Re:The Engineering of Landfills
by mschuster91 on Wednesday September 04, 2024 @03:28AM
(#41442835)
> They have their own solutions, and activists often force things like recycling at all costs, even though it means shipping it across the world on polluting boats and having some other country dump it in their rivers.
That's a side effect of (way too) lax regulations and the externalities of disposing of plastics not being paid for!
Germany and a few other EU countries for example force any introducer of "recyclable" packaging to pay into a system to fund recycling stream collection, sorting and disposals ("Grüner Punkt" [1]). Yes, it's not perfect, way too much of our plastics waste still is exported to poor countries, but the ban on that is already law that will come into force in a few years [2].
That's a side effect of (way too) lax regulations and the externalities of disposing of plastics not being paid for!
Germany and a few other EU countries for example force any introducer of "recyclable" packaging to pay into a system to fund recycling stream collection, sorting and disposals ("Grüner Punkt" [1]). Yes, it's not perfect, way too much of our plastics waste still is exported to poor countries, but the ban on that is already law that will come into force in a few years [2].
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCner_Punkt
[2] https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/plastikmuell-eu-einigt-sic...