4/15 I'd like to recycle my empty glass bottles of Corona beer, except
they have lime slices in them? What do i do?
\- residential level recycling is basically pointless so do whatever
you want. do you think people carefully sort their newspapers vs
"other paper"? --psb
\_ I actually do.
\_ No longer true. These days China's cheap labor makes it
worthwhile. Big chunk of our waste gets shipped to China
and comes back as packaging, etc. for products. See
recent WSJ article about how an American kid's tossed old
homework goes to China and back. Symbiosis of world's
greatest waste producer and world's greatest low cost
products manufacturer - global economy at its best.
\- well while i believe there might be some sucessful
residential recycling programs, i bet the vast majority
lose money [in the us]. it's places like china and
india where *real* reclying happens ... and that is
recyling by virtue of reuse. i.e. people use newspaper
to wrap fish, they use the glass bottles things come in
\_ or to wipe ass. -motd resident russian
to store other things. you guys who feel you've done
pasta container are ... wel let's just say you should
your part for the planet by throwing stuff into the right
bin and then driving to create and barrel to buy a $23
pasta container are ... well let's just say you should
move to marin county and sit in your wildly inefficient
hottubs and say shame shame shame about all the SUV
drivers. --psb
\_ except Aluminum. The energy cost of processing
virgin Aluminum from Bauxite is so huge that it's actually
economical to recycle.
\_ Partha, do you "stink of righteousness"?
\_ Here is the wsj article if you are interested:
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/Newszine/global/5.htm
One thing to note is that prices for "corrugated
cardboard" can go from $50 to $250 per ton within a
few years, so that may determine whether it would be
economical to recycle. Also, "lose money" does not
mean no benefit. For example, I work at a medical
equipment company that is losing money. That doesn't
mean our products are not saving lives. Value is
still being added.
\_Lose money means not sustainable. Take some basic
economics. The dot-com bubble is over. And a recycling
system which loses money is bad, because the money
has to come from somewhere, i.e. industries which are
polluting.
\_ Not sustainable, yes. But losing money doesn't
mean you stop working. Similarly, there is
value in spending the effort to recycle even
if the company involved is losing money. The
cost (both for the company and for yourself) is
mostly labor. You may find better ways
to use the labor, but that doesn't mean the
effort is wasted. Put it another way, when the
company is losing money, it may mean that your
pay is too high, but it doesn't mean that your
effort does not deserve ANY pay.
\_ Uhm, dude, look, if your company is losing money,
you need to work on your resume. "Not sustainable"
means there won't be a company soon. I admire your
idealism but there's no VC going to come save
your ass and keep you in free beer.
\_ It's just an example. It's fictitious, but
thanks for your concern. My real company
has been alternately losing money and breaking
even, but it is a big fat company that doesn't
die easily, and actually just bought another
company today. I may move on soon though since
work here has become unrewarding.
\_ the medical equipment guy must still be using the
"new math" of the "new economy". Haaa haa.
than it is to pay for landfill.
\_ Of course recycling is subsidized. But in the long run,
it's cheaper to set up recycling and lose money that way
than it is to pay for new landfills. |