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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

#41

Post by moneytide1 »

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…

Sequestering in a landfill could work, but why not melt the plastic into bricks for building? Sequestered and structural instead of all in one pile.

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

#42

Post by justinclift »

moneytide1 wrote: post #41
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…

Sequestering in a landfill could work, but why not melt the plastic into bricks for building? Sequestered and structural instead of all in one pile.

Different plastics have different melting points, and some (eg PVC) produce toxic gases (chlorine gas from memory) when heated enough to burn.

For plastic than can be separated into their specific types reliably enough, that does kinda make sense. But (guessing here) the heating process itself would take a bunch of energy and likely cost.

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

#43

Post by garmaine »

saagarjha wrote: post #33
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.

Plastic is oil molecules, sorted and rearranged.

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

#44

Post by joshspankit »

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.

Tbh, some part of me sees a not-too-distant future where companies harvest the garbage jires for profit.

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

#45

Post by joshspankit »

justinclift wrote: post #42
moneytide1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sequestering in a landfill could work, but why not melt the plastic into bricks for building? Sequestered and structural instead of all in one pile.

Different plastics have different melting points, and some (eg PVC) produce toxic gases (chlorine gas from memory) when heated enough to burn. For plastic than can be separated into their specific types reliably enough, that does kinda make sense. But (guessing here) the heating process itself would take a bunch of energy and likely cost.

As bulk building material it wouldn’t have to be heated much

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

#46

Post by saagarjha »

garmaine wrote: post #43
saagarjha wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Plastic is oil molecules, sorted and rearranged.

I know, but that means very little. Paper is quite different from glucose, even though cellulose is just a polymer of it.

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

#47

Post by misterdoubt »

garmaine wrote: post #43
saagarjha wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Plastic is oil molecules, sorted and rearranged.

Everything's just atoms, man.

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

#48

Post by ars »

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.

No it doesn't. They don't just burn it and release the heat, they use the heat to generate electricity.

It's a direct 1 to 1 reduction in oil usage.

Burning plastic is what we should be doing.

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

#49

Post by rwallace »

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…

The article claims if you incinerate plastic with scrubbers, that prevents air pollution. I've seen it elsewhere claimed incinerating plastic still produces a lot of really nasty air pollution. Which is correct?

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

#50

Post by TylerE »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #36
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.

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.

The banana peels will go away on their own pretty quick.

Accurately sorting materials is one of the bigger problems in recycling right now.

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