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We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

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Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#11

Post by dictum »

golemiprague wrote: post #3

There is nothing wrong with landfill or incineration. Unlike metals, recycling plastic is not economic. So converting it to energy by incineration is a pretty good option. In the future if the oil supplies will dwindle it might be economically viable to recycle plastic and then people (or maybe robots) will excavate those landfills for material. It is us taking care of the future generations. Isn't it what all those…

> Isn't it what all those Gertas of the world want?

You can defend a position without snidely representing other positions, similar or opposite to yours, but if you choose to make so, make sure you've correctly named your target.

Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#13

Post by verbify »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

Ah the realities of the difficulty involved in recycling like for like come to the fore. In some ways I think this situation has been exacerbated by proponents of plastic who have marketed it as "infinitely recyclable" for many years. That statement is technically true, in that there exists a process by which you can take post consumer plastic and reduce it back to its component parts for re-use. At the same time it…

> Estimates on the cost of doing that range from 10x to 100x the cost of creating plastic out of raw pre-cursor chemicals. The reality is that there isn't a market for $20 coffee cups over $2 coffee cups because they are "100% post consumer".

Plastic cups cost about a penny to manufacture (at least I can buy 1000 for £10). Many people will certainly pay 10p for recycled cups, and possibly more.

Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#14

Post by jrockway »

My understanding of the situation is that recycled plastic is an inferior product, so there isn't much demand for it. NileRed did an interesting demonstration of recycling bottles here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLftqtsiFBs and he goes into some of the details about the resulting product that the recycling process creates.

I think the solution is to be careful about what we make from plastic, and what kinds of plastics we use in that case. If we don't waste in the first place, there is no need to recycle anything. And if we do need to make something disposable, we can use something that is economic to recycle, like aluminum or glass. It's really just plastic that's the problem, glass bottles are easy to reuse and aluminum cans can be melted down into aluminum that's just as good as non-recycled aluminum. (Maybe the energy cost of all that melting is high, but I think we are making strides towards more and more renewable electricity, so we might be better off using electricity instead of plastic.)

Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#15

Post by adambard »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #7
golemiprague wrote: post #3

There is nothing wrong with landfill or incineration. Unlike metals, recycling plastic is not economic. So converting it to energy by incineration is a pretty good option. In the future if the oil supplies will dwindle it might be economically viable to recycle plastic and then people (or maybe robots) will excavate those landfills for material. It is us taking care of the future generations. Isn't it what all those…

Incineration means needlessly releasing greenhouse gasses.

The incinerators used in this case (claim to) recapture the emissions from the incineration. However, they do leave some amount of toxic ash, which requires special disposal.

Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#16

Post by joshspankit »

kardos wrote: post #10
ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

Ah the realities of the difficulty involved in recycling like for like come to the fore. In some ways I think this situation has been exacerbated by proponents of plastic who have marketed it as "infinitely recyclable" for many years. That statement is technically true, in that there exists a process by which you can take post consumer plastic and reduce it back to its component parts for re-use. At the same time it…

> I am also a proponent of structural re-use of post consumer plastics. Wouldn't the flammability of plastic make this a non-starter?

It’s feasible to think that additives would reduce the flammability of plastics to at or below drywall. Add to this that extrusion can create a beam that can take the place of the much more flammable lumber, and it’s worth exploring at least.

Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#17

Post by oh_sigh »

endorphone wrote: post #4
u6eexrtxjjxjexr wrote: post #2

https://i.cbc.ca/1.5299276.1569615441!/fileImage/httpImage/i... Not sure what's going on in this picture. Can I hazard a guess - the "tracking device" is a cheap smartphone?

They're wedging the bale to insert a tracker in it. The trackers look something like - https://images2.opb.org/c_limit%2Ch_1000%2Cq_90%2Cw_640/news...

I hope that tracker was recyclable.

Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#18

Post by arcticbull »

There's a good case to be made that we shouldn't be recycling (all) plastics but instead sequestering much of it in well-run landfill operations. The energy required to recycle it combined with the inferior product that results make it a net-loss operation. Especially when taking into account the high levels of contamination and processing that must be done to prepare it. Reduce, re-use (and ban single-use), then sequester. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Aluminum? Definitely. Steel? Sure. Glass? probably. Paper? Cool. Plastic? shrug.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-...

[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/plastic-prod...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/amywestervelt/2012/04/25/can-re...

[4] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a3752/4...

Re: We asked three companies to recycle plastic and only one did

#19

Post by jcampbell1 »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #7
golemiprague wrote: post #3

There is nothing wrong with landfill or incineration. Unlike metals, recycling plastic is not economic. So converting it to energy by incineration is a pretty good option. In the future if the oil supplies will dwindle it might be economically viable to recycle plastic and then people (or maybe robots) will excavate those landfills for material. It is us taking care of the future generations. Isn't it what all those…

Incineration means needlessly releasing greenhouse gasses.

I agree. These are perfect prepackaged blocks for carbon storage. Why would you go the other way?
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