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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

#111

Post by audunw »

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...

Parts of Europe has a good system for recycling plastic bottles. It works because you’re getting only one type of plastic in and nothing else. Look up Tomra machines.

Food waste might also be worth it? You can get some biofuel and compost out of it, which isn’t bad.

The US systems have mostly seemed completely pointless to me. Many of them seems to optimize for feeling good (I put it in the recycling bin!) rather than doing what it takes to make it worthwhile (I took the bottles and cans back to the shop and put it in a machine that verifies them, crushes them and sends them back to where they came from)

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

#112

Post by greensoup »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #102
shados wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

That it can be recycled without "waste" doesnt mean its worthwhile. Making glass costs a large amount of energy. As far I know, when plastic is recycled, it is better for the environment than using glass.

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

#113

Post by yeahitslikethat »

morio wrote: post #63
yeahitslikethat wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass as is too heavy. Penn and Teller did a bull shit on recycling. Only aluminum is good for consumer packaging wrt recycling.

Most aluminum packaging has plastic liner. Which has to be burned away in most cases. Glass works if you bottle and reuse locally. Unfortunately infrastructure for this is long gone in the US.

It burns away when the metal is melted. Not having glass recycling infrastructure supports p&t's point.

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

#114

Post by mediaman »

opportune wrote: post #3

As far as I can understand it, the recycling industry is a well-intentioned waste of resources. It would be much better for the environment for all this waste to be sequestered in a landfill than for people to pay to ship it around the world only for most of it to be dumped or rejected (which, even when the Asian countries in question do accept it, they are likely to do anyway). These materials (plastics) are so chea…

You're confusing mixed waste, the subject of the article, with all recycling.

It's true that mixed waste is difficult to process and is often best in a landfill or clean incinerator.

But properly sorted plastics are perfectly usable, and they are cheaper than virgin plastics. The reason they are cheaper is that it is less expensive to clean and regrind them than it is to process new, virgin plastic. Virgin polypropylene currently fetches about $0.65 a pound, whereas recycled clear polypropylene is sold for $0.50-0.55 a pound. These plastics are typically recycled within the same region as the origin of the waste plastic, and, due to freight, often get re-used in industry in the same region as well.

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

#115

Post by sgustard »

cortesoft wrote: post #54

There is this strange belief that landfills are taking up a ton of space and we need to reduce landfill usage because of it. This is simply not true. Landfills don't take up much space, we have plenty.

I want to believe that, but then we have this 65 meter trash pile in Delhi.

https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/india-trash-mo...

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

#116

Post by Spooky23 »

pen2l wrote: post #6

This might be a dumb question, but: why don't we do glass-style bottles? I live in America now, but when I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago, I remember that I would buy pepsi or coki in a glass bottle... and if I wanted to buy a second one, I would go back to the store and give them the old empty bottle, and they would compensate me a few pennies for it -- and the bottle then is presumably washed and reused. It'…

The argument that you’ll typically hear from business/engineering folks is that the carbon footprint of the glass bottle is too high because of the cost of manufacture, transport and washing.

The same argument was made in favor of styrofoam cups. I’m a skeptic.

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

#117

Post by SomeOldThrow »

opportune wrote: post #3

As far as I can understand it, the recycling industry is a well-intentioned waste of resources. It would be much better for the environment for all this waste to be sequestered in a landfill than for people to pay to ship it around the world only for most of it to be dumped or rejected (which, even when the Asian countries in question do accept it, they are likely to do anyway). These materials (plastics) are so chea…

Well-intentioned is a stretch. We really just shouldn’t be using plastic for disposable products, and corporations take advantage of peoples’ lack of knowledge of recycling to neglect their responsibility of proper disposal and pricing. Given the effect of plastic on the environment single use plastics should be priced higher than their (eg) metal counterparts. (This is assuming those have priced in externalities, so I realize this is reductive, but I believe my point is clear.)

I’m staring at a unilever plastic container with cute recycling logos on the side, and I have no consumer option to price compare with a more sustainable option, let alone vote with my wallet. What a waste of materials.

Granted, lighting the materials on fire so I can drive around the countryside isn’t much better.

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

#118

Post by Spooky23 »

hexis wrote: post #58
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was gearing up nicely to require deposit and reuse schemes in the 50s or 60s. Vermont was about to require drinks be in reusable bottles. Pepsi, Coke, Budweiser, Philip Morris and others got together, conceived the idea of, funded and launched "Keep America Beautiful". Vermont was lobbied and the deposit scheme died, consumers were blamed for the whole problem via campaigns on littering, and industry could do…

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

Reuse is typically only used for big water jugs and glass milk bottles.

Soda bottle deposits are effective and don’t get shipped off to poor countries.

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

#119

Post by mediaman »

tomxor wrote: post #84

I'm fed up of sorting and "recycling" plastic, it's such bullshit, it's a feel good activity for individuals or a check box exercise for governments. If anything it's damaging to continue pretending to recycle plastics, it makes it seem ok to continue producing them. One day in the future it will be banned at the source, packaging will be replaced with something non-hazardous and efficient to recycle or biodegrade, a…

As a counter-example, British Columbia recycles its post-consumer waste. There are state of the art sorting facilities near Vancouver that receive this material, sort it, grind it, clean it, and pelletize it. It's then bought and used to produce various industrial and consumer goods.

The recycler receives a subsidy (set through open bid) because the cost of sortation, grinding and cleaning is somewhat less than the recovery price of commodity resins. (Post-industrial plastics, or highly sorted plastics, are much cheaper to recycle and are processed without subsidy.)

The idea that all plastic recycling is "pretend" recycling is false, damaging, and encourages adoption of environmentally damaging alternatives or use of virgin plastics. We should either use more bins and pre-sort everything (which will result in lower recycle rates, but much more economic streams) or subsidize processors to sort streams out and turn them into useful material to be re-used.

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

#120

Post by Spooky23 »

wil421 wrote: post #27
eli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear: the bottle redemption machines in New York crush bottles, they don't save them for reuse

Wow I did not know that. It’s likely being thrown in a land fill. The garbage companies around me stopped collecting bottles years ago. Do they do it to keep trash off the streets?

The New York stuff goes to a place near Rochester, IIRC, and is back on the shelf as a bottle in a few weeks. Less for cans.
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