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New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

sciencedaily.com

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Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#31

Post by oriolid »

Pamar wrote: post #26
anexprogrammer wrote: post #24

We're still asking the wrong question. The frustrating thing is we were doing miles better in the 80s, even though to be evironmentally aware then meant you were thought of as some sort of hippie or anarchist type. Lots of supermarkets still sold milk in glass bottles as used by milkmen. You returned the empties to the store/milkman and they could be reused indefinitely. Milkmen delivering to door were still common.…

In Germany water bottles have an automatic markup of 25 eurocents/bottle. Every supermarket has special devices that will scan the bottle barcode and give you back 25 cents for each compatible bottle you put in - the money is delivered as a coupon you can use at the cashier to pay for stuff (you can also ask for cash if you want).

Finland has the same system. A nice side effect is that since the bottles are supposed to be reusable, they are thick and sturdy plastic instead of the paper thin disposable ones.

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#32

Post by mrspeaker »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #24

We're still asking the wrong question. The frustrating thing is we were doing miles better in the 80s, even though to be evironmentally aware then meant you were thought of as some sort of hippie or anarchist type. Lots of supermarkets still sold milk in glass bottles as used by milkmen. You returned the empties to the store/milkman and they could be reused indefinitely. Milkmen delivering to door were still common.…

It is so hard to buy lunch in NYC without ending up with a frightening amount of plastic (and paper) waste.

There is a start-up-esque thing called Eatsa that is sort of an "automated take-out" place: I go there a lot - not because the food is mind-blowing or I hate interacting with people, but because I can just take the cardboard bowl of food (with a thin plastic top: not good, but "least bad") and not be forced to have a plastic bag, 50 napkins, tonnes of plastic cutlery (fast-moving lines means it's hard to opt-out).

There was a couple of cafes in Australia that were doing "waste-free" (maybe it was http://lupiicafe.com/ ) operations - I hope that this catches on, because I feel like an asshat every time I throw an industrial-strength plastic food container in the bin.

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#33

Post by bykovich »

ci5er wrote: post #27
spodek wrote: post #9

For our personal behavior, let's remember than reducing consumption reduces pollution more than reusing, which reduces pollution more than recycling. By the time you're relying on recycling, you've already polluted a lot more than you needed to, all the more so at the poor efficiency the article reports. If you don't create the plastic bottle you don't have to figure out how to undo its pollution. We probably can't a…

Remember, if possible, reduction to zero use is best of all! Imagine how much better off the world would have been if we hadn't found cures for polio and small pox and minor bacterial infections - and reduced the incidence of many more - if we hadn't eliminated the earth's human-filtering effect of starvation through the green revolution. The world, she would be so much more sustainable then!

I'm gonna consume all your resources, bitch

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#34

Post by tonyedgecombe »

misterbwong wrote: post #30
anexprogrammer wrote: post #24

We're still asking the wrong question. The frustrating thing is we were doing miles better in the 80s, even though to be evironmentally aware then meant you were thought of as some sort of hippie or anarchist type. Lots of supermarkets still sold milk in glass bottles as used by milkmen. You returned the empties to the store/milkman and they could be reused indefinitely. Milkmen delivering to door were still common.…

Miles better in one sense (waste accumulation/environment) but miles worse in at least one other: convenience. Guess which one is more important to the general consumer? People voted with their wallets.

I'm not absolutely sure it was better environmentally either, cleaning those returns has a cost, poorly packaged food means more food wastage right from the farm to the consumer.

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#35

Post by nextos »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #24

We're still asking the wrong question. The frustrating thing is we were doing miles better in the 80s, even though to be evironmentally aware then meant you were thought of as some sort of hippie or anarchist type. Lots of supermarkets still sold milk in glass bottles as used by milkmen. You returned the empties to the store/milkman and they could be reused indefinitely. Milkmen delivering to door were still common.…

It's even worse. Many composite packages we get today (cardboard / tin + plastic cover inside and outside) are notoriously hard to recycle in terms of energy and waste produced.

Plus, they leach plastics into food.

Returning to glass would be a huge step forward. I think the key would be get glass cans and bottles refilled in warehouses close to the customer, as it happened before with small producers.

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#36

Post by digler999 »

javiramos wrote: post #17
spodek wrote: post #9

For our personal behavior, let's remember than reducing consumption reduces pollution more than reusing, which reduces pollution more than recycling. By the time you're relying on recycling, you've already polluted a lot more than you needed to, all the more so at the poor efficiency the article reports. If you don't create the plastic bottle you don't have to figure out how to undo its pollution. We probably can't a…

I am very skeptical about recycling (I do recycle though) - it seems like a tremendous about of CO2 is spent just moving the recycled goods from homes to the recycling facilities + the energy spent recycling the product + the energy used shipping the product to a plastics distributor. The option of filling our landfills is also costly but is it offset by recycling? Does anyone know how recycled plastics stack up agai…

> I am very skeptical about recycling

I am too. I really despise that they push the burden onto the customer, instead of hiring people or robots to pick bottles or other shit out of the trash stream and recycle it. As a homeowner, I'm paying them for trash service. If there's a cleaner way (recycling - which isn't necessarily any greener, as you pointed out) , the waste management industry should be forced to do it for the greater good, just like coal plants are forced to run their exhaust through scrubbers to remove pollutants. They shouldn't profit, or burn millions more gallons of diesel driving huge recycling trucks around, by forcing (or guilting) us to do unpaid labor.

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#37

Post by JoeAltmaier »

wflynny wrote: post #20
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost in the noise of producing milk. There is an astronomical amount of environmental resources to get to the point of filling the jug. Just wasting less milk (buy only what you can use to avoid dumping what has gone bad) would blow 'lighter milk jug' out of the water by many orders of magnitude. And using 30% fewer jugs saves 30% right out of the gate.

Isn't this reasoning essentially comparing a drop-in replacement with an ideal, though? Assuming this is a new technology that can actually make it through to manufacturing changes, the possible 30% reduction in plastic by using hybrid PE/PP is controlled by the relatively few milk producers and should be much more tenable than the societal change required for 30% reduction in milk use. Both reduce plastics usage, bu…

Sure, go ahead and do it. But it hardly matters. We could also arrange a system to collect fingernail clippings and compost them to make fertilizer for public gardens for the poor. Its just that everybody's time is better spent on things that have larger marginal impact.

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#38

Post by khedoros1 »

giarc wrote: post #14
spodek wrote: post #9

For our personal behavior, let's remember than reducing consumption reduces pollution more than reusing, which reduces pollution more than recycling. By the time you're relying on recycling, you've already polluted a lot more than you needed to, all the more so at the poor efficiency the article reports. If you don't create the plastic bottle you don't have to figure out how to undo its pollution. We probably can't a…

The 3 R's... Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The order of them is intentional.

The PSAs that I've seen have always been "recycle, reduce, reuse". Doing a Google search on both shows your order having about 435,000 hits and mine having 214,000.

It seems like an education problem; I don't think it's ever been pointed out to me that the more-common ordering was intended to also express the favorability of the options (although it makes sense, looking at it).

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#39

Post by ams6110 »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #24

We're still asking the wrong question. The frustrating thing is we were doing miles better in the 80s, even though to be evironmentally aware then meant you were thought of as some sort of hippie or anarchist type. Lots of supermarkets still sold milk in glass bottles as used by milkmen. You returned the empties to the store/milkman and they could be reused indefinitely. Milkmen delivering to door were still common.…

Glass bottles are heavy. Trucking all that extra weight (compared to plastic) around uses more fuel resulting in more CO2 emissions.

They also have to be thoroughly washed and sanitized before re-use, which uses more energy.

There is a reason that plastic replaced almost all use of glass bottles for beverages.

Re: New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

#40

Post by anexprogrammer »

ams6110 wrote: post #39
anexprogrammer wrote: post #24

We're still asking the wrong question. The frustrating thing is we were doing miles better in the 80s, even though to be evironmentally aware then meant you were thought of as some sort of hippie or anarchist type. Lots of supermarkets still sold milk in glass bottles as used by milkmen. You returned the empties to the store/milkman and they could be reused indefinitely. Milkmen delivering to door were still common.…

Glass bottles are heavy. Trucking all that extra weight (compared to plastic) around uses more fuel resulting in more CO2 emissions. They also have to be thoroughly washed and sanitized before re-use, which uses more energy. There is a reason that plastic replaced almost all use of glass bottles for beverages.

Except no.

Plastic milk containers and bottles have to be thoroughly washed before recycling as the plastic is incredibly easy to corrupt with contaminants. Every roadside recycling scheme I've been a part of has required all tins, bottles and glass to be washed before recycling. (Seems pointless in the case of tins as the food debris will be burnt off along with paint etc as the metals are melted).

PET washing in a recycling line needs to be higher temperature as they also use the washing to disolve the glues used for outside labels etc.

The integrated washing of all bottles joining a reusable glass bottle line likely used a fraction of the cleaning energy now expended.

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