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India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

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Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#11

Post by godzillabrennus »

andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

Maybe Russia needs a new industry?

Is there any other nation (North Korea aside) that would let foreigners ship trash to be dumped on their land?

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#13

Post by msadowski »

leggomylibro wrote: post #6

I wonder if this trend will inspire more people to look into DIY recycling. Plastics are pretty easy to melt down and reuse, if you know what sort of plastic you are working with. You should research the types of recycleable plastics and how they are marked[0] - some types can release toxic fumes which are bad for both you and the planet. I've heard you can develop allergies to plastics from breathing some of the nas…

Never heard of those HDPE bricks, indeed it looks like they could be really useful for prototyping. Here is one video I've found while searching for HDPE bricks in case anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUR6_bQLU-E

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#14

Post by i_am_nomad »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #11
andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

Maybe Russia needs a new industry? Is there any other nation (North Korea aside) that would let foreigners ship trash to be dumped on their land?

It would have to be kept very, very quiet, since Russia is very sensitive about prestige these days vis-a-vis the West.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#15

Post by nothrabannosir »

andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

> It's all about the packaging industry and profit.

Everything is about profit. The invention of the assembly line was about profit. Toothpaste is about profit. YC companies are about profit.

It’s how our society works, and it’s not enough to just claim it’s about profit and call it a day. Good things are also about profit. What makes this bad?

The lack of pricing in negative externalities. That is the root of all capitalist evil. Global warming, micro plastics, holes in the ozone layer, all of it can be traced back to negative externalities not properly priced in.

Once you do that: saving the planet becomes about profit. And something tells me, we’d be pretty good at saving the planet, if there were money to be made… :)

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#16

Post by zaroth »

sydd wrote: post #9
leggomylibro wrote: post #6

I wonder if this trend will inspire more people to look into DIY recycling. Plastics are pretty easy to melt down and reuse, if you know what sort of plastic you are working with. You should research the types of recycleable plastics and how they are marked[0] - some types can release toxic fumes which are bad for both you and the planet. I've heard you can develop allergies to plastics from breathing some of the nas…

You can buy a machine for $300 that recycles plastic at home for your 3D printer. https://www.filastruder.com/collections/filastruders-accesso...

It expects pellets on the input;

The Filastruder filament extruder needs chunks of plastic that are no larger than 5mm on any side.

So it’s missing a step from being an actual recycling bin.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#17

Post by avip »

olliej wrote: post #5

Eventually those of us in America and Europe will have to start actually recycling rather than just saying we are while shipping it to other countries. Obviously part of the solution is going to necessarily require companies stop putting so much waste packaging on products.

We need reducing, not recycling. Recycling is an amazingly inefficient and polluting solution to a problem that should not exist (in its current magnitude) in a sanely-managed planet.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#18

Post by PaulHoule »

andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

Part of the problem is that markets for commodities are always volatile.

That is, recycling plastic X might be very profitable in 2015 and not at all be profitable in 2019. It is the same problem that producers of oil, aluminum and everything else have from time to time. Prices go up and prices go down.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#19

Post by blihp »

sydd wrote: post #9
leggomylibro wrote: post #6

I wonder if this trend will inspire more people to look into DIY recycling. Plastics are pretty easy to melt down and reuse, if you know what sort of plastic you are working with. You should research the types of recycleable plastics and how they are marked[0] - some types can release toxic fumes which are bad for both you and the planet. I've heard you can develop allergies to plastics from breathing some of the nas…

You can buy a machine for $300 that recycles plastic at home for your 3D printer. https://www.filastruder.com/collections/filastruders-accesso...

It's nice in theory, less so in practice based on the various reviews of the various DIY filament solutions I've seen. There are problems both with the consistency of the diameter of the extruded filament and the fact that each time you melt plastic it degrades significantly so that even on the second melt you have to mix in a significant fraction of new material.[1] We might get there eventually but in the meantime, people have had more success melting down waste plastics into bars/rods for use in subtractive (i.e. lathe/mill) applications.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_degradation_of_polymer...

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#20

Post by avip »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #11
andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

Maybe Russia needs a new industry? Is there any other nation (North Korea aside) that would let foreigners ship trash to be dumped on their land?

Just remove China+India from http://www.atchuup.com/countries-used-as-dumping-grounds-of-...
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