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Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

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Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#101

Post by msl »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #89
Shalle135 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Export it to Sweden https://www.trtworld.com/europe/swedish-recycling-so-success...

That article says that 99% of waste is recycled in Sweden, but also points out that a large part of that is incinerated. I don't really understand how incineration can be called recycling. The cycle literally ends at that point. That's not to say it's better than many alternatives (the article claims it's better than most landfills), but let's call it what it is.

> The cycle literally ends at that point.

Not quite. It turns out that even the ashes have their uses [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incinerator_bottom_ash

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#102

Post by HorstG »

jdnenej wrote: post #59
techslave wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s a tragedy of the commons problem. plastic is essentially free, so once one manufacturer can make the same consumer quality product with plastic instead of [whatever else], it forces the hands of all other manufacturers. this needs to be solved with regulation.

The simple solution is to move the disposal cost to the producer. Instead of the consumer paying taxes to dispose of the product, the producer must pay and now a producer which produces less waste can sell cheaper products.

There is such a system in Germany, called Grüner Punkt or Duales System. They tax manufacturers' packaging and run the collection and recycling from that tax income.

Imho it didn't help all that much. I did not find numbers for the reduction in packaging, but my impresssion is "none". As for recycling the waste they collect, there are numbers between "half is just icinerated" and "only 5% is recycled": https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duales_System_(Abfallwirtsch...

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#104

Post by nosianu »

javajosh wrote: post #93
grecy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always staggers me that people in many developed countries are so proud they recycle. Recycling is the worst good thing we should be doing. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In that order. I've been to many, many developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well.

> developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well. In fairness, Germany is a developed country with extremely good reuse programs. Glass beer bottles are often totally reused. You can, if you want, avoid plastics entirely and just buy drinks glass containers. The local supermarkets all have return bins; all restaurants will take them, althou…

The current German system is nothing compared to the former East German bottle reuse system. Disclaimer: I grew up in East Germany, and during a summer break when I still was at school I worked in a small local brewery in the bottling facility at various machines for a few weeks, seeing the system in action.

In East Germany we only had very few bottle designs that were used throughout the entire country and all firms filling something in bottles used those designs. You could return a bottle filled with beer in the north of the country by one company and return it in the south and refill it with lemonade.

When I worked in the brewery we had trucks carrying returned glass bottles coming in, several per day. The labels on those bottles did not matter at all, only the form of the bottle did. They were sent through the washing machine, followed by a visual inspection station (today that would be automated, back then somebody had to sit there and watch endless streams of bottles pass in front of a bright white light source).

New bottles were fed into this system maybe 5% of the total nr. of bottles, maximum. The bulk of the bottles we filled had just been collected from all other the "Kreis" (county) that or the previous day.

There was slightly more variety for bottles with spirits, but non-alcoholic beverages and beer all had a handful of generic designs only:

- https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8a/2a/16/8a2a16b9573f33af14e1...

- https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/283478094305_/DDR-Fl...

- https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/TdAAAOSwy6hc0vzC/s-l400.jpg

- https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxNjAw/z/01kAAOSwoptdW8pU/$...

The current German system has all kinds of bottles and LOTS of restrictions. The labels have to match, I cannot return bottles unless the shop sells these exact bottles (including the brand). There were no restrictions in the GDR and only very few designs to deal with. There also were no plastic bottles and cans, or if we had any they were too few for me to even remember. Sure, that last one is confounded by time, there were not that many in the West in the 1980s either.

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#105

Post by detaro »

nosianu wrote: post #104
javajosh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well. In fairness, Germany is a developed country with extremely good reuse programs. Glass beer bottles are often totally reused. You can, if you want, avoid plastics entirely and just buy drinks glass containers. The local supermarkets all have return bins; all restaurants will take them, althou…

The current German system is nothing compared to the former East German bottle reuse system. Disclaimer: I grew up in East Germany, and during a summer break when I still was at school I worked in a small local brewery in the bottling facility at various machines for a few weeks, seeing the system in action. In East Germany we only had very few bottle designs that were used throughout the entire country and all firms…

That sounds exactly like the current German system for beer bottles (although the range of beer bottle shapes has increased, so it's not as efficient anymore).

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#106

Post by bamboozled »

bamboozled wrote: post #79
mirimir wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops. Damn. But that's an issue with all synthetic clothing, right? I guess that making bottles and sheeting would be best.

I think nylon jackets etc are ok, like the hard shell ski jackets etc. It’s more just and issue with soft fleece type stuff I believe. Patagonia has some information about it on their site somewhere, they also stock the guppy friend bags.

I forgot to mention, I use one, it picks up quite a lot of lint.

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#107

Post by nosianu »

detaro wrote: post #105
nosianu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current German system is nothing compared to the former East German bottle reuse system. Disclaimer: I grew up in East Germany, and during a summer break when I still was at school I worked in a small local brewery in the bottling facility at various machines for a few weeks, seeing the system in action. In East Germany we only had very few bottle designs that were used throughout the entire country and all firms…

That sounds exactly like the current German system for beer bottles (although the range of beer bottle shapes has increased, so it's not as efficient anymore).

No, it is not the same at all! We now have a lot of restrictions on what can be returned to what store. They have to sell those exact bottles. For the automated plastic return stations you even have to have the label still on the bottle - if the label doesn't match, even if the actual bottle is exactly the same, the machine does not accept the return. You can't return everything anywhere.

In East Germany it worked for all bottles too, not just for beer bottles. The brewery where I worked also bottled various non-alcoholic drinks, suing the exact same bottles for all. The switch from one liquid to another didn't take long and was quickly performed, just restack different labels, flush the previous liquid, then restart the bottling with little overall delay. The bottles already in the queue remained the same.

German: https://www.n-tv.de/ratgeber/Wo-kann-man-welche-Flasche-zuru... ("Inside the German bottle jungle: Where can you return which bottles?")

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#108

Post by detaro »

nosianu wrote: post #107
detaro wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds exactly like the current German system for beer bottles (although the range of beer bottle shapes has increased, so it's not as efficient anymore).

No, it is not the same at all! We now have a lot of restrictions on what can be returned to what store. They have to sell those exact bottles. For the automated plastic return stations you even have to have the label still on the bottle - if the label doesn't match, even if the actual bottle is exactly the same, the machine does not accept the return. You can't return everything anywhere. In East Germany it worked fo…

True in regard to where you can return. But beer bottles are still distributed locally if possible, and not sent to whoever put the label on last.

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#109

Post by the-dude »

stinos wrote: post #99
_Microft wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milk in returnable bottles exists here. The bottles usually look like this: https://contentpool.wirtschaftsverlag.at/files/uploads/image... From the look it is a half-liter bottle (we usually buy cream like this), there are 1 liter bottles for milk that look almost the same.

This used to exist, and was even fairly common, in many countries. Moreover it was brought to your door by the milkman. And that milkman sometimes also had eggs and even vegetables from local farmers. This disappeared, driven by economics/capitalism/'supermarket=freedom'/..., not because it's bad per se. In fact there's quite some benefits to that whole system from an ecological point of view. Which leads to sort of…

In NL these were electrical vehicles.

Re: Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

#110

Post by jotm »

nosianu wrote: post #104
javajosh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developing countries around the world that have extremely good reuse programs for their bottles, and it works extremely well. In fairness, Germany is a developed country with extremely good reuse programs. Glass beer bottles are often totally reused. You can, if you want, avoid plastics entirely and just buy drinks glass containers. The local supermarkets all have return bins; all restaurants will take them, althou…

The current German system is nothing compared to the former East German bottle reuse system. Disclaimer: I grew up in East Germany, and during a summer break when I still was at school I worked in a small local brewery in the bottling facility at various machines for a few weeks, seeing the system in action. In East Germany we only had very few bottle designs that were used throughout the entire country and all firms…

That was the case across the USSR. Really impressive reuse of glass bottles. Nowadays even the cheapest food comes in glass jars, not sure how that came to be. Nothing seems to be reused...
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