Political Discussion

RenegadeMonster said:
Why do we make the act of recycling so difficult that even when we attempt to recycling there is a high probability that the material ends up in a landfill anyways.

Whether it's something stupid like other countries are no longer accepting our shipments to recycle since we don't do it here in the United States, thus forcing us to put it all in a land fill.

Or stupid bureaucratic laws.

Just heard a news story about a family owned recycling business in California who has all 8 family members arrested for defrauding the state of California and face years in jail for recycling illegally imported cans from the state of Arizona. Why? The recycling companies don't get paid for the raw material in California, they get paid out of the states rebate fund (bottle deposits). This means recycling plants/business in California can not recycle cans that were sold in a different state. Doing so is illegal.

This family run business has been accused of defrauding the state of California out of $7.6 Million over a 8 month period by recycling cans that came from Arizona. Under California law, it's not legal for them to process / recycle these cans. And if they happen to get cans from other states they need put them in the landfill rather than recycle.
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How does one know where a can came from?
 
Lee Newman said:
How does one know where a can came from?
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For states that have a bottle deposit, the barcode contains information about what state the can was sold in.

When you bring your bottles back to the store or a redemption center, they read the barcode when you place them in the machine that crushes them. If the barcode doesn't say it was sold in said state, the machine will say "not accepted" and reject the can.

Back when I worked in retail, I worked at a store right on the RI border. And RI does not have a bottle deposit. Our machines would correctly reject them, but we would have so many people come in to the customer service desk complaining about our machines not working and demanding their deposits.

We could tell where the can was purchased from the barcode, but more often that not these people would insist they got it at our store and not in RI and demand to speak to the manager / threaten to call corporate if we didn't give them their money. Even though it's illegal for us to refund a deposit they didn't pay, we often had to to avoid a complaint called into corporate. Management was always like enough people don't redeem deposits that we would never refund more deposits than we pay into the state so don't worry about it.
 
I mean not for nothing, the cans all say the same thing. So maybe only having them say there is a deposit due in the states where a refund is given is the answer here?

I’m sure the answer is logistics, but that’s bullshit because the logistics are already in place if the barcode can tell you where it came from/
 
Lee Newman said:
I mean not for nothing, the cans all say the same thing. So maybe only having them say there is a deposit due in the states where a refund is given is the answer here?

I’m sure the answer is logistics, but that’s bullshit because the logistics are already in place if the barcode can tell you where it came from/
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They used to do that. It would say 5¢ in NY, CT etc. 10¢ in MI

When we lived in CT, we'd religiously return all the cans / bottles for the deposit. Moved to NJ almost 30 years ago, where there is no deposit, so all cans / bottles go right into the recycling bin.
 
threesunrises said:
They used to do that. It would say 5¢ in NY, CT etc. 10¢ in MI

When we lived in CT, we'd religiously return all the cans / bottles for the deposit. Moved to NJ almost 30 years ago, where there is no deposit, so all cans / bottles go right into the recycling bin.
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I think @Lee Newman was referring to the fact that no matter what state you buy the can in, most cans all have all states deposits listed on the lid. And he want's to know why it's listed in states that don't have a deposit when the barcode is already customized by state.
 
My guess is the labels and barcode fall under the bottling company to produce and they can control the distribution. They are also printed.

The deposits listed on the lid are part the the die that presses them, and likely a third party supply who likely supplies the same lids to most if not the virtually all of bottlers.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I think @Lee Newman was referring to the fact that no matter what state you buy the can in, most cans all have all states deposits listed on the lid. And he want's to know why it's listed in states that don't have a deposit when the barcode is already customized by state.
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TBH - I haven't even noticed that all the states are listed on the cans / bottles in years. I just looked at a bottle of soda and see them there on the label.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
My guess is the labels and barcode fall under the bottling company to produce and they can control the distribution. They are also printed.

The deposits listed on the lid are part the the die that presses them, and likely a third party supply who likely supplies the same lids to most if not the virtually all of bottlers.
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my counter to this would be they do regional lids and labels all the time. Is the deposit tied to the lid? What about cans? If that is the argument, it is one of the weakest straw man arguments I've ever encountered.
 
The collapse of Yellow is interesting to follow. The are the oldest and one of the largest trucking companies in the United States. All the sudden they are filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy and laying off 30,000+ employees as they close up shop and liquidate.

There are two different narratives explaining the collapse.
  • The Union is to blame
  • The company has had years of mismanagement
The Union to blame is the official explanation given by Yellow in their press release and statement to shareholders. Many conservatives agree with this narrative. Yellow was calling for concessions from the Teamsters. They were looking move away from Pension Funds to more modern 401ks and add some cost sharing to Healthcare plans. And of course salaries were an issue. Yellow is blaming the Teamsters because they refused to come to the bargaining table to discuss concessions when Yellow said they were cash strapped.

The Teamsters and Democrats are saying Yellow is to blame. They have has cash flow issues for years and have not turned a profit in several years. The only reason they still exist today to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy is because Trump funded them with the Covid19 Emergency Relief funds in 2020 to bail them out. Trump claimed they were too big to fail and that if they went out of business it would be a national security issue. Democrats said Yellow should never have received that money. They citing Yellow not turning a profit, being too risky of a bailout and the fact that they are not a national security issue. The trucking industry would get by just fine and will be able to absorb all their business.

Tax Payers are going to eat this one. The money Yellow got from the Covid19 relief fund was a loan. They were supposed to pay it back. Now that's not likely to happen.
 
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Looks like the new income based repayment plans for student loans don't help me the slightest. I make too much money. They don't take into consideration the cost of living/housing for where you live.

Based on what I make, income based based repayment would actually be a higher repayment plan than my other options and not really affordable. But it does offer the remaining balance of your loans to be cancel after 10 years. I'm looking at 20+ years of repayment with my other options.

Sighs, what to do... what to do.
 
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