I'd like to establish a variant of Chesterton's fence - something like 'You don't get to get morally outraged about something without understanding "why".'
Why are developed countries not doing it? My guess would be cost, so why is a "wasteful" practice cheaper? Is it something else than externalities that aren't properly represented in the cost, or is the morally odious thing possibly more efficient, or is it something else?
Without that answer, it's hard to suggest meaningful action: If it's the externalities, we need to make them part of the cost. If it's actually more efficient this way, we need to stop demanding to make it worse. And if it's something else, then we need to figure out what it is and whether/how to address it.
But right now, it seems like random things are picked based on looks/feelings, pointed at, and demanded to change (usually to something that was done in the past and is no longer done).
Externalizing these is so much cheaper to the companies involved that they do it that way. Setting up a bottle recycling plant is expensive, and that cost is not passed on to the consumer but absorbed by the company. So the profits go down.
The bigger question you should be asking is why haven't all developed countries adopted such obviously sensible policies. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason is regulatory capture.
If that's the case why not take the time to look into the regions in the developed world that have implemented these systems and see how they work?
Someone else in the thread mentioned that the province of Ontario (which IIRC is the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world) has switched over to a system homogeneous bottles that are washed and reused.
If a region as vast as Ontario with a population of approximately 14 million can do this, why isn't it feasible else where?
Sure. But you say that as if it's easy. In some cases it's not trivial to put a monetary figure on these things. This may be why they are an externality in the first place.
More importantly, in each case where you intend to make someone pay for something they are used to getting for free, they will resist that change, even if that something is the right to pollute the river.
Making externalities part of the cost has always been a struggle. Nevertheless, I agree in principle.
If not for that problem, we could simply charge garbage collection by weight, including all costs of recycling and/or disposal, and let the market sort it out.
Even mixing single-digit percentages of recycled plastics with virgin plastics made the resulting product substandard. Think laundry baskets that break after a couple of uses.
The recovery, washing and attempt to recycle the plastic was extremely expensive, labor and resource intensive.
In the end he truthfully thought the plastic should be burned.
I personally think we should industrialize the waste management, reducing the waste to components that can be easily reused, or inert.
That is why bottle return systems work: they collect only known plastic/metal/glass.
Then some time in the 90s/00s that stopped. Instead we got glass recycling. And 5 other types of recycling. You’re supposed to sort them all and have some 8 trash cans in total at your house.
Oh and if you forget a cap on your bottles or don’t scrape off the paper label and make sure you wash everything before putting it in the trash then you’re a terrible person and you should be ashamed of yourself.
So everyone started throwing everything in the same trash. Making sure your recycling is recyclable is just too much work.
And don’t even get me started on the compostable plastic trash liners that start composting in the trash can so you can’t even take the trash out ...
Same in Poland. I can't think of a better way to sabotage recycling efforts. Whoever introduced this into regulation/common practice, I believe it was intended to actually make people stop segregating trash.
Reusing bottles seems like a no-brainer. Except you’ll hear about how much water and energy is used washing the bottles, that extra fuel and tires will be used transporting them, etc.
When my county banned styrofoam cups, somebody appeared claiming it would increase workers compensation claims due to the heavier weight of paper cups.
New bottles and cans are also washed (you don't want the chemical goop from manufacture inside).
Discarded bottles must still be transported to incineration / landfill, in which case more oil/sand/ore must be brought from somewhere.
Similarly, with styrofoam vs. paper cups, it's something that could be first estimated and then either ignored (if the difference is within margin of error) or acted upon.
Depending on your income you can still "throw away" stuff, but there will still be significant value in that "trash" to make it worthwhile for other people to dig through it and bring it back into use.
Same with plastic bags and things we consider banning for the sake of protecting the planet. Don't ban, just price it in such a way that the item has a built-in reward for someone else to bring it back in circulation.
Some states in Australia have a 10c tax on bottles and cans which can be refunded when you recycle them. Almost everyone recycles them at home but if you are away from home they tend to get chucked in the trash and you will see people walking around with bags and tongs picking cans out of the trash to cash in.
Make this a $1/bottle when reused and almost everyone will be taking them back or someone will certainly pick it out of the trash.
I think it might be worth having the local laws define a set of standard containers/bottles so when you return your beer bottle it doesn't have to go back to the exact same company. There is really no reason other than marketing to have custom bottles for every drink./
With the raw materials taxed there wouldn't be a way to produce these bottles for less unless you somehow come up with a new design that uses less plastic or uses materials that are deemed less damaging to the environment.
Of course, this would require an in-depth review to figure out which materials to tax, how much, etc and to make sure there aren't any loopholes or unintended collateral damage. It's no easy task, but I think the result would be worth it.
In any case I have heard about people stealing "Pfandflaschen" but never about people producing them. I think there are easier ways to commit fraud.
Money: The companies producing and "handing-off" much of the waste are unmotivated to make items reusable because the economies of scale already exist today for production, shipping, and distribution of single-use materials, and as long as the disposal side is not their problem, then they just wipe their hands and say "Well, that's for someone else to handle."
Convenience: Consumers that end up with the materials now bear the burden of recycling/reusing them. Unless it is engrained behavior (e.g. like in Japan), then that usually means more work for the end-user to figure out what to do with the waste - and also do it correctly. It turns out people that want to do the right thing even have a hard time doing it the right way. There's actually a tendency to 'over-recycle' to the point it becomes a detriment through cross-contamination and increased sorting time.
Jurisdiction: It's hard to implement and scale widespread programs when laws and regulations vary across local, county, state, and national levels. Without consensus even among neighboring counties, the costs and incentives to setup and run programs makes it almost impractical or negatively profitable without government support. With China and other SE Asian countries now refusing to take US/Canadian waste, a lot of localities have axed their recycling programs completely or are in a state of flux not knowing what to do with their waste.
Overall, a few takeaways are:
- Governments need to do their part in setting up proper regulations or tax incentives for recycling/reuse to disincentivize single-use materials. Progress is so slow right now, and there's a long way to do when also competing against corporate lobbying.
- Current recycling programs often don't inform, support, or incentivize positive behavior as much as it should.
- Eco-materials that are reusable are becoming more introduced at some higher-end places, but they really need to be cost-effective through some means in order to get greater adoption.
Anyways, just my $.02 on the matter.
Cleaning is more labor intensive than recycling, and if the cost of cleaning is less than the cost of recycling, you'll end up cleaning it. This is only possible in developing countries where it's more economical to use low-cost labor than setting up an expensive recycling facility.
As recycling technology gets better and cheaper, you'll see fewer countries opt for cleaning over recycling.
If a country were to standardize, say, drink bottles, detergent bottles, etc, then this is already a solved problem. Just have a machine clean the bottles to wash away dirt and remove labels, then run it through some image processing software to auto detect any residue. Anything within a certain threshold could either be accepted as clean or needing an extra wash, and anything over a certain % of dirtiness or having undergone N number of washes without getting clean is sent off to be melted down and recycled.
Once it's standardized, the software is made, done, and ready to deploy everywhere without any changes (until the government approves new bottle designs). Facilities would be cheap to build. The only problem is every drink manufacturer in the world would oppose it since they can't make goofily shaped bottles with cartoonish logos everywhere.
Wouldn't be surprised if it was also beneficial for the soda companies - standardised bottles would be cheaper to produce/acquire, bottling equipment as well.
For HN readers, this is an example of "don't make perfect the enemy of good."
If even 10% of the bottles were nasty, there are machines that can handle that.
Just like Europe's progress in standardizing chargers, we need to go back to standard bottle sizes.
One of the best examples is the Beer Store in Ontario, Canada. All brewers have to use stubby brown bottles, and achieved 99% reuse in modern times:
"Between 2013-2014, the Beer Store achieved a system-wide recovery and re-use rate of 99 per cent for the industry standard bottles, which are reused 12 to 15 times."
They accomplished such phenomenal reuse that the bottles wore out. So much for excuses, eh?
I'm not an expert in this so idk how difficult it is to ensure this but unless the system is perfect it can't be used.
If we could do it 50 years ago, we can do it now. It's a solved problem.
In Michigan any store that sells carbonated beverages is required to collect deposit and pay for returns. They mostly use customer fed machines that scan the bar-codes to check that they sell a given product.
Last year, legislation was proposed to end it, with the argument being that community recycling would benefit from the aluminum (I think it was a pretense).
But a $0.05 deposit for a can to be returned and melted down as scrap is quite different from a $1.50 deposit for a glass bottle to be returned where it can be sanitized and reused.
If small dairy farms can do the later, why can't Coca Cola? (And why can Coca Cola do it in South America?)
Throwing the trash in a landfill is worse than recycling. But yeah, of the "active" actions you can do, recycling is the worst: reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order.
I also note in Poland and Czech Republic glass bottle beer always costs a little more than the sticker price so I presume there is some $$ in returning - a nice little tip for the airbnb cleaner after a month.
Many litter bins have a small shelf for bottles, to save people rooting around in the rubbish.
Somehow, the fancy supermarket never has poor people returning the bottles at the machine, but the cheap one 200m away always does.
The vast majority of developing and undeveloped countries don't recycle - which is the worst thing you should be doing - they reuse.
Beer and soda bottles have a deposit that is higher than the liquid in them, and everyone returns the bottles like clockwork. If you want to buy a 24 pack the first one is expensive, then you just bring back the empties and pick up a full one, so it's like a permanent rolling deposit.
Developed countries not doing this is shameful. We are supposed to be the world leaders, but we're just leading the world in using stuff up. We have so much to learn.