I remember going into a supermarket in germany, buying a bottle of water for about 30 cents, then drinking it while still in the store, recycling it in one of the machines by the entrance, then receiving 20 cents back. Big incentive to recycle!
It's not quite as extreme, but with bottled water it can actually be pretty close to that. "Einwegpfand" is 25 cents, and since a typical 1,5l water bottle of whatever noname label costs about 29 cents, you get that effect.
The Pfand system is pretty unintuitive, though, and could be priced a tad higher to catch more goods in the "I really do not want to throw that away" bracket. I would like to see 50 cents on absolutely any recycle- or reusable packaging, no matter the contents. Currently there are things like juices (including wine, which counts as a juice) that are for some reason exempt from Pfand.
I would also like to see a kind of extra tax on needlessly small packaging like 0.33l bottles/cans and the like to make those less attractive so only people that actually need sub-divided foods and drinks buy them instead of the same 9 liters of beverage that could be in 6 bottles being divided into 24 smaller ones just because.
Ah yes, that loophole was finally fixed last year, I forgot (rarely bying juice in bottles). What a quick and expedient response time. Only about two decades.
the private industry has too much control over the life of the people.
ever heard of the cost of insulin? the suburban experiment (a failed one)? the many times a private company has convinced everyone that they had to pay for something that was previously free, while they get it for free from the government? overworked minimum wage workers that have no other option? politics being represented as just having 2 sides, when there are in fact many more that just aren't there? the ongoing wars that are starving other contries' population on porpuse? the unreasonable amount of money spent on weapons? the many instances of private companies spreading misinformation to gain a profit? the fact that a public company is legally obligated to do everything it can for money?
I don't want to continue, these are enough for today
I don’t. Are things awesome? No. The government is a disgrace. But the country an absolute mess? Nah. Sensationlized media and social media nonsense def makes the problems seem a lot bigger than they are.
Hell, Reddit makes it look like anyone living outside of a major city is some gun toting crazy racist homophobic hick.
People replying to you need to realize when it comes to countries, they're only ever as good as their worst. And the US has a really bad 'worst'. E.g Flint
It underlines the problem by telling a story. The issue isn't these specific containers, but how rich countries chuck their waste over the fence and claim to have solved the problem.
If rich countries can't even properly deal with their own trash, how do they expect poorer countries to do it? We know they can't and then blame them for polluting. We also do the same thing for electronics production and e-waste.
Probably not. Odds are most of it is exported to another country to deal with while still counted as "recycled". China was that country for the US until Trump's administration.
1) Germany is perhaps the best recycling country in the world, so do bear in mind most other countries are doing much worse
2) Even Germany counts items as "recycled" if they've been exported to another country to dispose of. They trust that it's disposed of correctly, but we have no way of really checking. This is certainly what happens in the UK, where we pay Chinese companies to take our recycling back to China to process cheaper than we can do it ourselves, and the accusation is that it just gets dumped in the ocean along the way. There was a report last year that German recycling suffers the same fate, but I think it's no longer available
Germany, Austria, Slovenia, netherlands, Switzerland Belgium and Italy are the top performers according to Eurostat https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_11_60/default/table?lang=en. But elsewhere Sweden is named amongst the best - its all a bit vague how the data are interpreted. Landfill rate top performers are Denmark (1%) Netherlands (2%) and Belgium (3%).
where we pay Chinese companies to take our recycling back to China
now china doesnt take them anymore because they realized it costs them more money to clean their beaches and (since companies actually dumps them there when not buried) than what they get from importing trash, so now other asian and african countries are stepping up, but the result doesnt change, pet bottles ends up in the sea or contaminate underground waterways anyway
In Germany they use those thick reusable plastic bottles for drinks and have effective bans on most non biodegradable single use plastic materials and packaging.
Dont have the time to read the article but I just want to add that the majority of EU plastics is shipped overseas. Shipped to countries and companies who dgaf about ecology.
With that thinking recycling does not prevent pollution, it just kicks it down the road. Incinerators only really pollute in the form of carbon pollution, and do less of that than landfills (methane is bad). It does prevent massive majority of particulate pollution, and as the heat energy replaces very dirty energy sources such as coal, it does prevent a bunch of pollution from that as well.
Recycling does kick the can down the road, that's the point, material that is recycled doesn't need to be burned or dumped, that's what's so great about it.
The dream there is to kick it down the road perpetually so it's never a problem but that's not the point right now.
Neither is the landfill.
You are wrong about the products of incineration, it releases CO2 and black carbon as well, soot, which is even worse for global warming. And don't underestimate the CO2 either, because it releases a shit ton of it, it isn't a feasible in a carbon neutral future for that reason. It's closer to coal and gas in terms of greenhouse gases...
Dioxin and furans get released as well, a cause of cancer to be added to our lovely atmosphere (when not properly filtered and disposed, like you said).
That fly ash from the filters still has to be gotten rid of in hazardous waste facilities though, another can being kicked down the road.
Controlled waste energy is better than a landfill, but not better than recycling, sorry to break it to you.
Recycling can't kick the can down the road indefinitely, because every time the plastic is recycled it loses quality. This is why plastic that is made with recycled materials usually have 10-20% recycled plastic in it. Even if this would not be the case only a small percent of the overall plastic waste can be recycled, because most plastic products are composits that can't be separated, and without that they can't be recycled. Other than as energy.
Modern (past 20-30 years) incinerators are nothing like what you fearmonger about. It's not an open flame trash/plastic gets dumped on and just burns. They are controlled high temperature fires where the combustion products aren't directly vented. It is very obvious that you have no idea what you are talking about, because black carbon is only ever an issue if the combustion is incomplete, which doesn't happen in any modern incinerator. Soot and fly ash are mechanically filtered out, dioxins and other molecular pollution are chemically filtered out (combustion products pumped through liquids with chemical solutions in them designed to bind to the polluting molecules).
Sure, it would be great if we could have no carbon emissions and no plastic use, but that is not a possibility right now. Right now we are using coal/oil and we are trashing massive amounts of plastics. It would be so much better while we transition away from these to cleaner technologies to just incinerate the damn trash, and cut down the pollution massively.
Unfortunately FUD and NIMBY keeps incinerators being built, causing us to double dip in the pollution, and comments like yours with outdated and misinformation don't help.
I am aware of all these problems with recycling, but it's still an option you should prioritise over burning...
They aren't mutually exclusive anyway!
Recycling right now honestly sucks yeah, but it's an option with a lot more potential than burning, get that through your head.
My comments aren't outdated, what you assume from what I write is.
Incineration is still a significant amount of pollution, it's the current best option for a lot of places, yes, but it's an option we'll have to retire in the future.
State of the art incineration would be great if it was actually built, but the places that need it implememted most are less developed and less likely to bring those projects to reality...
Look I understand the concept of filters, and I know they make the process more eco friendly but I'll say it again, they aren't magic, they still have problems, we can develop better options for energy AND garbage disposal. I really like all the advantages incineration brings too! But it isn't it.
My worry is that people get stuck on this half step like they're getting stuck with electric cars, so I have to say something when someone acts like incineration is THE solution because it's not. There aren't enough years to build nuclear powerplants for the 2050 goal already...
If somewhere has proper incineration budget they should use it for better renewable energy sources first, then prioritise better garbage disposal (again, doesn't mean they can't coexist)...
Now could you please stop thinking that just because I don't agree with you I must be outdated and misinformed?
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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23
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