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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

#51

Post by Thorrez »

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.

golemiprague might not be saying anything about those specific companies, just saying that in general, there's not a reason for us to want to recycle plastic.

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

#52

Post by scythe »

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.

The quantity of plastic thrown away is small enough that burning it would be a very small proportion of carbon emissions. This becomes clear when you notice that plastic production is a very small part of oil consumption. The world produces 260 Mt of plastic per year but burns 7000 Mt of coal and 3000 Mt of natural gas in that same year. So even if we burn all the plastic and ignore the emissions it’s not large.

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

#54

Post by ken »

TylerE wrote: post #50
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do we have reason to believe banana peels will decompose any quicker than lettuce, hot dogs, or guacamole, which were found to be "almost as good as new" after 25 years in the ground?

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/13/nyregion/seeking-the-trut...

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

#55

Post by yoz-y »

ken wrote: post #54
TylerE wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banana peels will go away on their own pretty quick. Accurately sorting materials is one of the bigger problems in recycling right now.

Do we have reason to believe banana peels will decompose any quicker than lettuce, hot dogs, or guacamole, which were found to be "almost as good as new" after 25 years in the ground? https://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/13/nyregion/seeking-the-trut...

I think the idea would be that if we could actually sort out the food waste, it wouldn't have to be in a 'proper' landfill, rather it could be composted. In theory nothing will really decompose in a landfill because it is a big hermetic tin can by design.

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

#56

Post by La1n »

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…

I think the "Gertas of the world" want decisions to be made by not only the fact if something is economically viable, but by what's good for the environment.

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

#57

Post by La1n »

ars wrote: post #48
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It would be if a 100% of energy came from oil. I would argue that burning trash is cheap and thus makes adoption of renewable energy sources lower.

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

#58

Post by pfdietz »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #34
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.

However, recycled aluminum will come contaminated with possibly unpredictable amounts of alloying elements (magnesium, silicon, copper, zinc, manganese).

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

#59

Post by benj111 »

nashashmi wrote: post #31
spullara wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does the recycling process not get rid of oxides? Aluminum oxidises quickly, and it's not as if many metals come out of the ground oxide free.

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

#60

Post by benj111 »

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…

"To that end, incinerating plastic to generate energy makes a lot of policy sense in a 'peaker' plant"

Whilst I don't disagree, I do have concerns A) That the need for fuel will see unsuitable material diverted to incineration. B) That to help with the payback, it wont just be run as a peaker. C) That it will be sold by politicians as a solution, rather than the least worst option.

Basically it's the same dynamic as waste to power plants.

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