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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

#81

Post by stjohnswarts »

SahAssar wrote: post #66

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.

Why? Separation actually works pretty well, I'm not sure why we need to "fix" that. What doesn't is people still leave food in things and don't do basic things like not throw in little bits of plastic like straws.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#82

Post by foolmeonce »

maxk42 wrote: post #68
xyzzyz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think clear bottles sent for recycling just end up in other colors.. Getting clear out would be hard.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#84

Post by anigbrowl »

SahAssar wrote: post #66

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.

Can you fill in the rest of the picture? How many different receptacles do you have to put out on the street?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#85

Post by klyrs »

criddell wrote: post #54
xyzzyz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Aren't we running out of sand too? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...

Concrete requires river sand because of its texture. AFAIK, desert sand is quite abundant and perfectly suited to being melted down into glass.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#86

Post by rogerb »

I'd love to see a class action lawsuit keeping the people who lied accountable for the amount of additional waste in effort, resources that are used to separate and collect these separate streams.

Stuff like this (h/t @neltnerb): >>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.

So many groups would have standing to sue here...

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#87

Post by neltnerb »

SahAssar wrote: post #66

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.

Metal and plastic are super easy to separate by density or by electrical conductivity. Batteries are considered hazardous waste and have to be disposed of separately, similarly for old electronics or CFL bulbs that contain mercury.

But commingled recycling was one of the most predictably stupid moves in the area of environmentalism I've seen in a long time (well, prior to 2016 anyway), when I heard my city was moving to commingled recycling I knew they were no longer actually recycling it, I guarantee almost all of it ends up in the landfill because of contamination. It's so frustrating.

At least corn ethanol wasn't obviously quite so stupid upfront, it was always theoretically possible that it would make sense even if it was kind of obvious it wouldn't actually work.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#88

Post by m0zg »

IIRC it's been a lie for quite a while where I live. It used to be that PNW "recyclables" were just shipped to China where I strongly suspect they were promptly landfilled after payment was collected. But China stopped taking our trash years ago, so now they are landfilled in the US. Ironically, it's likely less harmful to the environment overall, since you don't have to ship it first, and the US is likely to have more rigorous environmental standards for landfills.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#89

Post by aaron695 »

I'm sick of stupid people.

This was never a secret.

If you were dumb enough to think recycling works for anything other than aluminium you are the problem.

Penn and Tell even did a Bullshit, for pre internet times.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0771119/ ( although it was a awful episode )

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#90

Post by ceejayoz »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #77
tastyfreeze wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If consumers were compensated for recycling materials they would be much more inclined to sort properly. Recycling centers that take materials that cost too much to recycle likely have a government contract to "take care of it". They dont have a lot of incentive to be efficient. They get paid to make it disappear.

I don't know about where you live, but in California, we have a "bottle deposit" on both glass bottles and aluminum cans (~$0.10 per item), which gets returned to you if you bring it to a recycling center. The only people I see actually bothering to sort and return these are very low income people and homeless people that go through public trash cans.

That seems win/win, doesn't it?
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