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Comment by EC1 | Hacker News Reader

I hate that any increase in efficiency or doing good is cast aside as hipsterism, being different for the sake of being different. Why is it 'hipster', not environmental?

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" and employees sign up to deliver our compost by bike to a local farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn"

1. Bike is not an efficient mechanism for delivering compost (in fact, it's probably the least efficient mechanism)

2. Why does it matter that they took it to a local farm and not "the local compost heap"?

IE they specifically mention both in an attempt to make it seem like that's better than "i drove compost to the dump and dropped it at the county compost pile".

That's hipster.

I don't think Kings County/Brooklyn has a municipal compost pile. Nor any active dumps in the city limits.

Also I would guess the "local farm" bit is showing that they are supporting tiny/small businesses which is exactly their target market for sellers.

1. Brooklyn has compost bins at most residences, and elsewhere (or at least it was a pilot program, i haven't visited in a year)

2. There are just amazing number of places to compost in brooklyn.

The local farm bit is just there to make them feel better about themselves. That is, again, hipster.

A non-hipster would just be doing it, without making it seem like it's amazing and that they are doing it in some beautiful unique snowflake way.

I live in Brooklyn and do not have a compost bin at my apartment, do not know anybody with one, and don't know of a single place to bring compost in the borough.

That being said, for the latter point, I haven't tried very hard to find one.

NYC has a pilot program

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/city-pilot-comp...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/nyregion/composting-in-new...

etc It's been expanding gradually.

As for not knowing a single place, seriously, you aren't looking very hard, since "compost pile brooklyn" shows about 50 easy places

Farmer's markets have them.

You're not getting the point.

To me, when I read this words, it paints a very nice picture. I picture someone volunteering to take out waste, use zero emission transportation, and then help out a local farmer. I like that, a lot.

No, you aren't getting the point.

The question what "how is this hipster and not environmentalist" I am explaining how this is more hipster than environmentalist

What does that have to do with whether you like it?

Because to be truly hipster, you have to be doing it before people like it. ;-)

IPO'ing is so mainstream.

Hipsters are just the "long hairs" of our time. Those who use the term in a derogatory way will be sarcastically mocked by future generations for the rest of their lives. It happens any time there's a cultural leap that allows those left behind to externalize their self-consciousness.

Also "Red Hook" is hipster since it's on the frontier of gentrification.

"the least efficient mechanism"

I would say the opposite with respect to oil consumption which I think is what is generally considered in such a case. What did you have in mind?

So you believe that it is more energy efficient for a ton of compost to be moved by humans than by a single truck making one trip? What about all of the oil it takes to generate the food to feed the humans who move the compost? I don't have time to do the math at the moment but I hope someone else does. That sounds dubious at best.

How much extra food does it take? It's not that strenuous to use a bike, just takes time. Also, if the compost is used to grow food, it doesn't take much oil to feed the biker!

It's employees biking for fun and exercise (and good). Sheesh.

I apologize if you thought I was being rude, if it's all for fun and exercise that's cool. If it's more hipsterism then not so much.

"sandwich artisan"

--Subway

Biking in Brooklyn is far more efficient than driving.

Doing this sort of thing at scale would only be efficient if you were using slave labor or something close to it.

If Etsy lets their employees take a bike-break for a good cause, fine. But I feel much better about giving my compost to a unionized garbageman with a big truck than some hypothetical coolie on a bike.

> Doing this sort of thing at scale would only be efficient if you were using slave labor or something close to it.

Interns?

As long as they aren't engineering interns, my sister cleared 30K in a summer in SV during her internship. I was floored because I felt lucky to even get an internship 10 years ago.

Hipster - a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream.

They could have just put it in the compost or recycling bin like the rest us.

I'm a huge environmentalist, but stuff like that is just hipsterism. The actual environmental impact is negligible. One company's illegal dumping wipes out the effort of all the hipsters in Brooklyn.

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