'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#11

Post by ars » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #9

ars wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why it's even legal to produce disposable plastic containers today that are not 100%, easily recyclable It's because it's completely harmless to landfill them. Litter is bad. Full stop. Landfill however is not. I've noticed a trend in these types of articles that conflates the two things as if they were the same. Then they tend of mix in info (plastic in the ocean) that applies to countries that…

You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? Groundwater and rain runoff. Drinking partially degraded plastic is not exactly neutral to health. Poisoning wildlife with the added colorings or plastics themselves, neither. Especially insidious are plastic fibres - partially synthetic textiles. These should all be burned clean at very high temperatures first. Litter is easy to remove and even burn, micro…

> You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed?

So then don't do that?

And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not?

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#12

Post by EvilTerran » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

> For instance most spray cleaners come in bottles made of high-density polyethylene, which can be readily recycled. But first consumers must remove the spraytops, as they are made from different plastics and are not recyclable. Then consumers must find a way to pry off the brightly-colored, printed plastic wraps that packagers are increasingly wrapping around bottles to make the labeling more attractive.

> “Who does all that? Nobody,” said Sanborn.

I do! It's a little fiddly, but any sharp knife with a point you can slip under the label does a good enough job of slicing those off.

Good to know that helps, actually - I've often wondered whether I was wasting my time bothering with it.

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#13

Post by kilo_bravo_3 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

gridlockd wrote: post #10

diarmuidie wrote: post #7

I wish there was some sort of scoring system for product packaging that would take into account the quantity and environmental impact of the packaging. Like, if the product comes in a small cardboard box it gets a good score, but if that cardboard is lined with a plastic film (effectively making the cardboard non-recyclable) then the score goes way down. That score could then be used by consumers to make informed dec…

Given that paper bags have a worse environmental impact than plastic bags, I would suppose cardboard is worse than those plastic containers that are so annoying to open.

Paper bags do not have a worse environmental impact than plastic bags.

Paper bags have a worse impact in a very few, small, narrow metrics such as "ocean de-nutrification".

Everyone blurts this out because of a study done in Europe that looked only at a very limited range of environmental factors specifically suited to the country that commissioned the study.

Also, the vast majority of "savings" plastic bags realized over other forms of bag is the energy density of the petroleum used to produce them and the fact that that energy could be recovered by the massive network of refuse-to-power incineration stations in (the country that did the study, I can't remember).

But most plastic bags don't end up mindfully collected, sorted, and incinerated.

When taken as a whole, paper bags are much, much better for the environment than plastic bags.

In 100 years, the paper bag I (HYPOTHETICALLY) threw out my car window is long gone, worm food, turned into soil.

The plastic bag I (HYPOTHETICALLY) threw out my car window is now several billion flakes of microplastics and the world is struggling with the health ramifications of a century of build-up in the environment.

For that matter, the glass bottle is now harmless beach glass or sand (or a valuable collectible on ebay-next), and the aluminum beer can is now its 10,000th reincarnation-- having been picked up by a bum and traded in for cash.

My favorite "HOT TAKE" from that study is that "yOu HaVe To ReUsE a ClOtH bAg 500 tImEs" for it to be more efficient (in a very narrow spectrum of categories, remember) like that's an insurmountable hurdle.

My made-in-USA cotton totes I got on Amazon for $13.99 in 2010 have been used once a week since I got them.

You do the math.

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#14

Post by LatteLazy » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

We have chosen as a species to destroy the planet. We know we're doing it. We could stop. We won't. So why keep making a fuss? Enjoy it! You're the last people to see a real sea turtle or a rainforest or a glacier.

It's not nice but it's true.

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#15

Post by chaostheory » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

gridlockd wrote: post #10

diarmuidie wrote: post #7

I wish there was some sort of scoring system for product packaging that would take into account the quantity and environmental impact of the packaging. Like, if the product comes in a small cardboard box it gets a good score, but if that cardboard is lined with a plastic film (effectively making the cardboard non-recyclable) then the score goes way down. That score could then be used by consumers to make informed dec…

Given that paper bags have a worse environmental impact than plastic bags, I would suppose cardboard is worse than those plastic containers that are so annoying to open.

To add to kilo_bravo_3 8's comment: Almost all plastics, even non-BPA variants, have been found to leech synthetic estrogen https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics...

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#16

Post by robbrown451 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

Ok, but put things in perspective. A musical greeting card is typically a $5-10 purchase. People presumably pay this money because they expect someone to get that much enjoyment out of it.

The amount of recyclable paper in a greeting card is probably worth about 1/100th of a cent, if that.

Maybe these costs seem irrelevant, but still -- they seem to be expecting people to bypass the card for a more recyclable one, when the recyclable value of a greeting card is so, so, SO tiny. The more realistic advice is, if you get one of these cards, don't try to recycle it, put it in the regular trash. It's not the end of the world. (and no, we aren't running out of space for landfills.... of all the environmental damage we are doing, modern landfills are one of the least significant)

At the end of the day, recycling is more to make people feel good than anything. Sure, aluminum recycling makes sense. Recycling large amounts of paper (like cardboard boxes) makes sense. But the majority of things that go in a recycling bin just need a bunch of people to pick through it, so they can eventually send it to the landfill.

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#17

Post by AstralStorm » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #11

AstralStorm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? Groundwater and rain runoff. Drinking partially degraded plastic is not exactly neutral to health. Poisoning wildlife with the added colorings or plastics themselves, neither. Especially insidious are plastic fibres - partially synthetic textiles. These should all be burned clean at very high temperatures first. Litter is easy to remove and even burn, micro…

> You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? So then don't do that? And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not?

Water runoff and sludge from landfills is treated, however only final very time consuming steps of biological sedimentation and treatment can remove most of them. Or very fine reverse osmosis or treatment with micron level filters, very energy intensive. So they do tend to end up in clean drinking water. There are many sources and no norms.

Sometimes even metals bordering on norms can be detected near landfills.

Sample efficiency ranges: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00431...

I had a link with site in Sweden barely keeping norms for lead and cobalt... due to organic decomposition and incomplete runoff collection. Bad enough that I wouldn't build a well within some 10 km radius.

Read up on what happens to all this thing called leachate.

This is a main reason why European Commission wants the landfills to remain as exception.

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#18

Post by jfeser » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #11

AstralStorm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? Groundwater and rain runoff. Drinking partially degraded plastic is not exactly neutral to health. Poisoning wildlife with the added colorings or plastics themselves, neither. Especially insidious are plastic fibres - partially synthetic textiles. These should all be burned clean at very high temperatures first. Litter is easy to remove and even burn, micro…

> You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? So then don't do that? And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not?

> And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not?

Yes, they are. See https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-040-03/. A key quote:

> The USEPA has concluded that all landfills eventually will leak into the environment

We can minimize the amount of material that leaks, but it seems that all landfills will eventually leak at least some of their contents.

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#19

Post by cmurf » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #5

russellbeattie wrote: post #2

Goddammit. I've been buying the plastic bags of Tide Pods because I just assumed it was less waste than getting a plastic tub every time. Definitely less space taken up in my recycle bin. Blergh. It's not like it's 1953 and the world is just discovering the wonders of plastic. We should be doing better. I don't understand why it's even legal to produce disposable plastic containers today that are not 100%, easily rec…

> I don't understand why it's even legal to produce disposable plastic containers today that are not 100%, easily recyclable It's because it's completely harmless to landfill them. Litter is bad. Full stop. Landfill however is not. I've noticed a trend in these types of articles that conflates the two things as if they were the same. Then they tend of mix in info (plastic in the ocean) that applies to countries that…

People are lazy and selfish. If government doesn't give them a disincentive: fines for littering, high taxes for buying unrecyclable plastics or banning them outright, people flat out do not change their behavior. If everyone on earth consumed and trashed as much as the average American, the whole planet would be a toxic waste dump. And we've seen that in the early part of the industrial revolution in the U.S., toxic rivers and streams, that took decades and billions of mostly public funds to clean up those superfund sites.

Re: 'Horrible hybrids': the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares

#20

Post by Hokusai » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 8:18 PM UTC

diarmuidie wrote: post #7

I wish there was some sort of scoring system for product packaging that would take into account the quantity and environmental impact of the packaging. Like, if the product comes in a small cardboard box it gets a good score, but if that cardboard is lined with a plastic film (effectively making the cardboard non-recyclable) then the score goes way down. That score could then be used by consumers to make informed dec…

> I wish there was some sort of scoring system for product packaging that would take into account the quantity and environmental impact of the packaging.

It already exists: https://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/recycling-by-the-nu...

I think that regulation is the only measure that works. Asking people to track the level of recycling of each item they buy is too much of a task. Minimum legal standards assure to remove the worst cases, and then information may help for conscienced individuals.