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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...
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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.
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…
I discovered this last year when our city posted on FB that you couldn't put berry and salad clamshell containers in recycling because if these were found then the entire batch would go to the landfill. After some clarification basically only water and coke bottles are eligible here.
I'd be like "can I recycle polystyrene (number 6) here" and they'd answer with "put any rigid plastic in the recycling" and I'm just like... that is not how it works...
Surprise -- none of those three cities can recycle polystyrene. That's what those clamshells are usually made of. Same material as packing peanuts, potentially my least favorite invention of the modern shipping industry.
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?
When I lived in my last apartment I carried the glass/plastic/paper/cardboard and so on a block over to a public recycling station, so that was a lot less convenient but I think they have dedicated receptacles now.
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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.
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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.
The thing many people don't know is that not all sands are equal.
For example desert sand is not usable for cement or other building purpose. We are currently running out of sand usable for it and are scrapping it from the sea ground or islands, both doing MAJOR environmental damage.
For glass the context is a bit different the sand needed for glass production seems to be readily available, at least in the EU (source German Wikipedia article about Quarzsand, no english version).
But producing (bottle) glass from recycling glass needs much less energy then producing it from sand.
Furthermore recycling glass bottles isn't too hard to do, especially if you produce green glass.
In Germany in average 60% of glass used to produce a bottle is recycled, for green bottles its up to 95% for mineral wool it's up to 80%. (German Wikipedia).
(As a side note only bottles go in the glass recycling bin, class from e.g. a broken window does not belong there!)
For example, I'm reading this article from 2011 that mentions that 77% of Japan's plastic is recycled: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/dec/29/japan-le...
Is that complete bullshit too, or is something possible to actually achieve, just not in the US?
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...
