221–230 of 241 posts
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
thats good to know, i wonder if there are some differences between older and newer inceneration facilities... when i lived near the ocean in kawasaki there was always some black fine-grained soot that would slowly build up over the year on a veranda, and wondered if it wasnt the nearby incinerators...
Hm, harbour, ships? And in general dust from the tires and brakes of cars and trucks? In 2014 one container giant coming into the port here had a little mishap, burning heavy bunker oil which is only allowed at high seas. Turned on the fire alarms in a hospital 1 km away from the river, and several others too :-) https://www.fotocommunity.de/photo/schwefelpilz-ms-yang-ming... https://www.mopo.de/action/mopo/23044568/…
hmmm that probably makes more sense, yea
Um, what's the deal with editing the headline? The original asserts a statement. It may or may not be true. But why would it benefit HN readers to turn this assertion into a question?
no deal - the submission bookmarklet JS[1] automatically fills in the title from the html meta: Is Plastic Recycling A Lie? Oil Companies Touted Recycling To Sell More Plastic : NPR [1] javascript:window.location=%22 https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=%22+encodeURICompo...
But that bookmarklet is also at fault, since at the minimum submissions are required to strip out the site's name if it occurs in the title, so leaving in the ": NPR" bit is a bug in this automated approach. So some amount of human post-processing will always be needed. And while submissions are expected to keep the original title, there is also a rule that egregious clickbait like the question in the title tag should be removed (which has now been done!).
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…
It makes buzzing and popping sounds, and there are blue-white arcs/tendrils all over it and the nail for maybe half a minute. Like crazy CGI in a movie! And it STINKS! That is for non-rechargables. Haven't tried that with rechargables.
I'm in Chicago. Literally every time I see a garbage truck, it's dumping the recyclables in with the trash. This doesn't surprise me at all.
That’s a common urban myth. The trucks have several compartments.
Almost all the plastic trash I see is due to food takeout. If we simply were to require that food take out use reusable containers (special bins in public spaces, deliver people transport back to restaurant for home deliver) I think NYC could cut its waste by a huge portion.
I am sick of people saying problems are easy to fix by just enacting new laws or regulations. It is so naive. Reusable containers are relatively heavy and take up space in delivery vehicles. It will cost the restaurants time and money to do this. People won’t spend the time to take the containers back so they will end up in the trash or people will find use for them. So all you’ve done is drive up food costs for low…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a common urban myth. The trucks have several compartments.
Not where I live, at least not for glass. I can see down into them from above and it all goes into the same bin. No separation at all.
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 wes…