[thethrows]

This whole recycling thing is a joke and really pisses me off.

I used to be big on recycling and composting. When I moved in with my current roommate, he didn't do any of it. He just dumped everything into the closest bin, and dumped the bin in a random colored bin. After many arguments with him, I've come around to his way of thinking.

The calculation he had made was actually a very smart one. He wasn't careless, he was actually being very careful. He calculated that he makes on average $150 an hour. If he wastes about 20 minutes a month or more sorting stuff, he basically is already behind. Even worse, sorting adds so much mental stress that the cost of this actually much higher. Even for my salary range, which is about 1/3rd of my roommates, it is still a waste of time to sort trash.

Here is some dude optimizing his time by not wasting it on recycling and he already has a competitive advantage over me, while here I am struggling to get through some for loops. Why should I regress myself even more?

The system heavily incentivizes not bothering. I wish the world was designed where I could care about the planet, but we as a society have chosen to not reward that.

[mcot2]

Anytime someone makes an argument that they don't want to do something because their time is worth X per hour they are being an asshole. Sorry, you are not better than anyone else because you get paid a handsome sum of money to write code or whatever it is that you do that's so amazing.

I reject the crazy recycling stuff for more practical reasons. I think we can develop computerized systems that do this sorting automatically that are much more efficient and less error prone than humans.

[kondro]

You can not work 24 hours a day.

These arguments are factitious.

If you really could be earning $150/hr from not recycling, pay someone who only makes $7/hr to do it for you.

[seren]

All waking hours are not that fungible, 20 minutes at $150/hour are likely more intense, focused or mentally demanding, than putting trashes in the bin. (Unless your roommate is a garbage collector!)

I used to regret the time I have spent playing, reading, or browsing mindlessly at night, but there is no way that after a full day of demanding work, I would have enough mental energy left to learn a new framework, or foreign language...