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

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

#211

Post by happymellon » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 7:58 AM UTC

makecheck wrote: post #33

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’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…

It's interesting that, at least in the UK, the beer industry is fine with glass bottles and metal cans.

Why is soda so special that it deserves special treatment?

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

#212

Post by tim333 » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:00 AM UTC

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #155

chubot wrote: post #42

I still don't get how bottled water became a thing. It wasn't a thing when I was a kid, and somehow the industry convinced us to buy huge quantities of an inferior product for more money, and it pollutes the environment to boot. Insane. The least you can do is use a refillable container. 10+ years ago Google switched from bottle water to giving everyone a container. And that was a great move. Yet people complained, a…

I am fregan for environmental reasons, among others. I get much of my food out of dumpsters. I don't buy any clothes, like, ever, only hand-me-downs. I don't ride in a car unless it's already going that way. Several years ago, I paid a couple hundred bucks to get my municipal water (large U.S. city) tested in a lab. After seeing the results, I almost never drink tap water, and I buy a gallon of spring water (in clear…

The system in (rural) Thailand works quite well. The locals don't drink the tap water but get it in large 20L or so reusable plastic containers. There's a deposit of like $70c and a refill is like $20c from the local store.

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

#213

Post by greatpatton » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:02 AM UTC

seymore_12 wrote: post #210

mahkeiro wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want to recycle you can. In Switzerland 80% of PET bottle are collected and recycled (without deposit). This is paid by manufacturers and distributors who have to collect and pay for the recycling. Current bottles are composed of 50% of recycled PET, and some manufacturer are starting to introduce 100% bottle. Of course, to reach that result you need laws, you cannot expect the free market to do it.

Do you have a source to backup that statement? It is true that there are separate containers for PET in CH, problem the way I see it, is that people simply do not know which bottles are PET and throw in there all kinds of plastic. Sometimes, when I throw mine, I take 5 and watch what the others are throwing, essentially, if the bottle has this 3 arrows "recycle" sign, it goes in the PET basket, simple as that.

Here is an article in English: https://lenews.ch/2020/01/14/swiss-get-more-pet-recycling-po...

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

#214

Post by ManlyBread » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:09 AM 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…

Are there any examples of taxing goods that solved an environmental issue? My feeling is that these taxes do nothing aside from increasing the cost of the goods.

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

#215

Post by tijl » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:28 AM UTC

happymellon wrote: post #211

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…

It's interesting that, at least in the UK, the beer industry is fine with glass bottles and metal cans. Why is soda so special that it deserves special treatment?

The beer industry would love to use plastic bottles. But beer goes stale in plastic. Plastic is not good at keeping the oxygen out and the alcohol in. There are bottles with multiple layers in different types of plastic that work reasonably well, but they are more expensive than standard PET bottles, much harder to recycle than PET, and still not as good for storing beer as glass is.

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

#216

Post by PowerBar » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:49 AM UTC

agotterer wrote: post #189

Skunkleton wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of bottles around the world, it will take more energy to move glass bottles. This is true, but it (mostly) not an externalized cost. By forcing environmental costs to be internalized by industry, the market should guide industry away from damaging the environment. Of course that would require honest, compl…

Where I live the local government told us to stop putting glass in our recycling bin and to throw it out instead. The reason I’ve heard is that the glass is breaking and making it harder to recycle it or the things it contaminates. This is unfortunate because I don’t think most people are taking their glass to the supermarket to be recycled and instead a highly recyclable good is ending up in a plastic garbage bag at…

Parts of lower mainland BC (Canada) are the same. For example, I can recycle glass in Vancouver, but Surrey stopped accepting it years ago because they changed recycling companies and the new one considers it a safety hazard for their works. Conversely, Surrey will recycle plastic bags, but in Vancouver you have to drop them off at the grocery store (only a few stores do this).

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

#217

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 12:36 PM UTC

themeiguoren wrote: post #158

oefnak wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Paper grocery bags give off gas when they rot, whereas the (smaller) amount of energy in a plastic grocery bag is carbon locked in a controlled landfill. I think there’s a strong argument for plastic bags being more environmentally friendly.

[deleted]

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

#218

Post by agotterer » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

jasonmp85 wrote: post #197

agotterer wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The folks at Tap ( https://findtap.com/ ) are trying to make it easier to refill a water bottle while your out and about or traveling. It doesn’t solve the problem globally, but it’s great to see companies trying to reduce plastic waste and make it easy and free/cheap to access clean water.

Well, is it free or is it cheap? The solution is called a water fountain and they should all be free.

In the end someone has to pay for it. Water fountains need maintenance and cleaning. I’ve seen quite a few public fountains I’d never drink from. Tap is interesting because it correctly aligns consumer incentives and maintenance costs.

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

#219

Post by xadhominemx » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 1:37 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…

Single use plastics are a tiny fraction of our carbon footprint. They are also very convenient and make users’ lives better. It would be a strange place to start with severe regulation.

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

#220

Post by DoingIsLearning » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #219

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…

Single use plastics are a tiny fraction of our carbon footprint. They are also very convenient and make users’ lives better. It would be a strange place to start with severe regulation.

> Single use plastics are a tiny fraction of our carbon footprint

... And a Lion's share of the microplastic calamity contaminating our oceans, our ground water and our food supply.

Not everything is about CO2 emissions. With a single business decision, Humans have managed to contaminate the whole water cycle with micro-plastics all the way up to alpine glaciers. [0]

Single-use plastic is outstandingly great for seller's short-term direct costs, bad for almost everything else.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02697...