Hacker News Reader

Comment by snovv_crash | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't need to be cheaper than virgin PET, it just needs to be cheaper than virgin PET plus the cost of landfill/"recycling". With more countries now refusing to be dumping grounds the cost of getting rid of old bottles stands to rise considerably.

View on HN

...to the extent that such cost of landfill/recycling is internalized to the producer.

> ...to the extent that such cost of landfill/recycling is internalized to the producer.

It's enough for the costs to be internalized by consumers.

Do you expect a consumer's garbage bill to affect how many and what type of plastic bottles they buy?

> Do you expect a consumer's garbage bill to affect how many and what type of plastic bottles they buy?

Broadly speaking, I think people prefer to spend less money on equivalent goods. So, yes. I do.

I think the effect will probably be less strong than if the entire cost were concentrated at the point of purchase.

I don't mean in the "economics spherical cow" sense, but in the real world.

My garbage company here in Boulder(Western Disposal) determines your fees based on the bin size you have: bigger recycling or trash bins cost more than cheaper ones on an ongoing basis. Compost is free always though.

But really though, there have been weeks where we filled up our bin with lacroixs and beers and I stopped buying canned beverages because of that(for the next 7 days)

That's interesting. Here in Seattle, recycling is free but compost costs money.

They'd have to eat the cost of the more expensive plastic BEFORE their bills would go down, which means it is a decision most consumers will never know to make.

Recycling collection companies will pay them to take the old PET off their hands.

You may be overestimating the cost of landfills.

Landfill costs (understandably) vary between countries. Got a lot of empty space? Cheap. Crowded? Not cheap at all.

Even in crowded countries, landfill land area is still a tiny percentage.

Its more environmental laws and how strict regulations are about seepage.

Unsorted waste cost is often regulated to be higher than what the immediate costs are. And landfills are banned in a lot of places so the unsorted waste has to be resorted and the uncrecycleable parts incinerated[1].

[1] eg see third column of table 3.1 at https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/waste-management/muni...

Some European countries have essentially banned landfills; waste must be either exported (expensive, increasingly difficult), recycled (expensive) or burned (expensive, controversial).

The US is doing more stateside recycling these days, and from this article it sounds like recycling bottles is actually a profitable business.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/what-...

That was written in 2015.

It is no longer the case https://www.npr.org/2019/08/20/750864036/u-s-recycling-indus...

It needs to be cheaper than cost of ‘virgin PET’ including the taxes levied on the material itself, technically. I haven’t done the math to incorporate the tax duties of the hydrocarbons used to form non-recycled PET but I assume currently most countries levy no tax whatsoever on PET itself, regardless of source?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com