The funny thing is, if everyone "virtue signaled" like the "liberal women" do by cleaning plastic and putting it in the right bin, recycling might be somewhat less money-losing by virtue of being better-sorted. But yeah, fuck 'em for "virtue signaling" while they sip their lattes and go to yoga, right? It's better to see the lie and do what they don't want you to do. /s
I get it, plastic can't be recycled profitably and we should be using way less. But one of the reasons its so terrible to recycle is because of how poorly it's sorted.
Did you even read the article? It isn't profitable and it will never be. The only reason why it could go on for as long as it did is because China was subsidizing us with slave labor.
Putting effort into sorting better is throwing good money after bad. Even if you sort perfectly it's still virtue signalling; far better to spend that time on something productive and donate the earnings to something effective.
Probably a couple of seconds. Maybe 5 cents for a typical HN reader. Which is significantly more than recycling that bottle is worth (I'm pretty sure GGP was talking about putting the bottle in the landfill bin rather than the paper bin).
I believe OP is affirming the actual costs of recycling, as discussed in the article. In a world where every consumer perfectly sorts there recyclables, it still doesn't make sense for the producers.
I get it, plastic can't be recycled profitably and we should be using way less. But one of the reasons its so terrible to recycle is because of how poorly it's sorted.