Waste and the economy
Yesterday I got into an uncomfortable discussion with a co-worker and a stranger at lunch about the economy. The situation is clearly not cheery with the housing market downturn and junk mortgages cindering but it’s also hard to identify “we are in a recession” because the measures of recession really aren’t popularly agreed upon. Two quarters of economic downturn, and all, but if you look at BEA’s numbers we haven’t had a single quarter of downturn and there is a wide sense among the laity that we know better whether a recession is in effect and that because of the way economic indicators are assessed (like the exclusion of people who are not looking for work from the unemployment rate), the formal definition of a recession misses the reality of our economic well-being. So conversations like this frequently wind up feeling somewhat like bitch-sessions and anecdotal stories making a case one way or another.
So I’m talking with my coworker when someone at our shared table asked whether we’d heard about the landfill status and how landfill rates (meaning, he said, trash) had reduced to 95% of their regular levels. He seemed quite convinced this was an (unmeasured) strong indicator of recession. So I said, “hold on - that sounds like an interesting indicator but Seattle also introduced an initiative within past year about forcing people to recycle more and couldn’t that account for this change?” “No - of course not - not 5%” I was reprimanded by both people. So I left it with my insistence that I didn’t know how much recycling rates would influence the landfill rates but I was positive this would have an impact (and my coworker offered that trash volume isn’t a very precise measure of economic volume).
Next comes my mail yesterday. Just a couple hours after having this conversation I opened my mail and found a Seattle Public Utilities’ newsletter stating that over the last 5 years recycling rates have increased from 38% to 47% - meaning (it appears) that 9% of what we used to throw in the trash goes to recycling. I don’t know when the trends were greatest with that change and this doesn’t talk specifically to last year, but that’s a 15% reduction in trash that would go to a landfill, which would definitely affect the indicator we were discussing.
The summary is that this is exactly why I don’t like getting into political discussions with strangers and frequently why I don’t like having the conversations any more at all. You get people together who have (frequently incomplete) information and agendas and you get past the baseline of “here’s some information and the conclusions from my agenda that follow” and it’s just too hard to have a remotely meaningful conversation after that because you need more good information about the specific topic at hand to have a worthwhile conversation. Disclaimer: I can certainly be guilty of this, too.
Has Lost started again yet??