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Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

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Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#61

Post by maxerickson »

jonplackett wrote: post #8
jonplackett wrote: post #5

I wonder what the world would look like now if there never was any oil. We’d have missed out on a lot of industrialising. Would we have had as many wars? I guess we could still have got into space using methane. Will all the positive stuff oil’s given us be undone by just how bad the climate gets? Interesting thought experiment!

Just realised it would probably just be a world filled with coal smoke, but at least less plastic pollution!

What meaning of oil are you using?

Skin works a lot better with oil, for instance, and it isn't absurd to say that most cells in animals are made out of oil.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#63

Post by aspaceman »

tootahe45 wrote: post #57
saddlerustle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't matter how stupid it is, once a govt employee's job depends on it good luck getting rid of it.

Do you have anything to back this up besides snark?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#64

Post by neltnerb »

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…

No, plastic degrades each time it is recycled. They knew that, every materials scientist knew that, and it is just not possible to fully reclaim recycled plastic.

What really pisses me off is the use of the recycling number as marketing. Which is still ongoing and being modernized. Leave a complaint card any time you see compostable plastic being used in a city that doesn't have specialized industrial composting plants, that stuff is worse than trash because it's also misleading about how to dispose of it and makes the store look green when it's really just making things worse.

In almost all locations, PLA, "compostable plastic" (often labeled number 7 or 0 for marketing) is not only not recyclable but actively contaminates compost and recycling plants. I see all these places using "compostable plastic" because they think it's more environmentally friendly. It's a noble goal, it makes me so sad to see.

The stores that pick those containers do so because they want to project an environmentally conscious image, and the "eco" marketing on this utter trash gets them to pay top dollar for those containers instead of just using paper. I feel so bad for these stores, it takes a PhD to dispose of this misleading and dangerous material properly.

As a normal consumer, if I saw that logo and "compostable plastic" guess where I'd throw it. Compost? Recycling? Probably one or the other right? Wrong, if I put it in the compost I make the compost produced from the food scraps contaminated and unsafe for use. If I put it in the recycling it gets melted in with other polymers and contaminates them, degrading the other plastic even faster if the whole batch doesn't need to be thrown away outright.

Edit: The one saving grace is that I know that where I live trash is incinerated. So at least I feel less bad throwing this stuff in the trash. It was just oil that made a temporary detour as a container before being burned for electricity. Still, I'd rather they just use unadulterated paper (no little plastic spouts glued on), glass, and aluminum which are all easily recycled or burn clean.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#65

Post by miked85 »

drak0n1c wrote: post #37

It doesn't help when progressive cities like Seattle provide giant recycling bins to houses with no charge for pickup, while charging regressive high prices for small regular garbage bins. It's a huge incentive just to throw excess plastic and foam bits into the recycling - people do not like getting charged another $5 for a one-time extra garbage bag pickup.

I think it is also just a huge incentive to simply throw anything into recycling bins. Just glancing inside the one at my complex reveals it is used as a normal trash bin by many.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#66

Post by SahAssar »

When I first heard that in the US they just throw all "recycling" in the same bin it sounded insane. I'm used to sorting into colored glass, clear glass, paper, cardboard, metal, compost, batteries, plastic and "general".

I'm pretty sure the metal and plastic (if it actually is ever recycled) categories could benefit from better segmentation too.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#67

Post by aspaceman »

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.

Or maybe we should stop companies from making genuine truck loads of the garbage? They make it cause it’s cheap, and they don’t give a flying fuck about the world.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#68

Post by maxk42 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #51
hesdeadjim wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get doubtful looks from friends when I explain to them that the only waste worth sticking in the recycling bin is aluminum and glass. These articles that have popped up on this topic are hugely useful to refer people to. I don’t enjoy being right, I just want there to be an open understanding of the lies that have led us to this situation so new solutions can be developed. It might just be that burying it in the gr…

Not even glass, actually. Glass is pretty much just molten sand, and there's scarce value in recycling glass, when you can get fresh and clean sand instead. It makes sense to reuse glass bottles, but recycling glass into new ones is pointless.

Specifically green and brown bottles are cost-effective to recycle. Clear bottles typically are not.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#69

Post by dgellow »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #36
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…

I get doubtful looks from friends when I explain to them that the only waste worth sticking in the recycling bin is aluminum and glass. These articles that have popped up on this topic are hugely useful to refer people to. I don’t enjoy being right, I just want there to be an open understanding of the lies that have led us to this situation so new solutions can be developed. It might just be that burying it in the gr…

PET is also useful to put in a recycle bin (or in the PET bin, or bring back to the store, whatever is the correct thing to do where you live), it's highly recyclable. I'm always surprised to see that a lot of places don't seem to care about it and don't have special accommodations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#70

Post by asquabventured »

aspaceman wrote: post #63
tootahe45 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter how stupid it is, once a govt employee's job depends on it good luck getting rid of it.

Do you have anything to back this up besides snark?

The real world?
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