<story><title>Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/recycling-rethink-what-to-do-with-trash-now-china-wont-take-it-11576776536</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_Microft</author><text>Milk in returnable bottles exists here. The bottles usually look like this:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;contentpool.wirtschaftsverlag.at&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;spar_natur_pur_bergbauern_bio-milch_jetzt_in_der_mehrweg-glasflasche.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;contentpool.wirtschaftsverlag.at&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;image...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;From the look it is a half-liter bottle (we usually buy cream like this), there are 1 liter bottles for milk that look almost the same.</text></item><item><author>javajosh</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;In fairness, Germany is a developed country with extremely good reuse programs. Glass beer bottles are often totally reused. You can, if you want, avoid plastics entirely and just buy drinks glass containers. The local supermarkets all have return bins; all restaurants will take them, although they won&amp;#x27;t give you your deposit - which seems like a very fair deal to me.&lt;p&gt;The one odd exception is milk. A classic example of American container reuse, but I don&amp;#x27;t see any milk sold in glass in Germany.</text></item><item><author>grecy</author><text>It always staggers me that people in many developed countries are so proud they recycle.&lt;p&gt;Recycling is the &lt;i&gt;worst&lt;/i&gt; good thing we should be doing.&lt;p&gt;Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In that order.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been to many, many developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well.</text></item><item><author>ethbro</author><text>Personally, I&amp;#x27;m happy that personal recycling hit a bump when China rejected dirty channels.&lt;p&gt;It was marketed in the 80s-00s as more of a panacea than it is, and specifically seems to have inculcated a dangerously willful ignorance of further action. I.e. &amp;quot;I already do the recycling thing, so I do my part.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;From why I can tell, the toxicity, micro-plastic, and energy concerns are the primary mass-scale benefits? In that order?&lt;p&gt;The majority of which could be reaped at scale by funding toxic material collection programs, mandating less toxic material choices, and re-instituting a bottle tax+.&lt;p&gt;In return, we&amp;#x27;ve let major, industrial-scale environmental catastrophes go unmitigated, because out of sight, out of mind.&lt;p&gt;From my reading, the 1970s push for recycling was always predicated as a &lt;i&gt;vanguard&lt;/i&gt; movement, intended to educate the populace at large about environmental issues.&lt;p&gt;The expectation was that we would then pivot to tackle more difficult problems.&lt;p&gt;Instead, we have 50 years of patting ourselves on the back for hauling cardboard out to our suburban recycling containers.&lt;p&gt;+ Looking at you, Coke and Pepsi, for fighting bottle taxes around the world.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mxfihdsgyxegaas</author><text>These bottles are sold at Spar, Aldi (Hofer) and many others.&lt;p&gt;However they don&amp;#x27;t have Pfand and are not reused at the moment [1]. At least not comercially. They make great containers for sugar or flour. According to the source they will start the reusing &amp;quot;beginning 2020&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.spar.at&amp;#x2F;nachhaltigkeit&amp;#x2F;produkte&amp;#x2F;verpackungen&amp;#x2F;mehrweg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.spar.at&amp;#x2F;nachhaltigkeit&amp;#x2F;produkte&amp;#x2F;verpackungen&amp;#x2F;meh...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/recycling-rethink-what-to-do-with-trash-now-china-wont-take-it-11576776536</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_Microft</author><text>Milk in returnable bottles exists here. The bottles usually look like this:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;contentpool.wirtschaftsverlag.at&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;spar_natur_pur_bergbauern_bio-milch_jetzt_in_der_mehrweg-glasflasche.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;contentpool.wirtschaftsverlag.at&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;image...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;From the look it is a half-liter bottle (we usually buy cream like this), there are 1 liter bottles for milk that look almost the same.</text></item><item><author>javajosh</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;In fairness, Germany is a developed country with extremely good reuse programs. Glass beer bottles are often totally reused. You can, if you want, avoid plastics entirely and just buy drinks glass containers. The local supermarkets all have return bins; all restaurants will take them, although they won&amp;#x27;t give you your deposit - which seems like a very fair deal to me.&lt;p&gt;The one odd exception is milk. A classic example of American container reuse, but I don&amp;#x27;t see any milk sold in glass in Germany.</text></item><item><author>grecy</author><text>It always staggers me that people in many developed countries are so proud they recycle.&lt;p&gt;Recycling is the &lt;i&gt;worst&lt;/i&gt; good thing we should be doing.&lt;p&gt;Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In that order.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been to many, many developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well.</text></item><item><author>ethbro</author><text>Personally, I&amp;#x27;m happy that personal recycling hit a bump when China rejected dirty channels.&lt;p&gt;It was marketed in the 80s-00s as more of a panacea than it is, and specifically seems to have inculcated a dangerously willful ignorance of further action. I.e. &amp;quot;I already do the recycling thing, so I do my part.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;From why I can tell, the toxicity, micro-plastic, and energy concerns are the primary mass-scale benefits? In that order?&lt;p&gt;The majority of which could be reaped at scale by funding toxic material collection programs, mandating less toxic material choices, and re-instituting a bottle tax+.&lt;p&gt;In return, we&amp;#x27;ve let major, industrial-scale environmental catastrophes go unmitigated, because out of sight, out of mind.&lt;p&gt;From my reading, the 1970s push for recycling was always predicated as a &lt;i&gt;vanguard&lt;/i&gt; movement, intended to educate the populace at large about environmental issues.&lt;p&gt;The expectation was that we would then pivot to tackle more difficult problems.&lt;p&gt;Instead, we have 50 years of patting ourselves on the back for hauling cardboard out to our suburban recycling containers.&lt;p&gt;+ Looking at you, Coke and Pepsi, for fighting bottle taxes around the world.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>javajosh</author><text>Hmm. They don&amp;#x27;t sell that at Lidl - and are you sure the containers are reused? I don&amp;#x27;t see the tell-tale scuff ring.</text></comment>