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

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

#131

Post by ars » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #116

ars wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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

Only if you don't use enough oxygen. Except for PVC plastic does not have any bad atoms in it, if fully burned the exhaust is completely safe (it's just water and CO2).

A proper, hot, incinerator will burn plastic very safely.

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

#132

Post by kgabis » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

oefnak wrote: post #120

lazyjones wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, energy won't be free with "enough solar panels". There's this thing called night. And seasons. And transmission losses.

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

#133

Post by ars » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

MayeulC wrote: post #125

ars wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While it's better than burning oil for energy, that's still a loss for carbon emissions, though. And you still need fresh oil to produce more plastic. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but this is not the end game. The end game is either: ~ 100 % reduction in plastic use. ~ 100 % recycled plastic Those two goals are not mutually exclusive either. Yes, it might cost a lot of energy to recycle plastic. As long as that…

Until we completely stop burning oil, it's always more worth it (environmentally) to burn plastic, vs recycle it.

Once there is no oil burned, and it's all used for plastic, then it makes sense to implement your plan. But not until then.

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

#134

Post by aksss » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

josho wrote: post #77

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…

> Go to the beach and forget your water bottle? You better like Coca-Cola because that's all they'll sell you! Your comment reveals your age. The parent and myself are old enough to remember a time when you could go to numerous public places and drink from a water fountain. It also showcases just how far we've fallen as a society and have settled to create profit seeking solutions at the expense of what is best for s…

Part of that "fall of society" has been the fact that people don't always trust their fellow citizens to upkeep the sanitation of public facilities. I can think of plenty of places where, even if they had a public fountain, I wouldn't touch it. It's not always some great capitalist conspiracy.

https://www.today.com/food/video-woman-licking-container-blu...

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

#135

Post by kgabis » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #116

ars wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Why bother with compostable plastics if we can just bury the plastics in a landfill and forget about them? The volume of plastics is insignificant, the only problem is plastics that don't end up in landfills but in oceans instead.

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

#136

Post by kgabis » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

vaccinator wrote: post #81

I pretty much stopped using my recycling bins... except for aluminum.

I don't get why this comment is downvoted. This is the only reasonable thing to do from the energy standpoint.

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

#137

Post by agumonkey » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

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…

I wonder, with all the material refined from extracted base material (be it oil for plastic or ore for alloys) .. how much could we live by simply reusing discarded lots (old cars in the case of metals, similar for plastics)

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

#138

Post by ouid » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

R0b0t1 wrote: post #123

ouid wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What externalizes? Most talk of the externalities assumes some quantity that exists somewhere, but without a good reason to believe they exist why should we? A simple example is the current cost of recycling plastic: it's too expensive so it won't happen. Consequently putting these on the sheet as an externalities doesn't make sense Forcing it to happen is probably nonsensical, why not fund research into plastic recy…

It seems you either don't know what an externality is, or you don't understand how plastic is an externality. In the second case, I literally cannot help you. Try to imagine yourself as a member of the ecosystem which is actively collapsing? The oxygen you are breathing isn't made in a lab.

The creation, purchase, and disposal of plastic has consequences for people that are not involved in that chain, and therefore have no ability to be compensated (or in the case where those consequences produce a societal benefit, compensate) in this transaction.

This is a very common market failure. Most "transactions" actually effect everybody. One of the roles of government (and I suspect there are some radical economists that would say the only role of government) is to measure these external costs of transactions, and tax or subsidize the transactions accordingly. Externalities represent an essentially infinite amount of market failure, and the heuristics that are employed for dealing with them are almost necessarily very crude.

In the case of bottles, we are saying "Hey, we estimate the environmental damage of one plastic bottle at %d, and we are charging you that amount to sell one".

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

#139

Post by barney54 » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #56

TylerE wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just assuming that glass is better than plastic. I challenge that assumption. Glass is much heavier and bulkier (so a truck will carry less product, and burn more fuel and cause more road wear to do so), and more product will be lost to spoilage.

Glass also takes a lot of energy to produce. In many (most?) cases more fossil fuels will be consumed making a glass container than the plastic equivalent. The same sorts of issues apply to coated paper or card containers.

Glass is also somewhat difficult to recycle. The actual recycling is easy, but different colors of glass needs to be sorted. And glass is heavy, so it’s costly to transport.

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

#140

Post by lightgreen » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #118

pathseeker wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are different levels of "safe".

For example, in London it's "safe" to drink tap water, it does not contain toxic checmicals of bacteria, but it is calcium rich, and drinking it constantly may be harmful for kidneys.