'The eels were climbing out of the water to die'

Re:'The eels were climbing out of the water to die' by craftkiller on Thursday October 08, 2026 @12:39PM (#50008074)

In NYC it is free to dispose of such stuff properly (paid for with taxes). Of the sites I've been to, both have been easily accessible without a car. They've been incredibly easy to use: you walk up and either hand your stuff to the employee or put it in the correct bin yourself based on the signs. I've never had to wait in a line, you just walk in, drop your stuff, and go. And yet every week I still see people disposing of their electronics improperly by putting their smashed televisions on the curb for regular trash pick up instead of taking it to a special waste site. Hell is other people.

https://www.nyc.gov/site/dsny/what-we-do/programs/special-wa...

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Re:'The eels were climbing out of the water to die' by SoftTalker on Thursday October 08, 2026 @01:11PM (#50008608)

Yes, any barrier is too much for some people. Accept that fact, and have the municipal collectors pick up the TV and do the right thing with it. Better than it getting dumped in the woods or an empty lot somewhere.

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Re:'The eels were climbing out of the water to die' by craftkiller on Thursday October 08, 2026 @03:48PM (#50011088)

That sounds pretty difficult. We would need a way to signal to the municipal collectors what each thing is, and they would need to be able to store each type of thing separately. For example, are these batteries lithium, lead, or nimh? Those go into separate bins. What type of paint is it? those goes into separate bins. How are we supposed to indicate that a container contains used motor oil?

The simple trash, recycle, compost stuff works because it is only 3 categories so you can have 3 different colored bags/bins. Adding in the special waste stuff is adding 10+ categories. We'd either need a full rainbow of bins or some special stickers to mark each item (which would be yet-another barrier).

While I'd love at-home pickup, what we really need is for people to just be better.

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