[PakG1]

It's not necessarily a pain for the users. It's a cultural thing. If you can change the culture, it's easy to do it with humans at the source. I'm in South Korea now and they sort all the garbage before even throwing it out. Different bins for different types of plastic, styrofoam, tetra pak containers, cardboard, glass, organic waste, etc. My brother-in-law, his kids, and I will take the garbage down and put it all into the right bin. No complaining, everyone thinks it's the proper thing to do. Makes it super easy to process each type of garbage correctly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_in_South_Korea

South Korea didn't do it this way in the beginning. When I was in China a couple of years ago, they were just starting to process their garbage this way, though it'll take a while for them to really do it well. The interesting question is why it's so hard to get the west to handle things this way. I don't know Europe, they might be better, but I know North America, and wow, the people in North America really don't care about this kind of stuff in general.

[IshKebab]

Of course it's a pain. Just because they're used to it doesn't mean they like it. Having that many different bins is obviously inconvenient.

[PakG1]

Again, I'm not sure of that. They feel that it's the proper thing to do, so I'm not sure they view it as painful. I hate to say it, but it feels like a disparity of maturity. Some kids do their chores because they're responsible kids, take their responsibilities seriously, are proud of being responsible, and view kids who aren't similarly responsible as immature. Other kids hate their chores and do their chores in spite of their hate. Both kids are facing obligations, but their emotional reactions are different.

[IshKebab]

It's nothing to do with maturity, don't be patronising. They feel that it's the proper thing to do because it is the proper thing to do if you don't have good centralised sorting.

If you do then centralised sorting is clearly better all round. It's less work for people, collection is simplified and more efficient, you don't have issues with people missorting, you can sort into more categories, etc. etc.

[PakG1]

So nobody in the world has good centralised sorting. That's our reality. So what does that imply then as to people not wanting to deal with the pain of presorting? You say that it's the proper thing to do in that reality. I'm welcome to using a word other than maturity to describe the phenomenon if you can suggest one. I'm not married to that word.

[IshKebab]

> So nobody in the world has good centralised sorting. That's our reality.

Yes. That's what people are trying to solve.

But that's irrelevant. Your original comment was claiming that manual sorting isn't a pain because it's the proper thing to do. That's just nonsense. It's the proper thing to do (for now) but it's also a pain.

Would you have said washing clothes wasn't a pain in the 1800s? It's basically the same thing. Something annoying that you have to do because the technology to do it automatically hasn't been invented yet.

[PakG1]

I think this is overly getting into semantics now. But if we must, when I was a child, cleaning the floor was a pain. As an adult, not cleaning the floor creates the pain, having a clean floor is great, and the act of cleaning itself is just a natural thing to do, just as breathing and sleeping is. Natural acts aren't painful. I think a border gets crossed for those who can make something natural. For people just getting started exercising, exercise is painful. For people who exercise regularly, exercise is enjoyable. In fact, I recall one Olympian Simon Whitfield saying that his body would experience pain if he didn't exercise.

Perhaps different people also have different thresholds for pain. I'm not sure people in the 1800s would have thought, "Gee, washing these clothes is such a pain, I wish something could be invented to do it for me." I think they rather would have thought this is just a natural part of life. Perhaps the super rich who could afford servants could have the luxury to afford such thoughts. I'm betting many people in the 1800s wouldn't have even been in that headspace.

Again, you said that presorting is the proper thing to do in a reality without centralized sorting. At this moment, I can't really think of anything that I'd consider both "proper" and "painful" if I have managed to seriously make my mindset consider that thing to be "proper". Before making the switch, I would consider it "painful", yes. Looking at the before and after, I can only see maturity being the dimension that really changed. Maybe commitment is another word that could be used too. But if I really think about it, I think commitment would be so heavily moderated by maturity to the point where it might as well override commitment in terms of effect. Again, I'm open to alternative words if any can be suggested.