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Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

latimes.com

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Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#101

Post by markdown »

xyzzyz wrote: post #44
netfire wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with glass is that it isn’t biodegradable. If it gets broken, it can cause a hazard for humans and wildlife. If it gets thrown away, it’s not going to break down. Glass is good for the ideal case, but not great for the other use cases. For milk and juice, it’s seems like thick paper might be a better option, since it’s biodegradable and recyclable.

Glass is literally molten sand. It will break down just like the rock breaks down. It's not toxic or hazardous, except when it's freshly shattered, but these super sharp edges weather relatively quickly, after which they aren't any sharper than natural found rock. This not to say that we should just don't care and throw away glass anywhere we want, but it's really not a huge deal, unless you hate seeing glass pebbles…

> It's not toxic or hazardous, except when it's freshly shattered, but these super sharp edges weather relatively quickly, after which they aren't any sharper than natural found rock.

Glass actually takes a long time to lose its sharp edge unless it's dumped in a river or the ocean, which is in fact a great way to dispose of glass.

There really is no better way to dispose of garbage than dumping glass in the ocean... returning silica to its source in a way that doesn't look bad.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#102

Post by LeifCarrotson »

shados wrote: post #100
butisaidsudo wrote: post #30

From what I understand, shipping containers are sent out from Asia stuffed with goods, but there isn't nearly as much going in the other direction. The containers need to go back whether they're full or not, which is why it ends up being so cheap to ship plastic. And the CO2 caused doesn't really change as a result. To the rest of your point though, I agree. My wife is a hardline recycler. I generally am too, but I h…

Is there really much of a point in recycling anything but reasonably clean paper/cardboard (I know stuff like greasy pizza boxes won't get recycled), and clean metals (like aluminum cans). Like, aside for those, will much realistically get recycled? Aside for the insane amount of amazon boxes I toss in recycling, so very little of my trash fits the bill of things that will reasonably get recycled...

Glass is another (the other?) material which is worthwhile to recycle. Like plastic, glass never decomposes. Unlike plastic and unlike paper/cardboard, it can be endlessly remelted and remade into new products without a loss in quality. It's a huge savings in material and energy cost to use recycled glass in the manufacture of new glass.

If you have a recycling bin labeled "glass", absolutely do throw (place) glass bottles into it. It will almost certainly be valued and reused. If you have a single-stream recycling output - just one bin labeled "Recycling", there's less of a case...processing and separating is more expensive and less successful, and a small fraction will actually get recycled.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#103

Post by topmonk »

xyzzyz wrote: post #44
netfire wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with glass is that it isn’t biodegradable. If it gets broken, it can cause a hazard for humans and wildlife. If it gets thrown away, it’s not going to break down. Glass is good for the ideal case, but not great for the other use cases. For milk and juice, it’s seems like thick paper might be a better option, since it’s biodegradable and recyclable.

Glass is literally molten sand. It will break down just like the rock breaks down. It's not toxic or hazardous, except when it's freshly shattered, but these super sharp edges weather relatively quickly, after which they aren't any sharper than natural found rock. This not to say that we should just don't care and throw away glass anywhere we want, but it's really not a huge deal, unless you hate seeing glass pebbles…

This all hinges on what you mean by “relatively fast”. If glass is being shattered and ends up being a hazard for years, this is much worse than a goopy old discarded plastic bottle, regardless of the perceived ugliness of the latter.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#104

Post by sitharus »

abakker wrote: post #99
Tsubasachan wrote: post #90

What happened before the recycling movement was that Western waste was burned in Western waste disposal facilities. This created a ton of toxic shit. Shipping it off to Asia or Africa kept our skies clear. So the recycle lie was created.

What is actually produced when we burn a plastic water bottle at high temperature? I've always wondered this but never seen a great answer - are we just releasing gasses, or is the resultant ash toxic?

If the incineration happens at over 1000°C and the facility has operation exhaust gas scrubbers then not much. You'll end up with bromine, chlorine and fluorine salts in the ash.

If it's below 400° (as happens if you burn plastic in your backyard or fireplace) you'll release dioxins, which are persistent fat-accumulating toxins, and fluorine and bromide compounds which are typically bad news to anyone downwind.

It does depend on the plastic you burn though. Some are worse than others, but 1000°+ controlled incineration is typically fine for all.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#105

Post by nostrademons »

whatshisface wrote: post #95
nostrademons wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a combination of NIMBYism and poor land-use planning. Back when many of these landfills were created, they were on the outskirts of urban areas, where "outskirts" = 15-20 miles away. After the wave of suburbanization in the 1950s-80s, suddenly those outskirts are right next to someone's home. Now it's a crisis. Most people's conception of what land is available is limited to their local metropolitan area, an…

Shipping over water is cheaper than shipping over land.

True, but probably not 20x true.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#106

Post by beachy »

sitharus wrote: post #104
abakker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is actually produced when we burn a plastic water bottle at high temperature? I've always wondered this but never seen a great answer - are we just releasing gasses, or is the resultant ash toxic?

If the incineration happens at over 1000°C and the facility has operation exhaust gas scrubbers then not much. You'll end up with bromine, chlorine and fluorine salts in the ash. If it's below 400° (as happens if you burn plastic in your backyard or fireplace) you'll release dioxins, which are persistent fat-accumulating toxins, and fluorine and bromide compounds which are typically bad news to anyone downwind. It do…

We watched a documentary on people living with minimal waste, which highlight an elderly couple who managed to live with less than one rubbish sack of waste per year.

I was admiring their efforts until I noticed a smouldering rubbish heap in their back garden. Sure enough, they burned all their plastic and other waste.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#107

Post by tempestn »

siberianbear wrote: post #88
hexis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bottle and can deposit has been going on in Massachusetts since at least the 80's (when I was growing up there) - https://www.mass.gov/deposit-bottle-can-recycling

I'm putting words in NeedsMoreTea's mouth here, but I think he was referring not to deposit schemes, but deposit and reuse schemes. In the 70s and 80s, soft drinks (at least in California where I lived) were packaged in really heavy, thick glass bottles. You paid a deposit on purchase, and a refund on turning it back in, and then the bottles were cleaned and reused . These schemes have seemingly all disappeared. Many…

Glass recycling is pretty efficient and effective though—it could well make more sense (from a combined financial and environmental perspective) to recycle glass than to sterilize and re-use existing bottles.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#108

Post by [deleted] »

chrisanthropic wrote: post #14

The first time I really started thinking about this was years ago after watching the recycling episode of "Penn & Teller: Bullshit" where they essentially warn that many recycling programs consist of shipping our waste elsewhere for someone else to deal with and that some day the countries we send our "recycling"/waste to will likely get sick of it and start rejecting it and we'll be fucked. That was almost 10 years…

[deleted]

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#109

Post by raviolo »

It’s sad how the costs of dealing with used plastics - whether recycling, landfill, or something else - are usually presented as a problem. Like, “look, it’s getting too expensive to have country X take it” or “it’s not economically feasible to recycle”. I wish the costs of dealing with plastic trash went up 10 times and there was absolutely no way for anyone to avoid them. That’s the only meaningful way to get people’s attention and stop consuming 400 million tons of plastic per year.

The amount of plastic bags is ridiculous. The packaging for many products is ridiculous. I feel good about being able to put groceries into my backpack rather than plastic bags. Unfortunately I don’t have an option to take other products of their crazy layered plastic packages and put those into my backpack as well, all that packaging going straight to garbage as soon as I get home. This makes me sad.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#110

Post by maccard »

gingabriska wrote: post #93

I just bought 5 new Prusa i3 MK3 and I print lots of ABS and PETG parts, am I contributed to the plastic problem? Over last 1 month, I ended up using roughly 25KG of plastic.

I don't know if this is a serious question or not, but I'll assume it is - You are. Unless you're printing medical parts or repair parts to be resold, that's an enormous amount of plastic. My entire weeks worth of packaging recycling is probably only 5% of that.

That said, overall the amount is negligible compared to industrial food packaging, or industrial freight, and you'd have more of an impact by campaigning for change in those areas while waiting for your 3d printers to finish. At a certain point we're likely to enter a death by 1000 papercuts phase, and at that stage it would be irresponsible

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