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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

#121

Post by SahAssar »

User23 wrote: post #101
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.

I remember in Germany there used to be bins for green glass, brown glass, and clear glass.

I think the separation between green and brown is more common in places where a lot of the glass is from beer bottles which usually come in those varieties.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#122

Post by pessimizer »

rogerb wrote: post #86

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…

> 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.

The minuscule punishment that can be visited on the people involved in things like this won't clean up a molecule of the damage done, and won't be a deterrent for people who would do it in future (or who are doing similar things now.)

Revenge isn't a cure, executing murderers never brings people back to life. The problem is a system that gives a small number of people the power to cause such widespread damage for a relatively tiny amount of personal benefit. The amount of damage that has been done for a $10K bribe, or to keep a $150K/yr job, etc. is immeasurable. It's not scalable to track down or filter out people who will put their personal security or comfort ahead of yours, or your entire town's. We have to accept that the way that power is distributed is dangerously uneven, and consciously prevent that.

Also, let's not kid ourselves. This story will fade and be forgotten, and the practices will continue. The ability to stop powerful people from doing what they want to do isn't dependent on the consequences of what they do, but on the power that you have to stop them. Power comes from solidarity. They have it, through their command structure, and we don't. The American mind has retreated into various competing fantasies and myths; there's no chance for solidarity among the victims of these types of material harms.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#123

Post by petulla »

neltnerb wrote: post #64
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 plan…

Does this include plastic bags? I find that barely anyone recycles 7 or flexible plastic, so I'm not sure stores are gaining much from collection in terms of image.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#124

Post by jonplackett »

maxerickson wrote: post #61
jonplackett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hah. I knew someone would take it super literally!

I’m just meaning without the in the ground stuff!

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#125

Post by franciscop »

flixic wrote: post #35
mirekrusin wrote: post #24

If you go to Switzerland it opens your eyes a bit - there's no plastic recycling, there's only PET plastic recycling. If the bottle/whatever is not PET, it's not recycleble and you have to buy special, taxed bag that's used for "everything else" that gets burned/whatever. PET plastic can be recycled to lower grade plastic used for outdoor mats etc.

Same in Japan.

On the other hand, packaging (and thus plastic waste) in Japan is next-level ridiculous. A fancier food present will be often wrapped in at least 3 layers, and I've counted u to 5: bag, present paper, normal box, group package, individual package.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#126

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

Why are we always blaming the public for being easily deceived and not the people who invest large sums of financial and political capital in the deception?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#127

Post by loteck »

SahAssar wrote: post #96
anigbrowl wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I live in an apartment complex, so we have different receptacles for each. But for single-family homes there are usually segmented so you have different subsections for each like this: https://www.rambo.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/fyrfackskrl-... 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…

What does the emptying collection process look like for one of those barrels? I can only assume someone comes by, manually opens the lid and by hand takes out each of the smaller containers one by one, and empties them into larger segregated collection containers. Is that true?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#128

Post by jonplackett »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #28
jonplackett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A jump from coal straight to nuclear and renewables would have been possible. That said, there are an innumerable number of side effects from cheap fossil fuels that would change present reality as we know it were they removed. Removing cheap fossil fuel energy could have drastically slowed down emigration from cities to the burbs, so it’s also fun to imagine a different present where there’s dozens of New York Citie…

It’s weird to think if we hadn’t had fossil fuels at all how badly it would have hampered human development. Could we have even got to modern development level without so much free power? It doesn’t seem likely. Perhaps the challenge would have forced us to come up with more imaginative solutions - I mean there’s oceans full of hydrogen for starters. And the sun would still be shining and the oceans still full of waves!

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#129

Post by fsflover »

aaron695 wrote: post #89

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 )

Most of people are "dumb enough" to believe what TV says, because they expect the government should put in jail everyone who openly lies for profit.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#130

Post by diebeforei485 »

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.

Any benefits of this are effectively negated by emissions from VMT's driving to the recycling center.
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