Just Bury Your Trash

ndriscoll•about 9 hours ago

> In total, Britain’s Environment Agency calculated that a conventional cotton bag needed to be reused 173 times to beat plastic

So after a couple years? How is this supposed to be an argument in favor of disposable bags? My reusable ones are just fine after probably at least a decade.

Likewise with the mug; ignoring for a moment that drinking out of a polystyrene cup is disgusting (especially with hot liquids like coffee that one normally uses a mug for), the argument is supposed to be that a mug (a thing that should last a lifetime) is somehow worse than disposable cups because it takes 2-3 years to be better purely on an energy basis?

And the milk bottle: okay, it takes 10 trips to be better; ChatGPT says various sources say a typical bottle lasts 10-30 trips. So it's better. What even is the argument here?

The first two steps are reduce and reuse, after all. Recycle is last.

recursivecaveat•about 6 hours ago

I was just about to write the same comment about cotton grocery bags. I have been using mine every week for a decade, and they were second-hand, so they're even older than that. I think most people underestimate the durability of even cheap consumer products as long as you treat them with respect and tolerate a little cosmetic wear. Fast fashion is supposed to literally fall apart after less than 10 wears, which is completely outside my lived experience, even as someone who used to shop at such outlets and has received many a cheap swag t-shirt.

throw567643u8•about 10 hours ago

US centric viewpoints. The UK is running out of space for landfills. Burning it is best for all.

molvqingtai•about 4 hours ago

In fact, there is no longer enough waste in China to burn, so they have even started digging up previously buried waste to generate electricity.

quantified•about 14 hours ago

Do note this is a Koch Bros pro-fossil publication. It'll call out some externalities but not others.

littlexsparkee•about 8 hours ago

Do you have a source for that? I wasn't able to verify it

ikr678•about 7 hours ago

about page - senior editor is a board member of Mercatus Group which is Koch funded

blinded•about 14 hours ago

Dropped some stuff off at a landfill a few weeks ago. Place was a mess, made me feel like a dirty human.

bediger4000•about 14 hours ago

I did the same in June. The single most foul place I've ever been. I didn't see 20 decaying rhino carcasses, but I certainly smelled them.

alphawhisky•about 13 hours ago

Now imagine all that garbage strewn across three counties indiscriminately. Landfills, as the subject matter expert pointed out to you in the article, are just about the safest way to manage the dumpster fire that is manmade solid waste. Wastewater treatment plants smell bad and are usually in some state of disrepair also, but that doesn't mean dumping your shit in the lake is better. If you truly believe in improving how we manage waste, ask your politicians to expand the budget for it and let the experts decide what is correct.

blinded•about 9 hours ago

I wasn't disagreeing with the article, simply saying that it still didn't make me feel good.

Just Bury Your Trash

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion (11 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews