The diversity of responses in this thread as to what the real problem is is deeply alarming.
Apparently hn - presumably an educated crowd - can't even agree what the problem is let alone how to fix it.
New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
121–130 of 272 posts
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's horrible, if true. Do you have a source for that? A quick Google search didn't get me anywhere. At least here in Austria the glass bottles are actually cleaned and re-used.
There isn't really any systematic reuse of glass bottles in the U.S. The only such thing I've encountered is some very niche arrangements between boutique dairy companies and boutique grocery stores, where you can return your $10 quart bottle of milk for the bottle to be reused.
The co-op I frequent in Vermont provides milk in glass bottles from various dairies. The bottles have significant deposits, but the most is $2. You return the bottle. You get the deposit back. They clean and reuse the same bottle, as is shown by the accumulating scratches on the outsides of the bottles. The co-op is the main grocery store in town, so not "boutique" except insomuch as Vermont itself is boutique. But then "boutique" just means not typical. Your implication is that it means supported by bougie people living in a fantasy land. Most of US material culture is crap. This is not by necessity.
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we should recycle plastic if we can, or better yet, switch to other materials that are easier to recycle. For example, glass bottles can just be sent back to the factory, washed and reused. This is already done for beer and wine AFAIK. It could be done for milk and every other kind of drinks as well. However, if we fail to recycle plastic, isn't burying plastic in a landfill, in a way, a form of carbon captur…
My mother used to say this happened with milk. They'd deliver it daily and collect the used bottles to be washed and reused.
Our family gets its milk direct from a farm this way in upstate NY.
It costs about 50% more, but the quality of the milk is unbelievable and unlike most supermarket milk, we’re paying the producer a sustainable rate that yields them a profit.
Overall in New York, 75% of remaining dairy farmers will be bankrupt in a year or two.
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
If by sent back you mean crushed then yeah sure bottles are reused. Oregon for example breaks the bottles when you return them to prevent fraud.
That's horrible, if true. Do you have a source for that? A quick Google search didn't get me anywhere. At least here in Austria the glass bottles are actually cleaned and re-used.
Yeah the machines around here you can hear them being crushed. Most are Tomra units. Oregon does recycle full bottles but I think that's only if you use the green bags and have them sort.
https://www.bottledropcenters.com/buy-refillable-containers/
Found a video of the same machine, you can hear the bottle breaking https://youtu.be/1wwmqmxdlSw?t=27
Quick edit: Looks like Tomra does make machines that keep the bottles intact.
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
disposing of plastics isn't so simple. burning plastic for energy is ok for some plastics, but plastics that contain chlorides produce dangerous gases. we don't have cost effective ways to capture those gases. even if we addressed that issue, the economics of w2e are poorer than those of landfills.
Citation? I was told proper incineration can take care of that l.
Tou have to incinerate at a really high temperature to get rid of the chlorine.
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first reason it's hard to just landfill it is optics. Local government asked people to sort their trash, made a big deal about it. And it's a scandal when people find out of course it's just being buried with the rest of the stuff. Recyclers were able to do two things; a) play a shell game which diverts the waste in an opaque, hopefully deniable way and b) deal with the waste more cheaply than landfilling it. The…
I've literally been in the local facility that sorts recycling, they do a good job of sorting clean stuff by type and throw everything else away, into the landfill where it is located. Should I not believe my lying eyes? So someone pays to haul stuff away on trucks and I'm supposed to believe that they are dumping that stuff in the ocean for some reason. Or shipping it to China and then dumping it in the ocean.
The situation isn't binary.
Waste management is handled at the local government level, they tend to "do their own thing". If your local government is doing the right thing, good for them! It could be burnt, landfilled, exported, sorted and sent to a local processor or sorted and then exported.
Sorting is not a binary process either. You can sort to different contamination levels depending on what processors are willing to take.
Not all waste is the same; different kinds of waste are handled differently in different places.
Local conditions make a difference; how much do voters care about the environment really? How much unused space is nearby? Are you way inland or near a port? etc.
But we can zoom out a bit and look at the macro trends.
I thought this article was a good introduction to how things have changed: https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-i...
Hopefully in future we do see more local processing, and less "environmental law arbitrage" by waste export.
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about biodegradable plastics? If regular plastics were made illegal or heavily taxed, wouldn't industry quickly come up with biodegradable alternatives?
It’s not easy to find good biodegradable alternatives for many types of plastics. See the example of Legos trying to replace their plastic with a more environmentally friendly version. https://www.wsj.com/articles/lego-struggles-to-find-a-plant-...
Seems weird to want biodegradable lego, when they’re highly reusable. I’ve never heard of a LEGO brick get so worn out that it had to be thrown away. Making them rot would just decrease their productive multi-generational lifespan.
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US, dumping stuff in the nearest landfill is pretty likely to be cheaper than dumping it in the ocean. Especially if the landfill is operating the recycling sort (the case here and many other smaller counties). (This addresses your second paragraph; if they are selling the high grade and putting the rest in the landfill...)
The first reason it's hard to just landfill it is optics. Local government asked people to sort their trash, made a big deal about it. And it's a scandal when people find out of course it's just being buried with the rest of the stuff. Recyclers were able to do two things; a) play a shell game which diverts the waste in an opaque, hopefully deniable way and b) deal with the waste more cheaply than landfilling it. The…
I lived in Nashville in the early aughts. They had recycling centers where there were bins with labels for every sort of plastic. Of course, the only people using these centers, people like myself and my wife, were people who were scrupulously rule-abiding and wanted to do their part for the environment. Everyone shlepped their recyclables across town to these centers and then carefully sorted everything, take great pains and time to do it. If you were there when the trucks came to pick up the stuff, they emptied all the bins into the same truck. I saw this happen. The recycling company charged the city to mix the recycling. Then they charged it to separate everything again at the recycling plant. This was not a secret. Still, the people such as myself who took the trouble to recycling as much as they could of their waste could not be convinced to throw everything into whichever (carefully labeled) bin and go home.
My point is that it is entirely plausible that people are paying extra to "recycle" their waste when this has no positive environmental consequence. I was one of the people separating my trash, knowing the trucks would come and mix and all and charge me for this "service". It wasn't "virtue signaling". It was desperation to feel that one wasn't doing so much harm plus a desire not to be seen as the one breaking the rules of the recycling center. I was trying to do the best I could in my circumstances and feel a little better about my actions. I no longer live in Nashville.
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build millions of houses. Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is a viable solution to anything, or that it’s a good use of resources based on our current methodologies. I’m more just trying to say that there’s so much raw material out there and that it’s better if it comes out of the ocean. L…
Bricks made of plastic weather into dust made of microplastic. If microplastic turns out to be as serious a problem as has been suggested, with bioaccumulation and various sorts of damage, then the only solution is that all plastic without exception has to be thoroughly destroyed chemically or by burning as soon as it it isn't in use. And not put into use in ways that emit microplastic (as fibers, dust, or otherwise)…
How about asphalt with plastics mixed into the underwater, but not the top layer?
Re: New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-perfect efficiency
#130The real problem with plastics is that they are really cheap.
"Really cheap" in the short term perhaps. Very expensive in the long term. What price do you put in the extinction of a species? Millions of years of evolution flushed down the toilet so one person can have their disposable water bottle.
The problem is externalized cost: the people making the decision to use the plastics aren't the ones holding the bill for its disposal.