Caltech used to have a great recycling facility with dumpsters for the various kinds of plastic. It was open to the community and always in use. It required more time and attention to get it right but it certainly wasn't onerous. But then they bulldozed the facility to build more student housing.
Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
121–130 of 460 posts
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh, everywhere I've lived has specifically excluded pizza boxes. I just checked our website again, and the flyer I remember seeing is gone, replaced with one that says pizza boxes are recyclable now. "No food residue. No liner." Accompanied by a picture of a clearly never used pizza box. So now I'm not sure. Is oil soaked into it OK as long as you scrape every last bit of solid food out of it? Do you need no food re…
This is another problem: what goes in what bin is different in every city. I still don’t know if cardboard goes in trash, recycling or organically in my new city. Standardize the rules.
it isn't just different in every city, they change everywhere, all the time, unpredictably.
the university i worked at had different recycling rules than the city it was located in, because they operated their own little recycling facility. by the time i left the sorting rules they handed out to all 10,000 employees quarterly consumed an 8.5x14 sheet of colored paper.
a local fast food restaurant has something like four different disposal bins, and i'm pretty sure that at least 3 of them aren't mutually exclusive in their descriptions of what they accept. none of the bins match my understanding of what any of the local waste disposal companies accept in a given stream.
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
This system is a great incentive for people to put all sorts of stuff into recycling that they shouldn't.
I'm not sure what it's like in Vancouver, but in Niagara Falls if the garbage people see something in your recycle bins that isn't supposed to be there they don't pick up the bin and leave a note saying what was wrong.
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Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#124The 70% landfill rate for Europe is probably true but if you look at countries individually it’s a completely different stories. The top 10 recycling countries in the EU have leas than 5% landfilled plastics.
https://www.plasticseurope.org/application/files/5715/1717/4...
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't recycle comments from previous threads. It's a fine comment, but HN threads are supposed to be conversations and we're trying to avoid repetition.
I think that's an example of reuse, which is better than recycling.
Ah yes. I was carried away by the title.
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Germany we had rules that shops have to take back packaging, but especially with online shops this just wasn't used enough, so now the shop or manufacturer has to pay a (weight-based) fee for all the packaging they give to consumers. Pretty small though from what I've heard.
I’d be in favor of requiring manufacturers to take back unneeded product packaging, paying for postage if necessary. EDIT: Reading more of this thread, it looks like everyone is suggesting this, so my comment does not add much. So why is this obvious solution not implemented?
> So why is this obvious solution not implemented?
I have no inside information but I think it is because manufacturers will collude to add this as a visible added cost to the cost of the product. Consumers will think stuff became more expensive because of some idiots in DC/Brussels.
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#127Perhaps we should start doing something like what Taiwan did with their trash: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/separation-anxiety/ > The trucks only accept trash bags officially sanctioned by the government of Taiwan which come in a distinctive blue color, complete with an official seal. The bags range in price and size, from 3 liters to 120 liters. The most popular bag is 25 liters (similar to a tiny bathroom…
Is careful sorting of trash/recycling really a good use of time? Seems better to put that effort towards development of techniques to sort en-masse. Likely controversial, but I think there is also an argument for simply throwing hard-to-recycle items in a landfill. If consumption continues to increase, it will likely become economically viable to eventually mine those landfills for raw materials.
Whoever's first to figure out garbage mining will be phenomenally wealthy.
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree with that order of operations so to speak, I'm not sure why the responsibility is pushed onto consumers. It's hard to make a choice when it comes down to plastic, plastic, or plastic. What is being/can be done to get companies to stop using plastic in packaging? I understand that it is necessary for a lot of modern conveniences, but surely there is something that can be done to curb the production and u…
It is completely possible to orient purchases away from plastic. In fact if someone believes that plastic is bad then they should have some stake in it by making those decisions themselves. I went through reducing my plastic use myself, it was not difficult to reduce my plastic use by 50% or more: A: look at my trash before I move it to the curb to see what plastic things were in there B: find substitute for the obvi…
I'm all for personal responsibility but I don't think that there is a critical mass to invoke production changes. (Anecdotally) for every one person I know taking the time to be conscious, I know two that couldn't care less.
I believe most people fall into the 'not my problem' bucket.
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#129Perhaps we should start doing something like what Taiwan did with their trash: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/separation-anxiety/ > The trucks only accept trash bags officially sanctioned by the government of Taiwan which come in a distinctive blue color, complete with an official seal. The bags range in price and size, from 3 liters to 120 liters. The most popular bag is 25 liters (similar to a tiny bathroom…
Is careful sorting of trash/recycling really a good use of time? Seems better to put that effort towards development of techniques to sort en-masse. Likely controversial, but I think there is also an argument for simply throwing hard-to-recycle items in a landfill. If consumption continues to increase, it will likely become economically viable to eventually mine those landfills for raw materials.
Yes it is a good use of time. Our community (400K) has a green bin program as well as recycling. Green bins are for organic waste. Our community's landfill diversion rate is 81%. Landfill waste only needs to be picked up once every two weeks. We are looking to increase landfill diversion rate through textile recycling.
So yes it is good because it is the only solution we have on hand that is effective. Development of reclamation techniques should be done in parallel to landfill diversion.
Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve
#130-snip, self-censorship for safety-
This is a good point. I’m reminded of a thread from yesterday: [1]. There are tons of places where nobody gives a single crap about waste disposal. The sides of the roads are literal trash heaps. “The West” is not going to solve this global problem by making everyone sort their trash into 10 different bins. It needs to stop at the source: the companies producing all this waste (mostly discarded packaging). 1: https:/…
small nit - the sorting of trash is not the exclusive domain of women. "by making people sort their trash". :-)
(I say this as the household Ph.D. trash sorter...)
Thanks for updating. --the sensitive.