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Comment by Timucin | Hacker News Reader

/gif but why?

I understand how this entertains people momentarily but I still don't understand why people are choosing to waste this much in general...

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What are they wasting? Per the article, this is material that was already destined for the trash.

And now a million people get to enjoy it as an enhancement to their evening.

Right, but at the cost of throwing waste on the ground. I’m not arguing that it is harmful (i’d imagine it biodegrades pretty easily) but it seems flippant to me to assume zero impact.

Why do we enjoy fireworks? Party poppers? Potato canons? Streamers? Tinsel on Christmas trees?

It's fun and pretty, and sanitation apparently has no problems cleaning it all up afterwards.

This would come off as meaningful if you didn’t dismiss the environmental impact without even acknowledging its existence. I am not against celebrations like these so long as you can acknowledge their impact.... sanitation workers are not responsible for our actions, regardless of how content they are to clean the visible impacts from the streets.

The explained the reason in the article. In order to transform the Time Square NYE celebration from a violent dangerous drunken brawl complete with hookers and cocaine from the dealers on 'eighth and forty - deuce' they started dropping the confetti to make the experience a lot more fun.

Maybe the police should consider dropping confetti on rioters? Maybe implement in clubs and bars? The solution to world peace: confetti. Who knew. :P

> More than 100 sanitation workers begin their eight-hour shifts. Using street sweepers, backpack blowers, and push brooms, they will remove the 57 tons of material that’s left behind

This is actually disgusting. I think the idea that dropping confetti prevents violence, or that it was responsible for the drop in violence the article attributes to it, seems silly. It sounds like they are just trying to justify the massive expense and waste associated with this reckless behavior.

Of course the owner of the company who gets paid mad money to dump trash on the public is going to tout his works as transformative and important. Does his company also pay for the 100 sanitation workers to clean up his mess? Or do the people foot the bill for both the dumping of the trash and the cleanup?

The targeted tax revenue per square foot of the businesses in that zone that profit from the massive foot traffic of Times Square and a hotel tax per night is used to create a safer experience that is the attraction people come to see pays for that. Hotels can say not to tax the room and stop the Times Square event but they will lose far more revenue, a little extra tax for far more revenue makes a ton of sense. In other words, the people who visit for the experience pay for it by the hotel room and sales tax when they eat at Planet Hollywood.

"Because they can" is the short answer.

As long as there are no direct personal consequences from type of needless waste, a large segment of the population will just keep on doing it. They'll be dead long before the consequences hit, after all.

Edit: However, it should be noted that the confetti is made from waste paper and is biodegradable. I still think it could be put to a better use, but it's not like they're dumping a load of plastic on the streets.

That still leaves 57 tons of trash that isn't recycled, though. What a waste.

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