91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#111

Post by olejorgenb » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

scottndecker wrote: post #11

aNoob7000 wrote: post #5

Listen to the latest episode of Planet Money. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money

This. Most plastics can't be recycled; it was a PR play by the plastic industry decades ago. Using plastics for such things as medical devices and such makes complete sense to me. Using plastics for items which inherently are only used for a few minutes or an hour (see the F&B industry) makes no sense at all to me.

There are a few companies claiming progress in chemical recycling. eg.:

https://quantafuel.com/ | https://newsweb.oslobors.no/message/513575

80% (by weight) recovery into high quality liquids (eg.: nafta). They claim the majority of the energy used by the process comes from the remaining 20%.

The acceptable input is mostly PP and PE, the two most commonly used plastics (at least for packaging). A special catalysator is used to remove additives like chlorine.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#112

Post by davinic » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

jlmorton wrote: post #80

makecheck wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…

> hauling millions of bottles around the world If it's a 1:1 transition from plastic bottle to glass bottle, it would be 35 billion bottles annually, in the US alone.

It wouldn't be. Forcing the producers to pay for their externalities will also make some products like bottled water cost-prohibitive to sell in glass bottles and reduce demand or increase packaging sizes to more is bought in reusable plastic carboys, etc. "Reduce" is more important than reuse or recycle and while there is an obvious need for cheap bottled water, probably at least 80% of plastic disposable water bottles do not need to be sold in that way.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#113

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #106

lotsofpulp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am curious why it's not working Problem number one is expecting people to put forth the time and effort into sorting all of their recyclables. The whole situation is so complicated and rules so difficult to enforce, I don't see how it can be considered a feasible solution. The vastly easier, far more high impact solution is to reduce consumption.

Is sorting really the biggest problem? Are there studies that back this up? (Asking honestly; I'd love to read them if they exist). Some countries not named the United States are pretty good counter-examples, where the public is generally very good about sorting. I've personally watched people ignore recycling signs on purpose, or get flustered by multiple bins because they've never seen more than one, but ultimately…

Here's a good op-ed from the CEO of Recology explaining the issue:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/It-is-...

This site has some good links:

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-recycling-broken.html

> recent Greenpeace report found that some PET (#1) and HDPE (#2) plastic bottles are the only types of plastic that are truly recyclable in the U.S. today; and yet only 29 percent of PET bottles are collected for recycling, and of this, only 21 percent of the bottles are actually made into recycled materials due to contamination.

>China used to accept plastics #3 through #7, which were mostly burned for fuel. Today #3 – #7 plastics may be collected in the U.S., but they are not actually recycled; they usually end up incinerated, buried in landfills or exported. In fact Greenpeace is asking companies such as Nestle, Walmart, Proctor & Gamble and Unilever that label their products made with #3 -#7 plastics as "recyclable" to stop or it will file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission for mislabeling.

On my street, people put out 2 bins, one for recycling, and one for non recyclable trash. We put all our recycling in one bin, paper, plastic, metal, etc, and everything else in the trash that you don't think is recyclable. And no one is checking which number plastic is placed in the bin. I assume it all goes to landfill.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#114

Post by gruez » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

jolux wrote: post #108

gruez wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't see where consumers are on the hook? We were told that plastic was better (e.g. the switch from paper bags to plastic). No, that's just fraud. Externality has a very specific meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality . In this case a third party isn't bearing the cost. It's still the consumer (via taxes or garbage disposal fees). >As a comparison to electronics industry in many jurisdictions there a…

The fraud was in denying the externality, which is on the environment in the form of massive amounts of material that can’t be recycled and which do not biodegrade.

>which is on the environment in the form of massive amounts of material that can’t be recycled

Why is that bad? It's not like we're running out of landfill space (at least in the US), and it's not like plastic in a landfill leeches chemicals into the drinking water or something.

> and which do not biodegrade

I don't think anyone was fooled into thinking that plastics were biodegradable.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#115

Post by ouid » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #60

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #19

The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…

> The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. At the risk of sounding like an industry shill: why is it being characterized as an cost externalization by the petrochemical/packaging industries, rather than the consumers? I agree that any pollution generated during extraction and manufacture can be attributed as an externaliz…

All you have to do if you're looking for a "market" solution to this, is price in the externality somewhere. What portion of the externality the consumer and the producer end up being responsible for will ultimately be decided by the price of the product. As for why the externality should be recouped at the industry level, the accounting is just a lot less expensive there.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#116

Post by hristov » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #83

hristov wrote: post #61

As I have said before the solution is compostable plastic. It solves the problem with the smallest net change in behavior of the affected parties. As we have regrettably seen with the coronavirus changing the behavior of large populations is incredibly difficult even if there are dire repercussions for failure to change. The cost of compostable plastic is slightly higher than the usual plastic, so the governments wil…

I disagree. The solution is burning plastic for energy. You get to use the oil from the ground twice: Once as plastic, and again for energy. It's a win/win since you reduce oil you burn and get rid of plastic waste.

Have you ever burned ordinary plastic? The smell is horrific, there are some truly nasty poisons being released.

Furthermore, compostable plastics will solve the biggest problem of plastic pollution -- the a-hole that just tosses plastic garbage in the ground because he/she doesn't give a damn. Compostable plastics compost much faster in proper municipal/industrial composting facilities, so it is still important to throw the stuff away in compost bins and to have regular pickup service, but they will compost in the environment too. Thus, there is some defense against the morons that just litter.

In other words, compostable plastics fail better than all the other choices.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#117

Post by noxer » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #44

noxer wrote: post #28

PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT S02EP05 Recycling https://www.bitchute.com/video/j0Hd6UfA4MKo/ Yes its old but not much has changed.

And here's their equally scientifically accurate take on climate change from the same time period. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fWt2Rir8OQk Big fan of both Penn and Teller but libertarian bullshit is still bullshit and they proved that even smart people fall for it if they hang in the wrong circles too much.

Admitting that they where wrong on some parts isn't exactly bad. Also doesn't affect the countless other topics they covered from which almost all are still BS today. Could they have been wrong on recycling? Yes, they could but there is no evidence that they where wrong.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#118

Post by lm28469 » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #91

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thought exercise: Sugary bottled drinks are even worse for the environment. They not only have the same bottles and water involved but they also have other ingredients that add even more environmental consequences. They have public health consequences too. But of course to ban sugary drinks would cut into the realm of personal choice right? After all people may choose to want a sugary beverage. So no one argues tha…

Drink water out of the tap like a civilized person.

I had people visiting from Greece, Poland and Spain asking me if my tap water (Berlin) was safe to drink. You don't have to go to uncivilized parts of the world to get bad tap water.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#119

Post by _Microft » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #37

scottndecker wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Most plastics can't be recycled; it was a PR play by the plastic industry decades ago. Using plastics for such things as medical devices and such makes complete sense to me. Using plastics for items which inherently are only used for a few minutes or an hour (see the F&B industry) makes no sense at all to me.

"Using plastics for items which inherently are only used for a few minutes or an hour" Of course it makes sense. Plastic is cheap, light, watertight, strong, and mallable. It's kind of a miracle material, except that it's too stable. If we had a version that decomposed in a year, it would be awesome.

A quickly decomposing plastic wouldn't be awesome either as it would add all the carbon extracted from fossil sources into the short term carbon cycle more quickly.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#120

Post by oefnak » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #102

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #19

The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…

No. "Single-use" plastic is often used for a long time, longer than "eco" alternatives like paper bags that simply don't do the job well enough to be reused. Glass and paper are horrible alternatives (for the environment) if not recycled properly (and they aren't, like plastic).

Glass and paper may cost more energy, but don't cause pollution. And when we have enough solar panels, energy will be free.

Removing all microplastics from nature will be a lot harder.