[hn_throwaway_99]

Your story highlights a common issue with recycling: so much of it is virtue signalling bullshit. I get to feel good about separating my trash (and somehow like my consumerism wasn't a net negative anyway), but it still goes all to the same dump.

Of course not all recycling is BS as this article shows. But we should change the automatic narrative of "recycling=good, landfill=bad" because it encourages practices that are wasteful both for the economy and environment.

[Reedx]

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Wish-cycling is a thing, and it's very wasteful. People consume more when they think it'll be recycled. Then it goes in the wrong bin, often shipped to a recycling center where it takes up resources to get sorted out. Ultimately just taking a longer path to landfill.

[ZeroGravitas]

The term "wish-cycling" is part of an attempt to put the blame on consumers.

As an alternative, charge corporations exactly what it costs to recycle anything found in the waste stream. Which puts the responsibility on someone who can actually change things to reduce this cost. The only way to avoid this charge entirely is to add a "This is not recyclable" logo that is big enough that no-one will miss it.

Only then can we can blame consumers that continue to buy those items, but not before.

[dd36]

Producer responsibility would solve a lot of problems.

[bhahn]

I don’t think this is virtue signaling at all. Virtue signaling implies, to me at least, a person that is trying to make himself/herself look better to others. In almost all cases that I see in Los Angeles and other large US cities, people just recycle because it’s in front of them (eg. city provides a recycling bin to all houses), and have no other specific intentions.

I do agree though that recycling does help feed the *vicious cycle of consumption by hiding or misrepresenting the negative externalities.

(Edited to fix virtuous typo. Meant vicious)

[buran77]

> people just recycle because it’s in front of them

People skip the reduce&reuse and go straight to recycle because it allows them to signal that virtue without actually doing all that much after all. It is still better than nothing but it's more signal than virtue. It's quite possibly the least anyone can do in terms of effort, throw the copious amounts of trash in 2-3 bins instead of one.

It's the same with EVs. Where the focus should be to reduce the use of cars (with many, many benefits that come as side effects), we actually encourage people to drive more by moving the costs upfront in the purchase price and making driving even cheaper. This means people will have to get their money's worth by driving more. It also allows people to have a massive carbon footprint while still virtue signaling via the fact that they drive an EV, or recycle the battery.

I don't have to look any further than my closest neighbor who buys a new SUV every 2 years, the latest being a Model X. Just a couple of months ago in casual conversation he pointed out the fact that I own a (admittedly old, decade+) gasoline car, even if with a tiny engine. It would be much cleaner to buy an EV he says. No consideration to the fact that recently I drive my car under 2000Km per year and ride a bicycle or public transport as much as I reasonably can.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I have seen multiple occurrences of someone in a home (a guest in mine, for one) or office generate some garbage and ask where the recycling is, and when the response (e.g. in my house) is "oh, we just recycle cans" or "sorry, we don't have a recycling bin", the response has been somewhere between "Are you planning on serving baby seal for lunch?" and "Are you skipping lunch and going straight to the Klan rally?"

I used to get into an argument about how recycling really only makes much sense when it's energetically cheaper (e.g. aluminum), but I was usually just wasting my breath so now my normal response is that baby seal is just the appetizer.

[lukifer]

> Virtue signaling implies, to me at least, a person that is trying to make himself/herself look better to others.

Is there a term for virtue signaling to one's self?

[sukilot]

Vicious cycle of consumption.

[_jal]

Weird to call this virtue signalling when it is something closer to municipal fraud. Many (most/all?) places have different pricing for waste vs 'recycling'.

Or maybe not; it just demonstrates 'virtue signalling' has about as much semantic payload as 'fake news' at this point. One consequence of internet-driven constant political engagement is that neologisms devolve into shibboleths really quickly.

[dmd]

For 4+ years when I lived in a Philadelphia suburb, we were required to separate recycling from trash, and further into 3 different categories... and then the truck would come and right in front of us dump the trash and all recycling into the same truck all together.

[stevep98]

The truck that collects my garbage has two sections. The driver selects which section the bin will dump into. It’s difficult to see from the curb what’s going on. Are you sure this wasn’t the case for you?

[dmd]

Yes, very sure. Even talked to them about it once- they said there were plans to have recycling facilities later but currently (in 2008) it all just went the same place.

[sukilot]

Required how?

[dmd]

Town ordinance, unless I misunderstand your question.

[jbay808]

Who is signalling virtue, and who are they signalling to?

When I take batteries to the recycling center, that's not something that my friends typically hear about.

[dd36]

OP is virtue signaling the virtue signaling police.

[agumonkey]

I wonder if micro recycling wouldn't help. At least for paper you could probably grind, mash things into smaller denser fiber blocks. This would avoid a lot of useless transportation since most of the bins are empty (or full of cardboard boxes taking up volume).