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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

#31

Post by nashashmi »

spullara wrote: post #26
nashashmi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a guy who worked in a landfill for a county in Florida and I asked him his opinion of recycling. He said you can either recycle it now or recycle it later, or in other words, dig up a landfill and figure out what you can reuse. This is already being done in some places with very old landfills. So he was not concerned about recycling at all.

For things that can be landfilled safely, I believe this is the best option. Technology for recycling will improve over time and demand for the materials will increase until it makes total sense to recycle it rather than forcing it now.

Some items cannot be landfilled resourcefully, like metals. They need to be recycled now or they rust.

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

#32

Post by lonelappde »

bzbz wrote: post #9
avip wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orthogonally, claiming and getting paid to provide service X while not in fact providing it, would usually come across as fraud.

Right. I think parent commenter hasn't read the article, and doesn't realize that these are _recycling_ companies, not just your average tech office with a blue bin in the snack room.

It's a white lie. It's not really the garbage seller's business whether it is recycled into fire or buried. They aren't harmed.

It's a violation of HN etiquette to accuse people not not reading the articles.

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

#33

Post by saagarjha »

nostromo wrote: post #23

I don't get what the big deal about putting plastic in the ground is. It's literally oil . It belongs in the ground. Or we can burn it for energy, and then do carbon sequestration, in which case it'll need to end up back in the ground.

You're going to have to explain why plastic is "literally oil" in this context, because this is not as obvious as you think it might be. It's a lot harder to convert plastic to something I can put in my car, for example, and there isn't a big oil patch in the Pacific.

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

#34

Post by frosted-flakes »

jrockway wrote: post #14

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…

The energy cost of recycling aluminum might be high, but it's much lower (and cheaper) than refining new aluminum.

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

#35

Post by maxerickson »

spullara wrote: post #26
nashashmi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a guy who worked in a landfill for a county in Florida and I asked him his opinion of recycling. He said you can either recycle it now or recycle it later, or in other words, dig up a landfill and figure out what you can reuse. This is already being done in some places with very old landfills. So he was not concerned about recycling at all.

For things that can be landfilled safely, I believe this is the best option. Technology for recycling will improve over time and demand for the materials will increase until it makes total sense to recycle it rather than forcing it now.

Energy has to get super cheap before it makes sense to process landfills just to clean them up, and that probably happens before they are an economically interesting source of materials.

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

#36

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nashashmi wrote: post #25
arcticbull wrote: post #18

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 seq…

I once talked to a guy who worked in a landfill for a county in Florida and I asked him his opinion of recycling. He said you can either recycle it now or recycle it later, or in other words, dig up a landfill and figure out what you can reuse. This is already being done in some places with very old landfills. So he was not concerned about recycling at all.

What seems like it would make sense is to have landfills for specific materials. All the plastic in one place, all the food waste in another, etc.

Then if someone comes up with a more effective method to recycle plastic, there it all is in one place, not mixed in with banana peels and old furniture.

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

#37

Post by daxfohl »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #27
spodek wrote: post #22

I hope everyone concludes that the top level strategy everyone can implement is to reduce plastic use and demand at every level -- government, corporate, and, yes, individual. Recycling is a tactic. Without a strategy, a tactic often won't work and can even be counterproductive. Reducing production is a strategy. We should always focus first on the strategy, then tactics. I recorded a podcast episode on reducing bein…

Recycling was a way to get people to feel better about their consumption, and for certain politicians to tout they “did” something. It’s never made sense since day 1. As a kid, I couldn’t figure out how the hell recycling was working because everywhere I saw, all the recycling “policies” were being violated, and unless there was a massive team at the recycling center re-sorting it all, it made no sense why we had to…

How did you learn about recycling policies and their violations as a kid? Given the article, none of this is easy to obtain knowledge.

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

#38

Post by lotsofpulp »

daxfohl wrote: post #37
lotsofpulp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recycling was a way to get people to feel better about their consumption, and for certain politicians to tout they “did” something. It’s never made sense since day 1. As a kid, I couldn’t figure out how the hell recycling was working because everywhere I saw, all the recycling “policies” were being violated, and unless there was a massive team at the recycling center re-sorting it all, it made no sense why we had to…

How did you learn about recycling policies and their violations as a kid? Given the article, none of this is easy to obtain knowledge.

I meant watching people throw the wrong type of recyclables in the wrong bins, and ignoring all the numbers.

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

#39

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

arcticbull wrote: post #18

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 seq…

What about pyrolysis? Anyone know how feasible that is?

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

#40

Post by dictum »

lonelappde wrote: post #32
bzbz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I think parent commenter hasn't read the article, and doesn't realize that these are _recycling_ companies, not just your average tech office with a blue bin in the snack room.

It's a white lie. It's not really the garbage seller's business whether it is recycled into fire or buried. They aren't harmed. It's a violation of HN etiquette to accuse people not not reading the articles.

> It's not really the garbage seller's business whether it is recycled into fire or buried. They aren't harmed.

Apparently the companies use artful language to imply certain processes without specifically naming them:

"All three companies make green promises on their websites and in promotional videos, using buzzwords like "sustainability" and "environmental solutions." One Waste Connections video goes as far as to say, "sustainability and becoming more green … have been hallmarks and backbones of Waste Connections from the day we formed the company."

But if any company specifically contracted for recycling and did not recycle, it is a breach of contract with possible repercussions.

Recycling requires that the materials return to the market at a certain point, but it does not require a short window of time between collection and processing of materials.

This is where some creative lawyering can go a long way: if you can say that you're going to process it at some indefinite point in the future, you're not comitting fraud unless the contract defines an specific time limit, specific technical processes, and an specific destination for the processed materials.

I don't think commercial contracts that meet all these criteria are viable at scale.

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