Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic • Hacker News Board

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#11

Post by MattGaiser » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

I see the solution as just a better recycling symbol that a machine can easily recognize. Instead of the 7 broad categories, have 1000 highly specific categories and tag each piece in such a way that a machine can read the tag and sort it accordingly.

Number 1 plastic with water and number 1 plastic with yoghurt should have different tags because one may be contaminated and one not. The former might still be #1. The latter would be #278.

Solving the sorting problem would make recycling a lot more economical as that is where a lot of the costs are.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#12

Post by kennywinker » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #4

Reduce, reuse, recycle - meaning recycling is the last option. It's better to not consume plastic in the first place, but if you must, find additional uses for it. It takes more of a lifestyle change though than to simply put your cans in a different barrel. Which is probably why few people are willing to try it.

> Which is probably why few people are willing to try it.

This is placing a lot of the blame on individual people. I would very much like to use less plastic, and I'm willing to work for it... but my options are very limited. Nearly every product I buy is encased in multiple layers of plastic. I favor second hand stuff, and reduce my overall consumption by avoiding unnecessary purchases. Because I live in a major west-coast city, I can go out of my way to shop at a zero-waste grocery store - but they don't carry many things that I need for daily life.

Ultimately, consumer choice only works if there are options available. I can't vote with my dollars for things that are not on the ballot.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#13

Post by chrischen » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #4

Reduce, reuse, recycle - meaning recycling is the last option. It's better to not consume plastic in the first place, but if you must, find additional uses for it. It takes more of a lifestyle change though than to simply put your cans in a different barrel. Which is probably why few people are willing to try it.

I feel Americans tend to over-consume and undervalue reuse. I always get made fun of for selling my used things on ebay and also buying used instead of new.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#14

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

disown wrote: post #9

jpab wrote: post #6

Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24441979

It was on the frontpage since yesterday. And the minute it drops off the frontpage, it gets spammed to the frontpage again. Unbelievable. Not only that another NPR story got spammed to the frontpage at the same time. Now that's interesting. Edit: Looks like I touched a nerve.

[deleted]

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#15

Post by chockablock » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #7

nend wrote: post #4

Reduce, reuse, recycle - meaning recycling is the last option. It's better to not consume plastic in the first place, but if you must, find additional uses for it. It takes more of a lifestyle change though than to simply put your cans in a different barrel. Which is probably why few people are willing to try it.

This is not an individual choice. I can try to recycle plastic, but if there is no government programs to handle this issue, it will not work.

You can choose to reduce or reuse, though.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#16

Post by conception » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

disown wrote: post #9

jpab wrote: post #6

Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24441979

It was on the frontpage since yesterday. And the minute it drops off the frontpage, it gets spammed to the frontpage again. Unbelievable. Not only that another NPR story got spammed to the frontpage at the same time. Now that's interesting. Edit: Looks like I touched a nerve.

Important story by big news outfit is shared a lot is hardly interesting.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#17

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #11

I see the solution as just a better recycling symbol that a machine can easily recognize. Instead of the 7 broad categories, have 1000 highly specific categories and tag each piece in such a way that a machine can read the tag and sort it accordingly. Number 1 plastic with water and number 1 plastic with yoghurt should have different tags because one may be contaminated and one not. The former might still be #1. The…

With single stream everything is contaminated.

And then many of the categories simply aren't worth anything, sorted or not.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#18

Post by henrikschroder » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

Who cares? Burn the plastic trash!

You get the plastic item use out of it, and you get almost all the energy from it as if you had burned the oil directly.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#19

Post by kennywinker » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

disown wrote: post #9

jpab wrote: post #6

Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24441979

It was on the frontpage since yesterday. And the minute it drops off the frontpage, it gets spammed to the frontpage again. Unbelievable. Not only that another NPR story got spammed to the frontpage at the same time. Now that's interesting. Edit: Looks like I touched a nerve.

How can a frontpage based on user votes contain spam? Seems like you're implying something nefarious going on in order to explain a huge + impactful story's presence here?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#20

Post by saddlerustle » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

blululu wrote: post #10

It is always a little surprising how naive people are when it comes to recycling. The majority of the cost and difficulty comes in sorting. Back in the good old days most US municipalities used to require people to sort their recycling by type, but over the years we have switched to a more wasteful system. For aluminum cans the material is valuable and relatively easy to sort. For plastic the material is cheap and so…

If cost of recycling is high, what is the benefit? It's not significantly reduced carbon emissions (a person's average annual plastic usage is priced at only tens of dollars worth of carbon emissions under a system like the EU ETS), and in the US it's not land shortage (an order of magnitude more land is used by golf corses than landfills), and modern landfills don't pollute the surrounding environment.