change on a year-by-year basis (for example, china stopped
taking our trash, uh recycling).

Currently I desperately try to turn single use plastics to double-use. Plastic
bags and covering can be used as poop bags, wrap for trash that could drip,
and to hold more trash.

I try to use used paper towels for washing dishes and wiping up counters, and
also for gross trash.

Most plastic containers of food from stores and takeout can be reused a few
times for leftover storage and other purposes.

Best thing about double-use is that it usually helps ensure the single use
plastic stays in the landfill by weighing it down.

------
Areading314
I would add that compost is underrated.

I also think that recycling allows companies to waste more, because consumers
are more comfortable generating recycling waste than landfill waste, even
though for plastics there isn't really much you can do to recycle them.

~~~
celeritascelery
It sounds like recycling allows consumers to waste more, not companies.

------
JTbane
My take:

Landfills should be utilized much less for municipal waste, but doing this
would require much better waste separation.

It's probably better to burn or recycle things that don't decompose readily,
such as plastic. Landfilling plastics just takes up a lot of space for a long
time. Recycling or burning plastic also reduces litter.

Recycling paper doesn't matter as much, since it is very biodegradable. I
suspect that recycling paper leads to energy savings in the pulp & paper
industry.

Aluminum is one of the best candidates for recycling as it is very efficient
and cuts down on the need for aluminum ore. Steel is somewhat less efficient.

Organics should always be composted if possible.

~~~
tasty_freeze
There is a lot of talk about sequestering carbon to reduce the problems of
increased atmospheric CO2. Burning plastic seems to be the exact opposite of
that.

------
helmsdeep
This article gave a different look at landfills and was honestly quiet eye
opening for me. I had not considered the effects recycling could have if not
done correctly, and what benefits landfills have when monitored well.

------
londons_explore
This is why markets should make decisions about this stuff (with appropriate
taxes for externalities) rather than politicians with their gut instinct...

"We're doing nothing for the environment" doesn't get one elected tho...

~~~
Bworkbwork
Markets haven't been doing a good job of it so far, why would they in the
future?

~~~
duxup
Yeah we live in the time where companies look quarter to quarter....or are
rewarded by the market by growing like Uber where profits don't even matter.

Not sure we can hope for them to look into the future very far / care.

~~~
agent008t
The likes of Uber are valued highly precisely because investors are looking
very far into the future where these companies might become highly profitable.

~~~
duxup
I'm not convinced that is the case.

I really think there is a difference in "look at this market share" and
critical thinking about how Uber can get to sustainability.

I think the whole tech company IPO is a weird otherverse that isn't as much
about the future as folks think.

------
bozoUser
found these gems on recycling on NPR: Episode 925: A Mob Boss, A Garbage Boat
and Why We Recycle - [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-
money/id2907834...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-
money/id290783428?i=1000444175121)

Episode 926: So, Should We Recycle? -
[https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-
money/id2907834...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-
money/id290783428?i=1000444348345)

------
redder2
Some interesting arguments.

I think the argument that he has better things to do then think of taking a
bag "everythere". You do not need a bag small in hand purchases and when you
really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go shopping.

When it comes to regulations I would trust the US with nothing. The EU has
probably way better regulations for landfills like for food and other things.
While at the same time probably do a way better job at actual recycling.

~~~
gruez
>when you really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go
shopping.

There's a Danish study[1] that concluded that reusable bags require 50+ uses
before breaking even with disposable plastic bags. And that's for one use. If
you reuse the disposable bag once (to line your garbage bin, for example), the
break even point is now 100+ uses. If you factor in cleaning costs for the
reusable bags, I'd be surprised if this practice makes a dent on pollution, if
at all.

[1]
[https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-...](https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf)

~~~
KozmoNau7
That study only looked at resource usage, and not the consequences of
carelessly discarded shopping bags clogging up rivers and beaches.

The best shopping bag to use is still an upcycled bag made from otherwise
discarded material, as you are not creating demand for the production of new
bags. Sail cloth is a good sturdy fabric, and a bag made from it will
literally last you a lifetime.

~~~
gruez
>and not the consequences of carelessly discarded shopping bags clogging up
rivers and beaches.

1\. plastic garbage winding up in rivers is largely a developing country
problem. I don't see many plastic bags (if at all) in my local waterways.

2\. why not just responsibly dispose of those bags? It's not hard. They're not
going to get lost when you're using them. After that, you're probably home, or
at least some place with a garbage bin.

>The best shopping bag to use is still an upcycled bag made from otherwise
discarded material, as you are not creating demand for the production of new
bags. Sail cloth is a good sturdy fabric, and a bag made from it will
literally last you a lifetime.

Are you suggesting people to make DIY cotton bags from scrap fabric they find
themselves? You might be able to avoid the high costs of cotton (break even of
7000+ uses), but if you're not into arts and crafts, I suspect the opportunity
cost will eat up any savings (if any).

~~~
KozmoNau7
>"why not just responsibly dispose of those bags? It's not hard."

And yet a lot of people carelessly throw away their plastic bags. Their
laziness trumps your "it's not hard". Something primarily being a problem in
developing countries is not an excuse for not caring about it.

"I don't see any, so it must not be a problem" is not a valid argument. If
you've ever tried to remove a plastic bag that was half-buried in sand, you
would know. That bag could sit there for hundreds of years without degrading.

My point is that it's better to not have new bags/material made at all.
Repurpose something that was already made and used for other purposes, and you
lessen the footprint. It doesn't have to be cotton, the woven bags made from
recycled plastic are quite durable and long-lasting. In my case, I do have
cotton shopping bags, but they're all hand-me-downs from family, I would never
buy a brand-new one.

If you want something made from upcycled sail cloth or similar repurposed
materials, there are a number of companies who will happily sell you some,
including customization.

Remember, it's "reduce, reuse, recycle, in _that_ order.

------
deftturtle
> I lose them much faster than that, and have better things to do with my
> attention than remember to bring bags with me everywhere I go, so I just use
> those old-school plastic bags whenever I can.

And so ultimately people (consumers) get what they want. If you don’t want to
commit to taking steps in a more sustainable fashion, then you contribute to
the problem of disposable waste.

------
kpU8efre7r
Glossed over electronics. Good or bad to recycle?

Or do electronics fall under metals and are worth recycling. Or if tossed we
could always mine landfills for iPhones in the future, which the article
touches upon.

As an aside, this article seems to only be about minimizing energy use or cost
and not about maximizing sustainability.

~~~
Wohlf
With the current model of doing things, i.e. shipping it to Asia, it's highly
questionable.

>this article seems to only be about minimizing energy use or cost and not
about maximizing sustainability

Because when you factor in energy use, only metal recycling has a net positive
impact on the environment and sustainability.

------
jonwachob91
>>> Almost all of the litter that escapes into nature, especially the sea,
comes from poorer riverine countries with bad rubbish collection practices,
such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Rich countries like the UK or US
have rubbish collection rates approaching 100% and are responsible for almost
no new waste reaching the oceans.

... Yea, b/c the developed nations of the world don't send their trash to
"poorer riverine countries" to get dumped in the ocean. /s

[0]
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-
like-trash-south-east-asia-vows-to-return-mountains-of-rubbish-from-west)

~~~
mjburgess
It's not clear that this article makes a relevant point.

The existence of trash isn't under dispute in the article, only a very
specific route for trash to reach the ocean. It's not clear that somehow
exporting trash, alone, implicates western countries in its reaching the
ocean.

Is it mismanaged trash collecting companies in developing countries that dump
in the ocean? Is _that_ the route? Or is it dumping in rivers, as the article
suggests.

~~~
jonwachob91
Fair enough.

------
WheelsAtLarge
The real problem is we are using a long term material for short term purposes
only because it seems cheap. All plastic will be with us for generations if
not forever in terms of human time. We can and should produce an alternative
and not poison the environment if we work at it. Yes it's not as bad as we
thought but it certainly is bad. Plastic has a place in our daily life but not
as a use once and throw away.

I'm one that believes the use of taxes as way to change consumption. So
charging a tax to help reflect the true value of plastic, to reduce usages and
find alternatives. It's a hard issue but burning it or dumping is not the
solution.

~~~
pfdietz
We're annually putting hundreds of megatons of plastic into the environment,
much of it reduced to microscopic particles and fibers. I think we're going to
see increasing adaptation of microorganisms to eating the stuff, to the point
it all becomes biodegradable.

------
salty_biscuits
You know what is really underrated, modern pyrolysis.

------
orev
Landfills are going to become a gold mine when someone finally invents a
Wall-E robot. With the advances in AI going on right now, it seems like a
feasible thing to happen soon.

~~~
grive
This is just so far out. "AI" is currently expert systems and we are seeing
its limitations (see setbacks in autonomous driving). It has nowhere near the
potential to drive the search and extraction of energy sources in landfills.

~~~
rndgermandude
To me, the idea of a narrow purpose garbage robot operating in the confines of
a landfill sounds more plausible than a self-driving car meant to operate an
"open world" scenario populated by other AI and humans alike (aka streets with
car, bikes and pedestrians on them). And a lot less dangerous to human life
too when they are buggy.

------
throwawaysea
And yet no one is talking about limiting population growth.

~~~
flamtap
Do ethical strategies to accomplish that exist?

~~~
EmpirePhoenix
Sure, depends only on your ethic. E.G (note devils advocate) A utilitarist
might argue, that killing of a larger amount of humans that are not worth it
might be for the greater good of all

A extremist fascist even has a pretty clear definition of worth added to that

Asimovs concept of being killed instead of retirement

Various concepts in fiction of adding globally some additions to drinking
water to lower fertility on global scale

Chinas politic of one child per family was even somewhat fair as it
discriminates equally

~~~
C1sc0cat
You mean the Sixty in time enough for love - don't think he was propsing it as
a good thing

------
basicallydan
I, too, have listened to the latest episode of Planet Money

------
ajross
This is true enough (in some markets and some circumstances, yada yada), but
sort of missing the point. A world where all the Good Liberals are trained to
recycle everything into hand sorted artisinal bins that they keep next to
their compost containers is one where people think about what they purchase
and push for public policies that worry about resource consumption in ways
that benefit all of us.

A world (we live in it) where libertarians tell everyone that "landfill is
underrated" is one where people buy and dispose of way too much junk, and
create the problems all us communists are vainly trying to solve via personal
recycling.

I mean, sure, a world of scientists might be able to handle rules like
"recycling that aluminum can is a big win, but the polypropylene bottle with
the same product in it is mostly a wash". A world of real people is just going
to hear "throw out all the things".

~~~
angry_octet
Container deposit for aluminum works pretty well. Steel is relatively easy to
extract from trash with magnets. Separating methane producing non-toxic waste
might be meaningful too. But having people wash/transport/sort plastics which
can't be recycled is bad, and shouldn't be incentivised. Making corporations
pay for non-recyclable plastic is a market mechanism which fiscal
conservatives should applaud.

Casting this as a goody Lefty vs selfish conservative argument is pointless.

~~~
ajross
> Making corporations pay for non-recyclable plastic is a market mechanism
> which fiscal conservatives should applaud.

Citation needed. That sounds like socialist insanity to me. So sure, I applaud
it. I just don't see these "conservatives" you are taking about. Even at the
level of local politics this tends to be a partisan issue. And you sure sound
like a democrat to me...

~~~
angry_octet
Conservatives always decry some group getting something for free, which is
actually paid for by the taxpayer. Distributing non-recyclable plastic and
forcing rate payers to pay to dump it, collect it from rivers and drains etc
is it be such case.

A market mechanism uses the power of the market to encourage correct behavior
through market forces, instead of penalties, taxes on all, special schemes to
give cash to specific state controlled recycling projects, etc. A market
mechanism allows free enterprise solutions, whereas 'social insanity' creates
inflexible regulatory processes.

