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Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhe

Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day. Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "bad for plants and the ground water". While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt. I see people slipping on snow-compacted ice almost every day. How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones? You can apply for an exemption though, e.g. if you plan to use salt on a driveway to a hospital. Processing fees for such an exemption are up to 1.4k€ [1]. The rent cap is another one. But let's go there another day.. [1] https://www.berlin.de/umwelt/themen/natur-pflanzen-artenschutz/artikel.164455.php https://www.berlin.de/umwelt/themen/natur-pflanzen-artenschu...

NedF 8mo ago
[dead]
port11 8mo ago
The ban on salt isn’t silly, for a long time pebbles were good enough to prevent black ice, and perhaps even more effective than ice. Donating potatoes that were about to go to waste might cause waste elsewhere, but what you propose is that we never give food away unless we can be absolutely sure it won’t cause waste in another sub-system. That’s a tall order. These potatoes were going to be waste anyway.
dietr1ch 8mo ago
Good point on the second order concern, but I'd get potatoes and keep non-perishable food for later. Assuming the exact same weight or available caloric intake will be wasted is too simplistic.
palmotea 8mo ago
> Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "bad for plants and the ground water". While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt. Rigorously considering second-order (and greater) effects is a massive undertaking, though. Like: how do you even know how many more people will slip and get hurt without salting sidewalks and how much the damage the salt does to "plants and ground water," without many careful and expensive research projects? And then there's the challenge of weighing such completely disparate things: how many injuries are healthier plants worth? Basically is seems easier said than done.
- Xylakant 8mo ago
  The problem is not salting or not - the problem is that the house owners are liable for cleaning the sidewalk and they all outsourced it to the same companies. And the companies unsurprisingly all fail to deliver on their obligations because they take on way more customers they could possibly handle. The result is as expected - nothing gets done. A shovel and broom, maybe some grit would have been enough. But there’s no shred of enforcement and instead of calling for enforcement, politicians now call for relaxing the rules on salting.
  - tharkun__ 8mo ago
    Or maybe don't make everyone responsible for the public roadway/sidewalk in front of their house and instead have the people that are responsible for all other things public roadway/sidewalk be responsible? Works elsewhere, why not in Germany, where taxes should actually be even better able to cover it? [yes I know people in Germany, even specifically in Berlin and no this is not a Berlin specific thing] Like where I live, the city also says not to use salt whenever you can and use alternatives and they themselves do not salt the roads in our town either, except for the major in and out ones. This is Canada btw. so we do get a load of snow and ice. They use grit and in spring the city sends through a grit cleaning crew (for reuse next winter). Except for the parts that make it onto lawns from snow plows pushing it onto your property. There it's your job i.e. some people put down mats in fall or they use brushes to get it out of the lawn and back onto the street where it can be picked up. Just yesterday, it was above freezing and the city snow plows went and used the warmer weather to scrape lots of ice off the road!
    - Xylakant 8mo ago
      Funny that you would propose such a practical and simple solution. This has been proposed by the Green Party in Berlin and I’m surprised you didn’t hear the wailing choir of house owners across the Atlantic. “Too impractical”, “too costly”, “who would pay for that?”. Thing is, the current system works well for all people except the ones that want to walk on the icy pavement. Politicians aren’t responsible. House owners shed the responsibility to a contractor. Many contractors regard this essentially as largely free money and just weigh the cost of a potential lawsuit against the accumulated income. It’s extremely good at diluting the responsibility so that no affected individual can effectively do anything about it. Why change a system that works so well for all of the people except the ones affected by the outcome?
card_zero 8mo ago
> How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones? That has a specific answer, like "twenty". But calculating it would be a hopeless task.
BeetleB 8mo ago
> While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt I seriously doubt they did not know that. The whole point of salt is to prevent people from falling. Of course they knew more people will fall.
bigbluesax 8mo ago
Is the concept of someone who usually doesn't eat potatoes getting a bag and spending the next week making some potato dishes really that inconceivable? I don't doubt that this will lead to some waste - I've thrown out more half empty potato bags than I would like to admit - but that's a very negative outlook. Also how do you choose between negative second order effects? Salting roads creates negative effects for groundwater and plants which are really hard to mitigate. On the other hand the second order effect of people slipping could at least be dealt with on an individual level by putting spikes on your shoes.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > how do you choose between negative second order effects? First off you have to identify them. Until you frame the costs and benefits of salting, it isn't clear that the real question is how can we improve pedestrian and vehicular traction without poisoning our plants and water supply. (I'd argue it's frequent ploughing, gravelling and dynamic signs for signalling when chains/snowies/AWD are required.)
literalAardvark 8mo ago
You could always just clean the snow instead of salting it. It's not rocket science.
- frm88 8mo ago
  It's not about the snow, snow is easy. It's about black ice of which we seem to have more in the last few years. Gravel doesn't cut it here - I broke my wrist last year and this year I salted the paved path to the front gate, I don't want to repeat 8 hours waiting in the ER, 2 surgeries and 3 months more or less out of commission.
  - literalAardvark 8mo ago
    That very rarely happens if the snow was cleared, since you'd need all that water to come from somewhere.
    - frm88 8mo ago
      This happened 2025 Jan 15-17 and this year Jan 12-14 in the area I live in. Rain and fog meets icy ground and then rain turns to snow. When I was in the ER last year the 8 hours wait time were due to 26 other broken bones patients and the ER was busy until 1:30 in the morning. It used to be rare, but that changed over the last couple of years.
      - literalAardvark 8mo ago
        Yeah I suppose it does depend a lot on the weather
- bddbbd 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    > are you suggesting to use a mop when it rains to clean the water before it freezes Wyoming here. We don't generally salt our roads. Instead, a combination of ploughs (to clear it) and gravel (to increase traction) are used. More broadly: if you're "astonished with some people not having a grasp," consider that astonishment signals encountering something new.
bryanrasmussen 8mo ago
I mean it sounds sort of if you know what the second order effect of damage to plants and ground water will be if people salt their driveways? I would think you sort of need to run the test in production to see which way is more beneficial.
yunohn 8mo ago
Surely if you can consider the second order effects of giving away these extra potatoes for free, then you can also consider the second order effects of not giving them away? And maybe even thinking more about it, consider that they may be going to different markets/people/causes? Given this example is about 1T batches of potatoes, it could be used by a business that depends on cheap potatoes like a food kitchen, or a business that can absorb the input surge and convert it into a product that can be stored longer term like frozen foods.
marc_g 8mo ago
As someone who just went outside to buy groceries in Berlin and watched them salt the road on my way to Kaufland, I am confused. Is it just for sidewalks?
- yorwba 8mo ago
  Are you sure they weren't using sand or gravel instead?
  - marc_g 8mo ago
    Hmm, I mean it was a lot of white stuff coming out. Again, on the street, so maybe it's different rules compared to sidewalks. Possibly sand, but I'm pretty sure it's salt. EDIT: Seems that some roads are allowed to be salted! It's a pretty main thoroughfare, so likely the case. https://www.bsr.de/bsr-winterdienst-gut-geruestet-fuer-die-kalte-jahreszeit https://www.bsr.de/bsr-winterdienst-gut-geruestet-fuer-die-k...
- olieidel 8mo ago
  Roads are salted, everything else is not.
blell 8mo ago
>How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones? The **** is a death cult. They are very very happy to see you become an invalid if it avoids the death of a sapling. I know that this sounds hyperbolic to the point of being derisive, but it's the observable truth.
- OKRainbowKid 8mo ago
  Who specifically are you talking about?
Voultapher 8mo ago
Salting your ground water is also a second-order effect. The way you put that statement into quotes shows that you value human well being over everything else. Personally I don't. Life on earth is a co-op and we don't win by being the last ones standing, as we are desperately trying right now.
- NedF 8mo ago
  [dead]
- tmp10423288442 8mo ago
  When I hear people like you, I pray that natural selection will remove people like you from the population faster than mutations create them.
  - pfannkuchen 8mo ago
    It isn’t genetic, it’s moral programming.
  - rootsudo 8mo ago
    Wouldn't natural selection rewrd that behavior more?
- fatata123 8mo ago
  [dead]

NedF 8mo ago

[dead]

port11 8mo ago

The ban on salt isn’t silly, for a long time pebbles were good enough to prevent black ice, and perhaps even more effective than ice. Donating potatoes that were about to go to waste might cause waste elsewhere, but what you propose is that we never give food away unless we can be absolutely sure it won’t cause waste in another sub-system. That’s a tall order. These potatoes were going to be waste anyway.

dietr1ch 8mo ago

Good point on the second order concern, but I'd get potatoes and keep non-perishable food for later. Assuming the exact same weight or available caloric intake will be wasted is too simplistic.

palmotea 8mo ago

> Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "bad for plants and the ground water". While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt. Rigorously considering second-order (and greater) effects is a massive undertaking, though. Like: how do you even know how many more people will slip and get hurt without salting sidewalks and how much the damage the salt does to "plants and ground water," without many careful and expensive research projects? And then there's the challenge of weighing such completely disparate things: how many injuries are healthier plants worth? Basically is seems easier said than done.

Xylakant 8mo ago
The problem is not salting or not - the problem is that the house owners are liable for cleaning the sidewalk and they all outsourced it to the same companies. And the companies unsurprisingly all fail to deliver on their obligations because they take on way more customers they could possibly handle. The result is as expected - nothing gets done. A shovel and broom, maybe some grit would have been enough. But there’s no shred of enforcement and instead of calling for enforcement, politicians now call for relaxing the rules on salting.
- tharkun__ 8mo ago
  Or maybe don't make everyone responsible for the public roadway/sidewalk in front of their house and instead have the people that are responsible for all other things public roadway/sidewalk be responsible? Works elsewhere, why not in Germany, where taxes should actually be even better able to cover it? [yes I know people in Germany, even specifically in Berlin and no this is not a Berlin specific thing] Like where I live, the city also says not to use salt whenever you can and use alternatives and they themselves do not salt the roads in our town either, except for the major in and out ones. This is Canada btw. so we do get a load of snow and ice. They use grit and in spring the city sends through a grit cleaning crew (for reuse next winter). Except for the parts that make it onto lawns from snow plows pushing it onto your property. There it's your job i.e. some people put down mats in fall or they use brushes to get it out of the lawn and back onto the street where it can be picked up. Just yesterday, it was above freezing and the city snow plows went and used the warmer weather to scrape lots of ice off the road!
  - Xylakant 8mo ago
    Funny that you would propose such a practical and simple solution. This has been proposed by the Green Party in Berlin and I’m surprised you didn’t hear the wailing choir of house owners across the Atlantic. “Too impractical”, “too costly”, “who would pay for that?”. Thing is, the current system works well for all people except the ones that want to walk on the icy pavement. Politicians aren’t responsible. House owners shed the responsibility to a contractor. Many contractors regard this essentially as largely free money and just weigh the cost of a potential lawsuit against the accumulated income. It’s extremely good at diluting the responsibility so that no affected individual can effectively do anything about it. Why change a system that works so well for all of the people except the ones affected by the outcome?

card_zero 8mo ago

> How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones? That has a specific answer, like "twenty". But calculating it would be a hopeless task.

BeetleB 8mo ago

> While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt I seriously doubt they did not know that. The whole point of salt is to prevent people from falling. Of course they knew more people will fall.

bigbluesax 8mo ago

Is the concept of someone who usually doesn't eat potatoes getting a bag and spending the next week making some potato dishes really that inconceivable? I don't doubt that this will lead to some waste - I've thrown out more half empty potato bags than I would like to admit - but that's a very negative outlook. Also how do you choose between negative second order effects? Salting roads creates negative effects for groundwater and plants which are really hard to mitigate. On the other hand the second order effect of people slipping could at least be dealt with on an individual level by putting spikes on your shoes.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> how do you choose between negative second order effects? First off you have to identify them. Until you frame the costs and benefits of salting, it isn't clear that the real question is how can we improve pedestrian and vehicular traction without poisoning our plants and water supply. (I'd argue it's frequent ploughing, gravelling and dynamic signs for signalling when chains/snowies/AWD are required.)

literalAardvark 8mo ago

You could always just clean the snow instead of salting it. It's not rocket science.

frm88 8mo ago
It's not about the snow, snow is easy. It's about black ice of which we seem to have more in the last few years. Gravel doesn't cut it here - I broke my wrist last year and this year I salted the paved path to the front gate, I don't want to repeat 8 hours waiting in the ER, 2 surgeries and 3 months more or less out of commission.
- literalAardvark 8mo ago
  That very rarely happens if the snow was cleared, since you'd need all that water to come from somewhere.
  - frm88 8mo ago
    This happened 2025 Jan 15-17 and this year Jan 12-14 in the area I live in. Rain and fog meets icy ground and then rain turns to snow. When I was in the ER last year the 8 hours wait time were due to 26 other broken bones patients and the ER was busy until 1:30 in the morning. It used to be rare, but that changed over the last couple of years.
    - literalAardvark 8mo ago
      Yeah I suppose it does depend a lot on the weather
bddbbd 8mo ago
[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > are you suggesting to use a mop when it rains to clean the water before it freezes Wyoming here. We don't generally salt our roads. Instead, a combination of ploughs (to clear it) and gravel (to increase traction) are used. More broadly: if you're "astonished with some people not having a grasp," consider that astonishment signals encountering something new.

bryanrasmussen 8mo ago

I mean it sounds sort of if you know what the second order effect of damage to plants and ground water will be if people salt their driveways? I would think you sort of need to run the test in production to see which way is more beneficial.

yunohn 8mo ago

Surely if you can consider the second order effects of giving away these extra potatoes for free, then you can also consider the second order effects of not giving them away? And maybe even thinking more about it, consider that they may be going to different markets/people/causes? Given this example is about 1T batches of potatoes, it could be used by a business that depends on cheap potatoes like a food kitchen, or a business that can absorb the input surge and convert it into a product that can be stored longer term like frozen foods.

marc_g 8mo ago

As someone who just went outside to buy groceries in Berlin and watched them salt the road on my way to Kaufland, I am confused. Is it just for sidewalks?

yorwba 8mo ago
Are you sure they weren't using sand or gravel instead?
- marc_g 8mo ago
  Hmm, I mean it was a lot of white stuff coming out. Again, on the street, so maybe it's different rules compared to sidewalks. Possibly sand, but I'm pretty sure it's salt. EDIT: Seems that some roads are allowed to be salted! It's a pretty main thoroughfare, so likely the case. https://www.bsr.de/bsr-winterdienst-gut-geruestet-fuer-die-kalte-jahreszeit https://www.bsr.de/bsr-winterdienst-gut-geruestet-fuer-die-k...
olieidel 8mo ago
Roads are salted, everything else is not.

blell 8mo ago

>How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones? The **** is a death cult. They are very very happy to see you become an invalid if it avoids the death of a sapling. I know that this sounds hyperbolic to the point of being derisive, but it's the observable truth.

OKRainbowKid 8mo ago
Who specifically are you talking about?

Voultapher 8mo ago

Salting your ground water is also a second-order effect. The way you put that statement into quotes shows that you value human well being over everything else. Personally I don't. Life on earth is a co-op and we don't win by being the last ones standing, as we are desperately trying right now.

NedF 8mo ago
[dead]
tmp10423288442 8mo ago
When I hear people like you, I pray that natural selection will remove people like you from the population faster than mutations create them.
- pfannkuchen 8mo ago
  It isn’t genetic, it’s moral programming.
- rootsudo 8mo ago
  Wouldn't natural selection rewrd that behavior more?
fatata123 8mo ago
[dead]