Can/Bottle Redemption

[Big Daddy Kang]

Why isn't there a deposit on cans of green beans?

Most everyone recycles these days anyway. The 5 cent deposit has outlived it's purpose.

 

[NorthCyd]

For those that recycle a lot of their refuse, you may want to double check. The local city thought they were doing well with their major company collecting their recycling they were paying for. One time the council member followed the recycling truck and ended up at the landfill. Turned out it company said the dump was cheaper than recycling. They changed companies then. It a pretty well known company though.

It may have changed recently, but a lot of recyclables have been going to the landfill recently since China stopped purchasing US recyclable materials several years ago.

 

[JayV]

Why isn't there a deposit on cans of green beans?

There sort of is. The cost of the can and label are built into the price you pay for the contents. You can redeem that metal can for cash at any metal recycler. It's pretty easy.

The reason there isn't a state collected and state mandated program like there is for aluminum beverage cans is because most people don't eat from a can of beans when driving and then throw the empty can out the vehicle window, which was the case when the five cent deposit was implemented for aluminum beverage containers.

 

[JayV]

Most everyone recycles these days anyway. The 5 cent deposit has outlived it's purpose.

Based on the responses to this topic it seems most people throw recyclable materials away to be landfilled.

 

[dmclone]

I wish they would just get rid of the deposit. I've been to a lot of states in the last decade that do not have the redemption charge and their ditches look no different than ours.

When I worked I worked at Hy-Vee in high school as a courtesy clerk, one of my jobs was to power wash the can redemption area. It was so gross. People are animals. On a positive note, I got a **** ton of free mountain dew gear from the points thing they had on 12 pack cardboard. Wasn't as cool as my Marlboro miles but I didn't have to lose a lung to cash in.

 

[jcisuclones]

I wish they would just get rid of the deposit. I've been to a lot of states in the last decade that do not have the redemption charge and their ditches look no different than ours.

When I worked I worked at Hy-Vee in high school as a courtesy clerk, one of my jobs was to power wash the can redemption area. It was so gross. People are animals. On a positive note, I got a **** ton of free mountain dew gear from the points thing they had on 12 pack cardboard. Wasn't as cool as my Marlboro miles but I didn't have to lose a lung to cash in.

I did this with the Coke rewards back when I was in high school. Still wear the cool socks I got to this day!

 

[usedcarguy]

Until we get our trash 100% sorted, this is a sad and selfish way to go about disposing of no longer needed materials.

I would hope that people would learn that we do not have an unlimited amount of ANYTHING on this planet. Aluminum (or more accurately its core components) is a finite resource. I could see throwing away mixed recyclables that are hard to take apart (I'd like to see manufacturers get better at making this a non-issue), but cans of any sort, bottle, boxes, cardboard, etc. are just too easy to sort to be anything than sheer laziness or inconvenience on anyone's part not to sort them.

If we want a society that can live far into the future, we need to start taking care of all the resources we have, from clean water and air, to the soil, to the materials we use to support our crazy consume and throw away culture.

I think back to my uncle who used a neat little tool to crush his cans with his foot in the garage, he didn't drink soda, but he put a lot of Miller Lite away. Anyway, he was the son of a depression era family that lost 2 farms on their way to moving into a small house in town in later retirement. What was interesting about him is that if you tried to implement this law in Texas, he would put up a tremendous stink and fight, but he would do it. Because he had frugality built in. He didn't throw his cans away even though there was no redemption bill, because, "those crushed cans are worth money at the recyclers." But, you can't count on everyone having depression era parents anymore. Just a lot of people who don't care about a $ OR the earth.

What's sad is that people would resort to virtue signaling because they don't like the economic decisions of others.

The cost of recycling is not worth the benefit. In many cities where mandatory recycling takes place, the trash is mixed and taken to the landfills anyway because it is not cost effective to recycle. To say such people don't care about the planet is a crock. Most of that stuff came from the ground, and much of it is renewable.

If a raw materials ever becomes scarce enough to justify recycling, recycling will occur. An extreme example of this is catalytic converters...for which recycling value is to the point where people are stealing functioning ones from others.

There was a common theme for the frugality of those who experienced the Great Depression. Most in many facets of their lives in the subsequent years following tripped over dollars to pick up nickels. It resulted in a net lower standard of living than they would have otherwise had. Wasting resources (time and money) that could otherwise be spent elsewhere in order to make those whose life's problems reside at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy is just that...a waste of resources.

Throw everything in the landfill. And if the day ever comes where raw materials become scarce enough to make recycling economically profitable, the materials for recycling will already be there.

 

[usedcarguy]

Metal recyclers take car style batteries, I don't know if they do house style batteries AAA etc....

Not only will they take car batteries, most will buy them. But usually the core charge from retailers is more than the recyclers will pay.

 

[usedcarguy]

Sounds prime for a class action lawsuit.

Maybe, but who wants to go sue the few remaining ma & pa operations who are attempting to make a buck or two doing that which no one else will? Not withstanding the moral problem with that, you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.

Or is your plan to sue the government for not enforcing the law? If that's possible, the issue at the southern border would be a slam dunk case.

 

[CYDJ]

Hi Usedcarguy.

Thanks for the very nice reply. I appreciate level headed arguments. You are a rare one indeed.

I will debate you and try to italicize my points within your argument.

Usedcarguy comments in regular font, CYDJs in italics:

What's sad is that people would resort to virtue signaling because they don't like the economic decisions of others.

I appreciate your use of virtue signaling. In this case, I believe you have misused it. I am not trying to show others that I am a good person. When it comes to saving humans and possibly other similar life forms (which is what we are talking about, the planet will be just fine with or without us) I don't really believe what people think about me is important. I am pointing out that the argument you are making is based on a me attitude and not caring about the future. Not that I am good because you are bad. What you could say about me is I was being opinionated, naïve, preachy, etc. But virtue signaling would be off target.

The cost of recycling is not worth the benefit.

Do you really believe this in all cases, or are you generalizing? There are many circumstances where it works well. 69% of steel is recycled nowadays. 65% of Aluminum is as well. It appears that in both cases the cost of producing new metals is SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive to recycle than to extract and the industries would take more if they could get it.

In many cities where mandatory recycling takes place, the trash is mixed and taken to the landfills anyway because it is not cost effective to recycle.

If people cared enough about what recycling means to saving the people (not the planet) we would figure out better ways of sorting and re-using the materials. It starts with individuals. They can't just say, see I didn't do anything and it didn't work, so I was right.

To say such people don't care about the planet is a crock.

The fact is that the separation of the materials is most easily and effectively done at the point of use and disposal. how much harder is it to separate 3 or 4 bins instead of throwing it all in one container. If we could learn to separate, the economics of the whole system becomes much more feasible. What we are talking about here is a basic lack of caring by people who don't want to believe in something that could be beneficial to future generations. It is an inconvenience and we can't be bothered with it until we are about to be wiped out.

Most of that stuff came from the ground, and much of it is renewable.

I will agree that stuff came from the ground. Metal ore, fossil fuels for the plastics, trees for the paper based products, some other plants for other things sometimes like inks. That is great. The plants and trees are renewable. The rest isn't. It is finite. At some point, if we keep going like we are now, we're going to have to mine our dumps for metals. why not keep them out of there in the first place? It will cost a LOT to mine all of our dumps, let alone all the deconstruction and reconstruction costs of the piles and the methane mitigation that will need to be done. I don't suspect this will be an easy or cheap task.

If a raw materials ever becomes scarce enough to justify recycling, recycling will occur. An extreme example of this is catalytic converters...for which recycling value is to the point where people are stealing functioning ones from others.

Scarcity is a point, but not the only one here. If people recycled more cans of all types and materials, more of the supply of the metals we use would come from recycling which takes less energy and personpower, causes less pollution and disrupts the planet far less than extraction. Leaving out the benefits to the people (once again, the planet will be fine with or without us,) it is less expensive to recycle metals than making virgin materials. Its economically feasible already. There is no reason to say that stealing items that have precious metals and hocking them is the threshold we need to cross to have people sort their cans from the rest of their trash.

There was a common theme for the frugality of those who experienced the Great Depression. Most in many facets of their lives in the subsequent years following tripped over dollars to pick up nickels. It resulted in a net lower standard of living than they would have otherwise had. Wasting resources (time and money) that could otherwise be spent elsewhere in order to make those whose life's problems reside at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy is just that...a waste of resources.

I know a few people who came out of the great depression or were reared by those that experienced it full force who did pretty darn well for themselves. They still tended to care for their land, were conservationists and tried to do what they could to make the planet a better place. Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is not something new. It is what our grandparents and their grandparents practiced mainly due to the scarcity of goods. Everything did not come easy, fast and cheap to them, so they lived with less and without, so much waste and many times, with a closer connection to the land even if they didn't own a large chunk of it. We, as a society, have decided it is better to rip through all the crap we can buy and quickly throw it away, rather than design things to last and care for them. And when we are done with the items, we definitely don't want to be bothered with doing what is right by our future generations and recycle what can be recycled to save resources for them.

Throw everything in the landfill. And if the day ever comes where raw materials become scarce enough to make recycling economically profitable, the materials for recycling will already be there.

OK, to sum this all up, what you are saying is:

1) We have pretty much unlimited resources, (which, by definition, is not possible).

2) IF we ever need those resources again (which some generation will) we should spend 10X - 100X the money we would have otherwise, RE-EXTRACTING them from a man made pile of junk and then recompacting the remnants into another man made pile of junk.

3) That leaving natural land and sea alone and free from the scars of extraction, which is one side benefit of recycling, is not something positive for the people of the planet or their progeny.

I am interested in your argument on those points (or any of the others I have raised.). I appreciate your willingness to express your views. It is obvious that I disagree with many of your assertions, but I respect you and your willingness to express them.

 

[Yellow Snow]

Food for thought.

I've done engineering consulting with a local sanitation company to try and make things more efficient on their their recycling end... etc.

Everybody complaining that recyclable material gets dumped in the landfill despite being in the green recycle bin in your driveway has a leg to stand on. That happens. Not always, but it happens.

These sanitation companies have pretty much fixed overhead. The re-sale price of used cardboard or HDPE is a market like commodity. Similar to grain prices. These companies charge for trash pick up (with the free recyclable pick up included).

Here is how it works.

Look at it like grain prices. They pick up your sorted recycle stuff and chuck it in the same truck and then have to re-sort it at their facility. How much do you think it costs to drive a garbage truck with gas and labor and all? Cheaper to pick it all up on one run and sort it later. Not prudent to have a truck for each. That is why they typically only do 2 week pickups. They aren't going to waste gas and labor costs for 60 cents a bin.

From that point, it becomes a grain futures kind of game. If the market for prime used cardboard tanks, they won't sell. Waiting for an upturn so they aren't selling at a loss, and store the stuff in warehouses... waiting to sell.

Eventually they run out of room and just have to landfill the stuff. It's cheaper than sorting and building more warehouse space. End of story.

All you recycle people need to up your game on buying 100,000 lb. of prime used cardboard and raise the prices for people trying to sell.

 

[BCClone]

Food for thought.

I've done engineering consulting with a local sanitation company to try and make things more efficient on their their recycling end... etc.

Everybody complaining that recyclable material gets dumped in the landfill despite being in the green recycle bin in your driveway has a leg to stand on. That happens. Not always, but it happens.

These sanitation companies have pretty much fixed overhead. The re-sale price of used cardboard or HDPE is a market like commodity. Similar to grain prices. These companies charge for trash pick up (with the free recyclable pick up included).

Here is how it works.

Look at it like grain prices. They pick up your sorted recycle stuff and chuck it in the same truck and then have to re-sort it at their facility. How much do you think it costs to drive a garbage truck with gas and labor and all? Cheaper to pick it all up on one run and sort it later. Not prudent to have a truck for each. That is why they typically only do 2 week pickups. They aren't going to waste gas and labor costs for 60 cents a bin.

From that point, it becomes a grain futures kind of game. If the market for prime used cardboard tanks, they won't sell. Waiting for an upturn so they aren't selling at a loss, and store the stuff in warehouses... waiting to sell.

Eventually they run out of room and just have to landfill the stuff. It's cheaper than sorting and building more warehouse space. End of story.

All you recycle people need to up your game on buying 100,000 lb. of prime used cardboard and raise the prices for people trying to sell.

We have to sort ours some. We have three levels for the recycling. If they aren’t right they keep going. The worker pulls the stuff out and put it in the specific part of the truck and it takes 10 seconds and they are on to the next.

 

[usedcarguy]

I will respond in bold. Due to 10k character max, I had to chop some stuff down and it's still over. Will have to respond in two posts:

In this case, I believe you have misused it. I am not trying to show others that I am a good person....

virtue signalling

an attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example by…

dictionary.cambridge.org

"an attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media: Virtue signalling is the popular modern habit of indicating that one has virtue merely by expressing disgust or favour for certain political ideas or cultural happenings."

Your opening statement is a classic textbook example of virtue signaling. You're indicating virtue by publically expressing sadness and disgust for those that do not share your viewpoint on 100% recycling.

The cost of recycling is not worth the benefit.

Do you really believe this in all cases, or are you generalizing? I believe it in the areas where it is not taking place or where consumers are making a conscious effort not to participate. It is not economically feasible and can only be justified by making moral arguments such as the one you lead off with in your original reply. There are many circumstances where it works well. 69% of steel is recycled nowadays. 65% of Aluminum is as well. It appears that in both cases the cost of producing new metals is SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive to recycle than to extract and the industries would take more if they could get it. Yes and no. Cars have become relatively easy to recycle because they can be fed into big machines, shredded, and have all the different materials sorted out. Lots of other things are being recycled today because of the increase in the cost of raw material extraction and the economic benefit in doing so. Batteries and circuit boards are just two of more recent examples. Note that neither salvage yards (nor anyone else) has made an economic decision to collect peoples' trash to sort out the tin, aluminum, plastic, steel, paper, etc. It is because the cost exceeds the benefit.

In many cities where mandatory recycling takes place, the trash is mixed and taken to the landfills anyway because it is not cost effective to recycle.

If people cared enough about what recycling means to saving the people (not the planet) we would figure out better ways of sorting and re-using the materials. It starts with individuals. They can't just say, see I didn't do anything and it didn't work, so I was right. Again, you're inserting your own moral opinion. We could certainly recycle most everything that goes into our trash. But the question is at what cost. As long as it costs more to do so than producing new, even when HONESTLY considering the environmental costs, it is a waste of resources.

To say such people don't care about the planet is a crock.

The fact is that the separation of the materials is most easily and effectively done at the point of use and disposal. how much harder is it to separate 3 or 4 bins instead of throwing it all in one container. If we could learn to separate, the economics of the whole system becomes much more feasible. What we are talking about here is a basic lack of caring by people who don't want to believe in something that could be beneficial to future generations....

Yep, a lack of caring because it's a pain in the rear with virtually zero tangible benefit. How DARE people be selfish with their own time! Your real problem is that people refuse to view the world through your lens. In addition, "most easily" isn't necessarily easy. Recyclers are constantly complaining that people aren't sorting things out correctly.

Most of that stuff came from the ground, and much of it is renewable.

At some point, if we keep going like we are now, we're going to have to mine our dumps for metals. why not keep them out of there in the first place? It will cost a LOT to mine all of our dumps, let alone all the deconstruction and reconstruction costs of the piles and the methane mitigation that will need to be done. I don't suspect this will be an easy or cheap task.

At some point? Maybe, maybe not. But that's the beauty of free market capitalism. It solves problems. If a material becomes scarce enough, it will become economically feasible to recycle. And we'll have landfills full of materials along with the ability to recycle that which already exists. Or even better, someone will come up with a lower cost alternative material which isn't scarce or is economically profitable to recycle.

If a raw materials ever becomes scarce enough to justify recycling, recycling will occur. An extreme example of this is catalytic converters...for which recycling value is to the point where people are stealing functioning ones from others.

Scarcity is a point, but not the only one here. If people recycled more cans of all types and materials, more of the supply of the metals we use would come from recycling which takes less energy and personpower, causes less pollution and disrupts the planet far less than extraction. Leaving out the benefits to the people (once again, the planet will be fine with or without us,) it is less expensive to recycle metals than making virgin materials. Its economically feasible already. There is no reason to say that stealing items that have precious metals and hocking them is the threshold we need to cross to have people sort their cans from the rest of their trash.

It isn't that simple. Less energy, yes. Less person power? Nope. The very thing that makes recycling of some items prohibitively expensive is the labor itself. Your argument requires valuing people's time and effort at zero which isn't reasonable. If your argument carried water, people would already be recycling if for no other reason than economic incentive. I would also add that your narrowing down of the subject to only metals is interesting, especially considering your moral argument in your initial reply to me that anything less than 100% recycling is sad and selfish.

 

[usedcarguy]

There was a common theme for the frugality of those who experienced the Great Depression. Most in many facets of their lives in the subsequent years following tripped over dollars to pick up nickels. It resulted in a net lower standard of living than they would have otherwise had. Wasting resources (time and money) that could otherwise be spent elsewhere in order to make those whose life's problems reside at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy is just that...a waste of resources.

I know a few people who came out of the great depression or were reared by those that experienced it full force who did pretty darn well for themselves. As do I. But I know a lot who ended up being time wasting hoarders as well. They still tended to care for their land, were conservationists and tried to do what they could to make the planet a better place. Some did, some didn't. You're speaking in generalities. I know people who were tighter than bark on a tree and dumped all their used motor oil and grease on the ground or burned it. Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is not something new. It is what our grandparents and their grandparents practiced mainly due to the scarcity of goods. Everything did not come easy, fast and cheap to them, so they lived with less and without, so much waste and many times, with a closer connection to the land even if they didn't own a large chunk of it. In some facets of their lives, that was a tremendous benefit. In others, it kept them poorer than they otherwise would have been because of their use of time. It always pencils great when you value your time at zero, but reality is that your time has value. We, as a society, have decided it is better to rip through all the crap we can buy and quickly throw it away, rather than design things to last and care for them. Ok, grandpa! (just kidding!) You're really talking about two different issues here. Our throwaway society is predicated the fact that we as consumers almost always will chose something cheaper and disposable because of the cost. The other thing is the factor of time. There are many items which could be repaired, but the time factor makes it economically unfeasible. It is cost effective to program a robot to mass produce a circuit board. It is not cost effective to have a human tear something apart to find and resolder two bad connections. And when we are done with the items, we definitely don't want to be bothered with doing what is right by our future generations and recycle what can be recycled to save resources for them.

LOL. There is not a generation in the history of the world who cared enough about future generations to conserve resources. Those who lived through the great depression certainly didn't conserve and hoard resources for future generations. They did it out of self interest. And like I said, some of those efforts were prudent, and some a waste. Most were just trying to make it to the next day, week and year. Compare that to today where most have aced the first four tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy and are working on self-actualization...worrying about things like recycling rather than where their next meal is coming from and how they're going to keep a roof over their heads.

Also compare that to a place like Iraq where everyone is dirt poor. There isn't a tin can in the entire country that doesn't get recycled by kids roaming the dumps. And it's not because they're concerned about the environment. That's the difference between the top and bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy.


Throw everything in the landfill. And if the day ever comes where raw materials become scarce enough to make recycling economically profitable, the materials for recycling will already be there.

OK, to sum this all up, what you are saying is:

1) We have pretty much unlimited resources, (which, by definition, is not possible).

No, free the market will decide if we have unlimited resources and act accordingly by coming up with cost effective solutions.

2) IF we ever need those resources again (which some generation will) we should spend 10X - 100X the money we would have otherwise, RE-EXTRACTING them from a man made pile of junk and then recompacting the remnants into another man made pile of junk.

One, it's presumptuous to assume a future generation will need to resort to mining landfills, as is your 10x-100x estimate. Two, it ignores the future value of money. Unlike the government that pulls money from the economy and more or less sets it on fire, dollars freed up today can be directed to more efficient uses...such as feeding and educating the poor, creating jobs, saving for retirement, building homes, etc. Three, you're assuming that a technology won't developed that will make recycling landfills cost effective. Here's an idea. Figure out how to make it cost effective now. You'll make yourself wealthy AND solve a problem. That's how the free market works!

3) That leaving natural land and sea alone and free from the scars of extraction, which is one side benefit of recycling, is not something positive for the people of the planet or their progeny.

If you truly care about the scaring on the planet, you need to focus your efforts on Asia (SE Asia in particular) where very little if any trash collection takes place and much of it ends up in the oceans where it causes substantial ecological damage. Any visual scaring from the extraction of raw materials on land I do not own or will likely never visit is much further down my list of things which are important. There are very few if any countries that do a better job of cleaning up after themselves than we do.

 

[usedcarguy]

Food for thought.

I've done engineering consulting with a local sanitation company to try and make things more efficient on their their recycling end... etc.

Everybody complaining that recyclable material gets dumped in the landfill despite being in the green recycle bin in your driveway has a leg to stand on. That happens. Not always, but it happens.

These sanitation companies have pretty much fixed overhead. The re-sale price of used cardboard or HDPE is a market like commodity. Similar to grain prices. These companies charge for trash pick up (with the free recyclable pick up included).

Here is how it works.

Look at it like grain prices. They pick up your sorted recycle stuff and chuck it in the same truck and then have to re-sort it at their facility. How much do you think it costs to drive a garbage truck with gas and labor and all? Cheaper to pick it all up on one run and sort it later. Not prudent to have a truck for each. That is why they typically only do 2 week pickups. They aren't going to waste gas and labor costs for 60 cents a bin.

From that point, it becomes a grain futures kind of game. If the market for prime used cardboard tanks, they won't sell. Waiting for an upturn so they aren't selling at a loss, and store the stuff in warehouses... waiting to sell.

Eventually they run out of room and just have to landfill the stuff. It's cheaper than sorting and building more warehouse space. End of story.

All you recycle people need to up your game on buying 100,000 lb. of prime used cardboard and raise the prices for people trying to sell.

One point that your post reinforces is that oftentimes the cost of recycling exceeds the cause of extraction and producing from new. Economics drives everything.

 

[Macloney]

There was a common theme for the frugality of those who experienced the Great Depression. Most in many facets of their lives in the subsequent years following tripped over dollars to pick up nickels. It resulted in a net lower standard of living than they would have otherwise had. Wasting resources (time and money) that could otherwise be spent elsewhere in order to make those whose life's problems reside at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy is just that...a waste of resources.

I know a few people who came out of the great depression or were reared by those that experienced it full force who did pretty darn well for themselves. As do I. But I know a lot who ended up being time wasting hoarders as well. They still tended to care for their land, were conservationists and tried to do what they could to make the planet a better place. Some did, some didn't. You're speaking in generalities. I know people who were tighter than bark on a tree and dumped all their used motor oil and grease on the ground or burned it. Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is not something new. It is what our grandparents and their grandparents practiced mainly due to the scarcity of goods. Everything did not come easy, fast and cheap to them, so they lived with less and without, so much waste and many times, with a closer connection to the land even if they didn't own a large chunk of it. In some facets of their lives, that was a tremendous benefit. In others, it kept them poorer than they otherwise would have been because of their use of time. It always pencils great when you value your time at zero, but reality is that your time has value. We, as a society, have decided it is better to rip through all the crap we can buy and quickly throw it away, rather than design things to last and care for them. Ok, grandpa! (just kidding!) You're really talking about two different issues here. Our throwaway society is predicated the fact that we as consumers almost always will chose something cheaper and disposable because of the cost. The other thing is the factor of time. There are many items which could be repaired, but the time factor makes it economically unfeasible. It is cost effective to program a robot to mass produce a circuit board. It is not cost effective to have a human tear something apart to find and resolder two bad connections. And when we are done with the items, we definitely don't want to be bothered with doing what is right by our future generations and recycle what can be recycled to save resources for them.

LOL. There is not a generation in the history of the world who cared enough about future generations to conserve resources. Those who lived through the great depression certainly didn't conserve and hoard resources for future generations. They did it out of self interest. And like I said, some of those efforts were prudent, and some a waste. Most were just trying to make it to the next day, week and year. Compare that to today where most have aced the first four tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy and are working on self-actualization...worrying about things like recycling rather than where their next meal is coming from and how they're going to keep a roof over their heads.

Also compare that to a place like Iraq where everyone is dirt poor. There isn't a tin can in the entire country that doesn't get recycled by kids roaming the dumps. And it's not because they're concerned about the environment. That's the difference between the top and bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy.


Throw everything in the landfill. And if the day ever comes where raw materials become scarce enough to make recycling economically profitable, the materials for recycling will already be there.

OK, to sum this all up, what you are saying is:

1) We have pretty much unlimited resources, (which, by definition, is not possible).

No, free the market will decide if we have unlimited resources and act accordingly by coming up with cost effective solutions.

2) IF we ever need those resources again (which some generation will) we should spend 10X - 100X the money we would have otherwise, RE-EXTRACTING them from a man made pile of junk and then recompacting the remnants into another man made pile of junk.

One, it's presumptuous to assume a future generation will need to resort to mining landfills, as is your 10x-100x estimate. Two, it ignores the future value of money. Unlike the government that pulls money from the economy and more or less sets it on fire, dollars freed up today can be directed to more efficient uses...such as feeding and educating the poor, creating jobs, saving for retirement, building homes, etc. Three, you're assuming that a technology won't developed that will make recycling landfills cost effective. Here's an idea. Figure out how to make it cost effective now. You'll make yourself wealthy AND solve a problem. That's how the free market works!

3) That leaving natural land and sea alone and free from the scars of extraction, which is one side benefit of recycling, is not something positive for the people of the planet or their progeny.

If you truly care about the scaring on the planet, you need to focus your efforts on Asia (SE Asia in particular) where very little if any trash collection takes place and much of it ends up in the oceans where it causes substantial ecological damage. Any visual scaring from the extraction of raw materials on land I do not own or will likely never visit is much further down my list of things which are important. There are very few if any countries that do a better job of cleaning up after themselves than we do.

Dude, nobody is going to read all that. Next time just hit us with clever gif or anything Jennifer Love Hewwit related and you will get likes.

 

[Gorm]

Why isn't there a deposit on cans of green beans?

When is the last time you saw empty green bean cans littered all over the ditch?

 

[Gorm]

There was a common theme for the frugality of those who experienced the Great Depression. Most in many facets of their lives in the subsequent years following tripped over dollars to pick up nickels. It resulted in a net lower standard of living than they would have otherwise had. Wasting resources (time and money) that could otherwise be spent elsewhere in order to make those whose life's problems reside at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy is just that...a waste of resources.

I know a few people who came out of the great depression or were reared by those that experienced it full force who did pretty darn well for themselves. As do I. But I know a lot who ended up being time wasting hoarders as well. They still tended to care for their land, were conservationists and tried to do what they could to make the planet a better place. Some did, some didn't. You're speaking in generalities. I know people who were tighter than bark on a tree and dumped all their used motor oil and grease on the ground or burned it. Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is not something new. It is what our grandparents and their grandparents practiced mainly due to the scarcity of goods. Everything did not come easy, fast and cheap to them, so they lived with less and without, so much waste and many times, with a closer connection to the land even if they didn't own a large chunk of it. In some facets of their lives, that was a tremendous benefit. In others, it kept them poorer than they otherwise would have been because of their use of time. It always pencils great when you value your time at zero, but reality is that your time has value. We, as a society, have decided it is better to rip through all the crap we can buy and quickly throw it away, rather than design things to last and care for them. Ok, grandpa! (just kidding!) You're really talking about two different issues here. Our throwaway society is predicated the fact that we as consumers almost always will chose something cheaper and disposable because of the cost. The other thing is the factor of time. There are many items which could be repaired, but the time factor makes it economically unfeasible. It is cost effective to program a robot to mass produce a circuit board. It is not cost effective to have a human tear something apart to find and resolder two bad connections. And when we are done with the items, we definitely don't want to be bothered with doing what is right by our future generations and recycle what can be recycled to save resources for them.

LOL. There is not a generation in the history of the world who cared enough about future generations to conserve resources. Those who lived through the great depression certainly didn't conserve and hoard resources for future generations. They did it out of self interest. And like I said, some of those efforts were prudent, and some a waste. Most were just trying to make it to the next day, week and year. Compare that to today where most have aced the first four tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy and are working on self-actualization...worrying about things like recycling rather than where their next meal is coming from and how they're going to keep a roof over their heads.

Also compare that to a place like Iraq where everyone is dirt poor. There isn't a tin can in the entire country that doesn't get recycled by kids roaming the dumps. And it's not because they're concerned about the environment. That's the difference between the top and bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy.


Throw everything in the landfill. And if the day ever comes where raw materials become scarce enough to make recycling economically profitable, the materials for recycling will already be there.

OK, to sum this all up, what you are saying is:

1) We have pretty much unlimited resources, (which, by definition, is not possible).

No, free the market will decide if we have unlimited resources and act accordingly by coming up with cost effective solutions.

2) IF we ever need those resources again (which some generation will) we should spend 10X - 100X the money we would have otherwise, RE-EXTRACTING them from a man made pile of junk and then recompacting the remnants into another man made pile of junk.

One, it's presumptuous to assume a future generation will need to resort to mining landfills, as is your 10x-100x estimate. Two, it ignores the future value of money. Unlike the government that pulls money from the economy and more or less sets it on fire, dollars freed up today can be directed to more efficient uses...such as feeding and educating the poor, creating jobs, saving for retirement, building homes, etc. Three, you're assuming that a technology won't developed that will make recycling landfills cost effective. Here's an idea. Figure out how to make it cost effective now. You'll make yourself wealthy AND solve a problem. That's how the free market works!

3) That leaving natural land and sea alone and free from the scars of extraction, which is one side benefit of recycling, is not something positive for the people of the planet or their progeny.

If you truly care about the scaring on the planet, you need to focus your efforts on Asia (SE Asia in particular) where very little if any trash collection takes place and much of it ends up in the oceans where it causes substantial ecological damage. Any visual scaring from the extraction of raw materials on land I do not own or will likely never visit is much further down my list of things which are important. There are very few if any countries that do a better job of cleaning up after themselves than we do.

Anyone got a TLDR version of this?

 

[BCClone]

When is the last time you saw empty green bean cans littered all over the ditch?

Kids are smart enough to dump the beans out and mix drinks in them. Man, I never thought of that. What cop would think you have an open container with a green bean can.

 

[usedcarguy]

Dude, nobody is going to read all that. Next time just hit us with clever gif or anything Jennifer Love Hewwit related and you will get likes.

Dude, I wasn't replying to you. I was asked and responded. If you don't like it, go play in traffic.