Food Delivery Apps Are Drowning China In Plastic (nytimes.com) 76
"The astronomical growth of food delivery apps in China is flooding the country with takeout containers, utensils and bags," writes Raymond Zhong and Carolyn Zhang for The New York Times. "And the country's patchy recycling system isn't keeping up. The vast majority of this plastic ends up discarded, buried or burned with the rest of the trash, researchers and recyclers say." From the report: Scientists estimate that the online takeout business in China was responsible for 1.6 million tons of packaging waste in 2017, a ninefold jump from two years before. That includes 1.2 million tons of plastic containers, 175,000 tons of disposable chopsticks, 164,000 tons of plastic bags and 44,000 tons of plastic spoons. Put together, it is more than the amount of residential and commercial trash of all kinds disposed of each year by the city of Philadelphia. The total for 2018 grew to an estimated two million tons.
Recyclers manage to return some of China's plastic trash into usable form to feed the nation's factories. The country recycles around a quarter of its plastic, government statistics show, compared with less than 10 percent in the United States. But in China, takeout boxes do not end up recycled, by and large. They must be washed first. They weigh so little that scavengers must gather a huge number to amass enough to sell to recyclers. "Half a day's work for just a few pennies. It isn't worth it," said Ren Yong, 40, a garbage collector at a downtown Shanghai office building. He said he threw takeout containers out. Many people in urban China are using the delivery apps because "delivery is so cheap, and the apps offer such generous discounts, that it is now possible to believe that ordering a single cup of coffee for delivery is a sane, reasonable thing to do," the report adds.
Recyclers manage to return some of China's plastic trash into usable form to feed the nation's factories. The country recycles around a quarter of its plastic, government statistics show, compared with less than 10 percent in the United States. But in China, takeout boxes do not end up recycled, by and large. They must be washed first. They weigh so little that scavengers must gather a huge number to amass enough to sell to recyclers. "Half a day's work for just a few pennies. It isn't worth it," said Ren Yong, 40, a garbage collector at a downtown Shanghai office building. He said he threw takeout containers out. Many people in urban China are using the delivery apps because "delivery is so cheap, and the apps offer such generous discounts, that it is now possible to believe that ordering a single cup of coffee for delivery is a sane, reasonable thing to do," the report adds.
chinese food delivery apps (Score:1, Funny)
are drowning /. in dupes.
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Yes they are.
Dupe (Score:3)
Ah shit, here we go again.
Re: Dupe (Score:2)
No he didn't. Let it go. He won't be getting impeached before the election.
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NOT A DUPE! The problem is so severe, they're now drowning in twice as much plastic within just a week!
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I wonder if it is really just the overzealous nature Slashdot has taken on, in recent years, with regards to the environment/climate. Not that is has no place here, but rather it is curious that a site that claims to be "news for nerds on stuff that matters" has two results this year for "ham" (as in radio). Yet a search for "climate" returns in an entire page of results from this month alone. I assure you that there has been plenty of ham radio news in the same time, and qrznow can back me up on this one.
N
Re: Dupe (Score:1)
"All they are is dust in the wind" (referring to rock band Kansas)
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Slashdot is doing the environment friendly thing, and is recycling stories.
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"Food Delivery Apps Are Drowning China In Plastic" Are Drowning Slashdot In Duplicate Articles
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It's just like the good old days. The days when Commander Taco was still around, every joke began and ended with Cowboy Neal. Before the dark times, before the holding companies.
WTF NYT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF NYT (Score:5, Insightful)
They are comparing plastic packaging thrown away IN A YEAR by 3.56 billion people in ALL OF CHINA to the total trash produced in Philadelphia, with population of 1.58 million, in a year. That's 860 times more people. What a meaningless figure, yet they manage to make China's problem sound so much more terrible. Notice they don't mention an apples-to-apples comparison with plastic packaging thrown away (not recycled) in the U.S. The U.S. recycles less than 10% [epa.gov] of plastics and created 34.5 million tons [epa.gov] in 2015, so that's about 31 tons of plastics thrown away, in other words about TWENTY TIMES what all of China, a country with a population four times bigger, creates. But whatever, it's popular at the moment to bash China and rag on them for their environmental issues instead of investigating how fucked up things really are at home.
Since you seem to love statistics, here's a convenient one you gleamed over right in TFS:
"China was responsible for 1.6 million tons of packaging waste in 2017, a ninefold jump from two years before
Unless the US is growing at the same fucking rate, it's not going to matter how bad China is today. They have the capability of growing that damage a hell of a lot faster than we do, for one very obvious reason; population.
And trash is trash. It's stupid to sit here and argue who shit the most in the corner of a room when we ALL have to live in this house. I'm not defending the US recycling practices at all; we ALL have work to do here, and it starts with taxing the FUCK out of every vendor who wants to buy plastic packaging. Make a single cup of coffee costs $10 to order because of the environmental impact, and you'll have whole lot less lazy humans doing that.
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The GP missed the point. Population was the point. At least you get that right. China, India, Malaysia etc have much greater potential to mess things up even if as individuals their "foot prints" are smaller than westerns because there are so many of them. It might not be 'fair' but last I checked the ecosystem does not really put the same value on "fairness" we humans do.
The simple fact is it comes down to impact and density. At current levels of consumptive activity even in the most developing world
Re: WTF NYT (Score:2)
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Always the desire to destroy, the desire to punish. Don't you ever have a moment of realization where you realize you're the villain?
We're all villains here. And as I said before, doesn't matter who shit in the corner of the room. I still have to live in the same house you and every other human does, and the finger pointing excuse is getting old.
Humans are lazy, but they're also obscenely cheap. Make a cup of delivered coffee cost $10 or more, and you'll reduce the excessive demand problem quickly.
Nope, don't give a shit if it's not a popular idea. It's a necessary one. If waste is created by excessive demand, then there's one logic
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OR simply adding a tariff to containers where the material is compromised of less than 50% recycled material, give a tiny tax break to containers whose makeup exceeds 75% recycled material. If economically its cheaper to use recycled material the problem is solved without as much disruption. I mentioned in a previous post that its not a lack of willingness but rather a lack of finding buyers that is inhibiting recycling. My recyclable container is just as large as the solid waste container. Approx 3ftx3ftx4
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They are comparing plastic packaging thrown away IN A YEAR by 3.56 billion people in ALL OF CHINA
When did half of the world's population end up in China?
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apparently, they were born there.
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The biggest problem with recycling is finding buyers. I just got informed last week that my toen will no longer accept PAPER for recycling because they have been unable to find a new buyer. PAPER! Thats probably one of the oldest and simplest recyclable. Its the entire reason why McDonalds switched from styrofoam containers, which doubled as insulators, to paper boxes and wrappers in 1991, subsequently eliminating the only item worthy of competing with the whopper. The McDLT.
The economics of recycling is th
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Not sure I understand that distinction. It doesn't require any will to do whatever is cheapest, and polluting will generally be cheaper than not polluting, since polluting pushes the costs into the future.
However it still seems to me that paper is far better than plastic or styrofoam, even if not recycled, since at least the paper will biodegrade much, much sooner.
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Its the entire reason why McDonalds switched from styrofoam containers, which doubled as insulators, to paper boxes and wrappers in 1991
I'm pretty sure they did that because paper is more environmentally friendly to throw away, not recycle. In general dirty/greasy paper is not recyclable.
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"Returnable" soda bottles are ALREADY a big thing... in third world countries, where the cost of the plastic bottle is a significant part of the cost of the drink. Here in Argentina, Coca Cola is sold in both plastic and glass bottles. Glass is returned to be refilled. In big supermarkets there is a machine that takes your bottle and gives you the ticket so you don't have to pay the deposit. At restaurants, soda is almost always sold in glass bottles. It's just easier for the restaurant to put them in the s
English takeaways (Score:4, Funny)
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If its so cheap (Score:2)
Coffee to go... (Score:2)
I lilve in Italy. We use to drink a cup of espresso at the bar with no waste at all. It costs about 1 Euro.
How much does a coffee from Starbucks cost?
Whoever thinks coffe-to-go is cheap, has money to waste!
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Do Italians go to Starbucks? Yuck!
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Italy has 3 Starbucks. Three. Which is as many as in Monaco and Andorra put together.
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In Argentina we do too. Coffee, I think, also costs about 1 euro if you sit down, but 2-3 if you go to starbucks.
The only problem is that while with Starbucks you always get the same quality, at small stores the quality varies wildly. In Starbucks they get training on how to use the espresso machine and a lot of the work is automated. At local stores I have often been served burned coffee that already smells of burned rubber when the waiter is bringing it to your table, and it's just too hot to drink.
Most s
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An espresso in Starbucks is between 1.5 and 2 euro. However, there you are also getting 1+ hrs. of internet cafe time built into the price. Getting Starbucks to go is a ripoff, getting it as a pseudo-office isn't. For instance, sometimes when I work from home I work from a Starbucks-like shop.
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It's not the free WiFi, it's the ability to sit there for 1+ hours after ordering a $2 drink. I don't know any places that sell coffee for less than Starbucks where you can sit for an hour after ordering and use their wifi.
Not a problem (Score:2)
1. Dump it in landfills
2. Wait 100 years, or 20
3. Cities get paid to let contractors rip them open and sort the stuf with robots
This is not a problem.
Distinquish waste from dumped waste (Score:2)
while the generation of plastic is a problem, the untreated dumping of plastic is a much larger problem. Many places in the west have fairly good garbage colleciton. It's still a problem but the scale of the problem is contained.
In china you have to weigh the amount of plastic generated by how well it is intercepted and treated. I guess we'll find it's a bad ratio but improving a lot better then elsewhere.
. This article says 90% of plastic in the ocean comes from 10 rivers. https://www.weforum.org/agenda... [weforum.org]
I don't get it (Score:2)
"That includes 1.2 million tons of plastic containers, 175,000 tons of disposable chopsticks, 164,000 tons of plastic bags and 44,000 tons of plastic spoons. "
So just switch the plastic containers to paper ones and the bags to Latex ones.
As for the chopsticks, just let people use their own for the meals ordered online, just like in the rest of the world.
That is not as much as it sounds (Score:2)
Or does the OP really want to imply that China (1.4B people) has less trash disposal capability than Philadelphia (1.6M people)?
Alarmist, misleading, dishonest and utterly stupid. These are not the people that protect the environment. These are the people that turn others away from it, as they make it into a deranged religious campaign.
Sure, this trash need to be disposed of and sure, it makes sense to make that as easy as possible on the manufacturing level. But that is it. The world is not drowning in tr
patchy recycling? (Score:1)
Then why are we shipping our recyclables to them?
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China accepts no more trash from outside. See: http://www.globaltimes.cn/cont... [globaltimes.cn]
Damn communist Apps! (Score:2)