# If you were made King, how would you eliminate needless trash and protect our planet? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2014, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037 "2014-10-30T18:04:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/21 "2014-10-31T17:52:13Z")
I would give it a low priority because I am pretty waste is not in the top X environmental concerns e.g. clean energy. Also, King of where? The US, where I live? The greatest environmental atrocities would be uncontrollable by me unless I invaded China. 1. I could kill antitheft shells, but it wouldn’t be for environmental reasons! Same as #3, it’s disadvantages outweigh anything else for the consumer. 2. Do you have a WinCo nearby? They have hoppers that you fill bags with of whatever you want. Cereal, grain, gummi bears. No need to involve an employee though. You just stick a tag on it and it’s sold by weight. I’m with you until the need to cart around containers everywhere. Are you screwed if you didn’t bring enough and X is on sale? Make “plastic” with corn or rice if you’re concerned. That slogan: reduce reuse recycle is in descending order of how important they are. Better to not buy wasteful crap then you don’t need to recycle. Alumin(i)um is one of the best things to recycle. It is valuable and relatively light. Most forms of plastic I think are still loss leaders. Similar to the containers idea, I am unwilling to buy reusable bags/bacteria traps to shop with. So I take the plastic, but I still reuse them as dog poop bags. 3. I predict you’d be king for about 1 year before Apple instigates a coup. :dubious: Your corpse would be encased in carbonite for Robo Steve Jobs to look at every day. > [@Quartz](#): > > Cite? > > I remember reading somewhere that America could handily cope with all its rubbish in a very small percentage of the land area. That theme was big in the 80s but I understand that was overstated at best. Land is not the issue. Hell I grew up near reclaimed landfill. Contamination is the biggest issue here. It’s fine as long as you don’t build shoddy and go Superfund. ---
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/22 "2014-10-31T17:55:14Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > These are terrible ideas. Says you. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/23 "2014-10-31T18:14:54Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The useless cardboard box goes in the trash and yes I feel guilty. You would mandate bulk (AKA bug filled) food sales, but won’t recycle a cardboard box??? The King is nekkid! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/24 "2014-10-31T18:24:03Z")
> [@bump](#): > > 45% aluminum oxide… how much actual aluminum is in that 45%? Aluminum oxide is 40% aluminum atoms and 60% oxygen atoms. However, the aluminum in something like aluminum cans contains only a thin film of aluminum oxide, most of it is pure aluminum. It’s quite difficult to separate aluminum from its ore, but relatively low in energy cost to recycle already purified aluminum. Hence, aluminum recycling is cost-effective and aluminum one of the most recycle elements we use. > [@PastTense](#): > > And if you fill up a landfill all you need to do is cover it with a lining and then dirt and you can use that land for parks, cropland, etc. Not crops. There are issues regarding contamination of plant life above landfills. Most of them may have been solved, but really, you’re better off planing ornamentals, building something, or using it as a parkland. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > I’d make cremation mandatory. Also I’d dig up all the bodies in the cemeteries and burn them, using the land for something else. Cremation uses up a lot of energy. There’s supposedly a technique that reduces a body to a sort of liquid goo suitable to use immediately as fertilizer which is much more environmentally friendly. Unless the body has been embalmed with thing like formaldehyde. We might be better off leaving the dead lie where they are and changing practices going forward. Anyhow, if I were Supreme and Almighty Dictator… 1. Do more to encourage recycling wherever possible, from home composting/mulching to community centers accepting all manner of recyclables, finding ways to separate trash economically, and so forth. 2. Encourage gardening. There’s a lot to be said for backyard/porch/whatever gardening, community gardens, and so forth. 3. Encourage use of reusable bags and shipping, from reusable shopping bags for the consumer to reusable items for industry. I would not totally eliminate plastic and on-site bags as they have a role in the world I just want to minimize their use. 4. Come up with science-based rules for maintaining world fisheries and enforce them. Harshly if necessary. If that means certain seafood will be rare and extremely expensive for a generation or two while stocks recover too bad. 5. Mandatory world-wide education of all children, including girls, and screw any “tradition” that says otherwise. Aside from improving the status of women, long-term this will also help the overpopulation problem, along with 6. Freely and widely available “family planning” items, from education to contraception of all sorts. Poor people should have the same control over their fertility as the wealthy. 7. Reform of logging, cattle-ranching, and other such pursuits that are either heavily subsidized or where laws are routinely flouted these days. 8. Encourage off-grid forms of energy production and energy conservation. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/25 "2014-10-31T19:32:26Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > You would mandate bulk (AKA bug filled) food sales, but won’t recycle a cardboard box??? The King is nekkid! 😛 The bugs are perfectly harmless. I doubt if there is any insect anywhere in the world that breeds in stored food products that is a vector of any human disease, and that goes for their eggs and feces. Americans will pay twice as much for food and fill the landfills with packaging, to avoid a couple of weevils. Back to the topic, we could mandate re-usable packaging. My mother used to buy jams and jellies in drinking glasses sealed with snap on lids. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/26 "2014-10-31T20:36:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The containers I suggested hold a standard box of cereal. I own three because I buy three brands of cereal. I buy for example Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. I open the box and dump it into the container. Stays fresh and bug free for the few weeks it takes for me to eat it. We use them at home and camping. The useless cardboard box goes in the trash and yes I feel guilty. It’s a shame that I have to lug home a box and create trash just for cereal. > > Mercantile Stores sold from bulk barrels for several centuries. They’ve even found these serving barrels at the food stalls in Pompeii. Wasteful cardboard boxes are a modern day curse. > > I have found a place that sells the kindle battery. They include a plastic tool to pry open the case. Theres a 50-50 chance of the case breaking so it won’t ever snap back together. kindles are sealed and aren’t intended to be opened. But, soon I’ll have no choice but to try. My kindle isn’t holding a charge for very long anymore. As kanicbird noted above, you’re basically wanting to change millions of people’s lives to atone for your guilt/marginally reduce consumption of cardboard. Just because it was done in the past doesn’t mean it’s a good idea now. Again, not everyone is like you, and extrapolating your personal preferences out to the general population is not a good idea. The market has decided that non-replaceable batteries are preferable in general, but products are certainly produced with replaceable batteries; see the Galaxy S series of phones for a prime example. It’s not the government’s responsibility to tailor all products to suit your personal preferences. > [@babygoat666](#): > > Says you. I gave reasons to support my assertion. You disagree? Tell me why. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/27 "2014-10-31T21:05:03Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The bugs are perfectly harmless. I doubt if there is any insect anywhere in the world that breeds in stored food products that is a vector of any human disease, and that goes for their eggs and feces. Americans will pay twice as much for food and fill the landfills with packaging, to avoid a couple of weevils. Didja not catch the smiley? I hate using the things, but I do it occasionally to head off whooshes. Didn’t work this time… ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/28 "2014-11-01T01:00:40Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > . Besides, most consumers don’t care for repairing stuff and just throw it out when it breaks. Sure, but they start thinking twice about that when the item price passes a certain amount. With smartphones the carrier subsidies have helped hide true cost but as more carriers unbundle the amortization on the hardware, people may start changing their tune. Also it is extremely understandable that people may say to themselves, all I want to do with this thing is listen to music or read books, not download apps or produce dance mixes or edit pictures or network so if the actual working guts of the device still function just fine for the purpose I bought it, why must I upgrade instead of simply replacing a battery? > [@](#): > > And as for the shot at “planned obsolescence?” Usually by the time the battery breaks down, newer products have rolled out and are worth the price of upgrades. Yes, current batteries don’t normally(_) start failing so much, so soon. Now, sure, someone’s particular device may have inferior charge life to begin with and new OS upgrades may drain it even more, but the power cell itself works. (_ If it really fails badly before its time, it may get a recall note as Apple just did a few months ago.) Nonetheless, replaceable battery or not (and I DO like replaceables but it’s not a deal-breaker) IMO the biggest, easiest thing the average consumer can do to curtail e-waste is to internalize that **it is NOT mandatory to upgrade on the Comms/Tech companies’ schedule**. The iPod hooked to my car stereo and the iPhone in my pocket are respectively almost 6.5 and over 4.5 years old, and still work adequately. So, neither the OEM battery _nor any part_ of either piece of gear has yet entered the waste stream. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/29 "2014-11-01T01:08:06Z")
I’d outlaw bottled water (in less than one gallon or larger containers) in areas with dependable public water supplies. I still remember when “trying to sell bottled water” was on the level of “trying to sell snow to Eskimos”. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/30 "2014-11-01T01:23:22Z")
I would start with a $5 deposit on every battery: take your old batteries in to the store and you can buy replacements at shelf-price, but toss them and it will cost you. Batteries (especially disposables) are very nasty things to have in a landfill. Then, just require retailers/manufacturers to accept all the empty packaging they sell stuff in – when they have to take on the cost of handling their useless waste, they will cut way down on it. Part of the point of reducing waste is our “energy needs”. The less stuff goes into the landfill but rather gets reused, the lower our overall energy needs will be. And making most stuff modular and highly standardized will help: if that critical tab breaks off, you should be able to easily get a replacement part for a buck instead of having to spend $250 on a whole new thing. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/31 "2014-11-01T01:36:05Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > The best solution for me is [incineration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration) and energy production. Recycling, according to the same video, is a waste of time and money. It costs more to recycle than it does to produce new items. Not for metals it isn’t. Almost any kind of metal is far cheaper to recycle than it is to produce from ore. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/32 "2014-11-01T01:40:48Z")
Blow up California. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/33 "2014-11-01T01:49:45Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Cite? > > I remember reading somewhere that America could handily cope with all its rubbish in a very small percentage of the land area. you could dump it in the Grand Canyon and it would take a long time to fill up. people would object though because of the high transport costs. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/34 "2014-11-01T01:54:02Z")
If you were really serious about protecting the environment, you’d be encouraging people to landfill as much as possible. Landfills are carbon sinks: Any paper, or cardboard, or plastic, that ends up in a landfill is material that’s not going to end up turning into carbon dioxide. For plant-derived materials like paper, it’s even better: They’re made from fast-growing plants that are replaced as soon as they’re harvested, thus actually pulling carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/35 "2014-11-01T07:17:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If you were really serious about protecting the environment, you’d be encouraging people to landfill as much as possible. Landfills are carbon sinks: Any paper, or cardboard, or plastic, that ends up in a landfill is material that’s not going to end up turning into carbon dioxide. For plant-derived materials like paper, it’s even better: They’re made from fast-growing plants that are replaced as soon as they’re harvested, thus actually pulling carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere. No, that is soeciousness. Encouraging using landfills vs. recycling/reuse means encouraging raw material consumption, which means carbon release due to the extra energy consumption involved in raw material refinement. Reducing waste at the production end reduces carbon output by burning less fuel to power production. And it does take less energy to recycle most products (except most plastics) than making the stuff from scratch. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037/36 "2014-11-01T10:10:30Z")
King of where? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-made-king-how-would-you-eliminate-needless-trash-and-protect-our-planet/703037.md?page=1)