Climate change anyone?

[Haironyourchest]

Don't know if this is Global Warming related or not but..

 

Apparently, in North Korea, the rural people trade their own toilet waste as a commodity. The economy has reached the medieval level where fertilizer of any description is valuable.

 

At the same time, in Japan, they have invented a low maintenance composting toilet for public parks etc, so advanced, that it composts close to 99.99% of waste. Virtually never fills up. The unit costs $40,000.

 

In other news, X-tinction rebellion were thrilled that CO2 emissions dropped by 5.5% during the spring lockdowns. They (the Greens and the "climate x-perts) say we need to reduce by at least 7.5% every year. 

 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, AHPP said:

Sorting stuff into the blue bin so some chancing cvnt can sell it to Indonesia (to end up in the sea) is pointless.

I feel for your sentiment but it was an ill thought out directive that gave a financial reward in the form of recycling credits for stuff that was exported. This went entirely against the ethos of dealing with waste locally. It didn't take much for the entrepreneurial types to see they could collect rubbish, export it anywhere and  claim these credits whereas the legitimate recycling industry had to actually do some recycling to claim theirs. Such is the capitalist system we live in, it allows any innovation then takes a while to react and regulate the new activity once someone realises it is done at a cost to the commons we all depend on. In the meantime fortunes have been made.

 

Just consider how long we have had a two, or more, bin system, 20 years yet?

 

Also consider that segregation near to where the final user wishes to discard something keeps the "resource" cleaner and purer, once you start mixing it it becomes of less value to the recycler. e.g. originally glass bottles were kept separate by my local waste collection but many people did not feel they should be responsible for keeping it separate, the council relented and allowed glass bottles of any colour, tins, paper  and plastic food containers all in one bin. This immediately devalued the glass cullet but worse it contaminated the paper and card with shards of glass after sorting and damaged the re pulping machines, making the waste paper fraction less valuable and reduced the yield. However it increased the total claimed recycling and the chief executive was awarded a number of tens of thousand to his already corpulent salary for the increased performance.

[AHPP]

I feel for your sentiment but it was an ill thought out directive that gave a financial reward in the form of recycling credits for stuff that was exported. This went entirely against the ethos of dealing with waste locally. It didn't take much for the entrepreneurial types to see they could collect rubbish, export it anywhere and  claim these credits whereas the legitimate recycling industry had to actually do some recycling to claim theirs. Such is the capitalist system we live in, it allows any innovation then takes a while to react and regulate the new activity once someone realises it is done at a cost to the commons we all depend on. In the meantime fortunes have been made.

 

Just consider how long we have had a two, or more, bin system, 20 years yet?

 

Also consider that segregation near to where the final user wishes to discard something keeps the "resource" cleaner and purer, once you start mixing it it becomes of less value to the recycler. e.g. originally glass bottles were kept separate by my local waste collection but many people did not feel they should be responsible for keeping it separate, the council relented and allowed glass bottles of any colour, tins, paper  and plastic food containers all in one bin. This immediately devalued the glass cullet but worse it contaminated the paper and card with shards of glass after sorting and damaged the re pulping machines, making the waste paper fraction less valuable and reduced the yield. However it increased the total claimed recycling and the chief executive was awarded a number of tens of thousand to his already corpulent salary for the increased performance.

Putting up taxvictims' money for whoever is unscrupulous enough to take it is emphatically NOT capitalism.

 

I couldn't tell you how to best make use of resources, sorting or whatever. Neither can any other one man. The market can though.

 

[difflock]

The wisdom of capitialism vis-a-vis Government is again demonstrated by our latest revealed renewable energy fiasco here in NI.

Where stand-alone wind power installations attracted something like 4 times the subsidized return than those in wind farms, giving a payback of as little as 2 years with 18 more free and clear.

Bringing in figures between £100,000.00 and £200,000.00 per year over 18 more years.

Oh! and if you put in a way-oversized and de-rated turbine you could furthur "game" the system.

All paid for by helpless mugs like us paying our leccy bill.

DOfornicatingH!

Edited December 15, 2020 by difflock

[difflock]

8 hours ago, openspaceman said:

I feel for your sentiment but it was an ill thought out directive that gave a financial reward in the form of recycling credits for stuff that was exported. This went entirely against the ethos of dealing with waste locally. It didn't take much for the entrepreneurial types to see they could collect rubbish, export it anywhere and  claim these credits whereas the legitimate recycling industry had to actually do some recycling to claim theirs. Such is the capitalist system we live in, it allows any innovation then takes a while to react and regulate the new activity once someone realises it is done at a cost to the commons we all depend on. In the meantime fortunes have been made.

 

Just consider how long we have had a two, or more, bin system, 20 years yet?

 

Also consider that segregation near to where the final user wishes to discard something keeps the "resource" cleaner and purer, once you start mixing it it becomes of less value to the recycler. e.g. originally glass bottles were kept separate by my local waste collection but many people did not feel they should be responsible for keeping it separate, the council relented and allowed glass bottles of any colour, tins, paper  and plastic food containers all in one bin. This immediately devalued the glass cullet but worse it contaminated the paper and card with shards of glass after sorting and damaged the re pulping machines, making the waste paper fraction less valuable and reduced the yield. However it increased the total claimed recycling and the chief executive was awarded a number of tens of thousand to his already corpulent salary for the increased performance.

OSM

Seeing as I worked within local government and persistently queried where our obviously polluted blue bin waste, never mind the polluted "colour segregated" glass went and was always rebuffed.

etc etc

The uncaring idiots were running the aylsum and costing the ratepayers and the Enivironment a fortune in hard cash.

Like trucking heavy wet green waste miles to a composting facility when they had acres of ground nearby, a closed "dump" where it could simply have spread to decay naturally and give nature a helping hand.

The waste involved in handling our waste drove me to mental despair, quite seriously.

Never mind the seriously frivilious expenditure of the landfill tax cash-back from the Government, on stupid, ill considered short term community/vanity projects.

Marcus

[openspaceman]

7 hours ago, AHPP said:

Putting up taxvictims' money for whoever's unscrupulous enough to take it is emphatically NOT capitalism.

 

I couldn't tell you how to best make use of resources, sorting or whatever. Neither can any other one man. The market can though.

Yes a properly regulated market can but as I said government  takes a while to adapt whereas there/s always somone looking for a wrinkle to make some easy money without concern for the consequences for others.

[Paul in the woods]

Well, round here our council has declared a 'climate emergency'. However, if you ask them what it means they can't tell you and if you push them they get stroppy and refuse to answer unless you submit a FOI. They have been having climate meetings for about 10 years by the looks of what I can find out, but they've not produced anything other than extra CO2 from all the meetings.

 

With regard to the rubbish. I think theory and practice of what councils do is far removed. Ours insists on some separation but then paper is put in an open plastic sack and has to be put out the night before. So, in a fairly wet part of the country all the nice paper is often soaking wet so I assume is not reused.

 

They have 'invested' a great deal in nice shiny collection vehicles at great cost to the tax payer. However, they are too big for many roads so insist people drive the recycling to collection points and drive there again to pick up the containers. So, that's 100 short journeys they expect people to make which will be great for the environment. 🙄

 

Interesting to read the comments on the amount left after incinerating. Our council proudly boasts nothing goes to landfill. I assume they simply ignore the ash that's left.

 

I'm not sure our local government will adapt, it'll just find more wool to pull over people's eyes.

[openspaceman]

46 minutes ago, difflock said:

OSM

Seeing as I worked within local government and persistently queried where our obviously polluted blue bin waste, never mind the polluted "colour segregated" glass went and was always rebuffed.

etc etc

The uncaring idiots were running the aylsum and costing the ratepayers and the Enivironment a fortune in hard cash.

Like trucking heavy wet green waste miles to a composting facility when they had acres of ground nearby, a closed "dump" where it could simply have spread to decay naturally and give nature a helping hand.

The waste involved in handling our waste drove me to mental despair, quite seriously.

Never mind the seriously frivilious expenditure of the landfill tax cash-back from the Government, on stupid, ill considered short term community/vanity projects.

Marcus

It seems to me that local government  attracts a lot of people looking for security and avoiding working but that's another matter.

 

As to green waste; I think that too came as a result of someone in a LA realising that  while there was no mandate to collect it  once it was collected and sent to a composting facility it counted as recycling and in one hit put the recycling percentage up.

 

As I have mentioned here before I think, once collected,  green waste would be better used by fixing the carbon in it  rather than composing it and returning the carbon to the atmosphere

[Stere]

Supposedly to be new regs coming in  future that make the manufacturer pay 100% recycling cost.

 

 

 

 

Manufacturers to Pay Full Cost for Recycling UK Packaging | Waste Management World

WASTE-MANAGEMENT-WORLD.COM

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Under a new UK government strategy Businesses and manufacturers will pay the full cost of recycling or disposing...

 

 

 

 

 

[AHPP]

Yes a properly regulated market can but as I said government  takes a while to adapt whereas there/s always somone looking for a wrinkle to make some easy money without concern for the consequences for others.

The only proper regulation of a market is what comes from within the market. It’s the sadly more prevalent regulation of markets (interfering) by outsiders like government that fvcks stuff up and makes people erroneously blame capitalism.