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California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

nytimes.com

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Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#31

Post by smallerfish »

GordonS wrote: post #22
globular-toast wrote: post #7

Some JS stops me reading the article after the first paragraph or so. But it seems to about using that specific "three arrows" symbol. One annoying thing I've noticed in the UK is some products having a symbol that looks a lot like the recycling symbol but upon closer inspection is not the same symbol. It turns it can be processed in a specific plant of which only one exists in the entire country. I doubt many get se…

> It can be reprocessed, but never recycled Huh, I didn't know that. TBH, I was pretty sure most of it was just going to landfill somewhere in Asia, with only a small portion really being recycled. What does "reprocessed" mean though? Taking the example of a prepackaged meal tray, what might happen to it?

Meal tray probably is going to landfill.

Otoh plastic water bottles may end up as "carpet, clothing, plastic packaging."

https://www.livescience.com/how-much-plastic-recycling.html

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#32

Post by burkaman »

Steltek wrote: post #21

I would much rather incentivize non-plastic alternative packaging. Consumers should have better options for metal cans, glass bottles, etc for mainstream goods, as those materials are far more effective targets for recycling. But they're no where near competitive with plastic because the production cost doesn't account for the total lifecycle.

One way to incentivize recyclable packaging would be to make it illegal for companies to put a symbol on their non-recyclable plastic packaging that 98% of consumers associate with recycling.

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#33

Post by hatchnyc »

mc32 wrote: post #23
Steltek wrote: post #21

I would much rather incentivize non-plastic alternative packaging. Consumers should have better options for metal cans, glass bottles, etc for mainstream goods, as those materials are far more effective targets for recycling. But they're no where near competitive with plastic because the production cost doesn't account for the total lifecycle.

Why glass? Glass is quite recyclable but requires lots of energy to recycle. As soda bottles and milk bottles they might last 20 uses. Glass is also much heavier requiring more energy to transport.

You are not wrong, but in some countries they collect, wash, and and reuse glass (and even special kinds of plastic) bottles. According to my parents that used to be standard practice in the United States. Someone should do the math first obviously but it seems like a great idea to me. If bottling is done locally you aren’t transporting the bottles long distance, and quite significantly in my mind glass is inert so if it does get into the environment, it isn’t leaching microplastics into the environment for the next thousand years.

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#34

Post by sp332 »

corpo_punisho wrote: post #26
asoneth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the resin identification code and the recycling symbol are causing consumer confusion due to the fact that almost everyone confuses them. The US Society of the Plastics Industry designed their resin identification code in 1988 and made it similar to the recycling symbol which had been in use since 1970, even though many of the plastics thus labeled were not generally recyclable. According to wikipedia[1] they…

Why were they allowed to change their symbol to resemble the recycling symbol?

The recycling symbol is in the public domain. It's not even trademarked.

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#35

Post by bko »

Steltek wrote: post #21

I would much rather incentivize non-plastic alternative packaging. Consumers should have better options for metal cans, glass bottles, etc for mainstream goods, as those materials are far more effective targets for recycling. But they're no where near competitive with plastic because the production cost doesn't account for the total lifecycle.

> But they're no where near competitive with plastic because the production cost doesn't account for the total lifecycle.

What's not included in the "total lifecycle" that's not accounted for in cost? Presumably these alternative packages won't save any landfill space.

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#36

Post by jedimastert »

Steltek wrote: post #21

I would much rather incentivize non-plastic alternative packaging. Consumers should have better options for metal cans, glass bottles, etc for mainstream goods, as those materials are far more effective targets for recycling. But they're no where near competitive with plastic because the production cost doesn't account for the total lifecycle.

While we're at it, can we get rid of cloth packaging that isn't explicitly made to be reused? Like how Tom's come in a box and a cloth bag inside of that box! It's so resource intensive; it's like the definition of virtue signalling.

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#37

Post by burkaman »

sokoloff wrote: post #6

This is a case where the proposal is actually worse than the headline, I think. From a non-paywall source: https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/08/california-recycling... > Despite the best intentions of Californians who diligently try to recycle yogurt cups, berry containers and other packaging, it turns out that at least 85% of single-use plastics in the state do not actually get recycled. Instead, they wind up in…

You're misreading that quote. It's saying that Californians do put these things in recycling bins, but they aren't actually recyclable, so the recycling facilities have to send them to landfills. People are trying to recycle the wrong things because of the intentionally misleading resin identification codes, and California is trying to fix that.

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#38

Post by lttlrck »

elif wrote: post #15
sokoloff wrote: post #6

This is a case where the proposal is actually worse than the headline, I think. From a non-paywall source: https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/08/california-recycling... > Despite the best intentions of Californians who diligently try to recycle yogurt cups, berry containers and other packaging, it turns out that at least 85% of single-use plastics in the state do not actually get recycled. Instead, they wind up in…

It will decrease the number of plastic goods people buy under ecological pretexts. For instance, when I learned about plastic bottle recycling, I switched to canned water.

I hadn't realized the numbers were that bad...

https://oceana.org/blog/recycling-myth-month-plastic-bottle-...

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#39

Post by corpo_punisho »

sp332 wrote: post #34
corpo_punisho wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were they allowed to change their symbol to resemble the recycling symbol?

The recycling symbol is in the public domain. It's not even trademarked.

That doesn't mean the plastics industry should be able to pass off their materials as recyclable. This is is a good move by California.

Re: California aims to ban recycling symbols on things that aren’t recyclable

#40

Post by detritus »

s_dev wrote: post #25

In Ireland there's a recycling symbol for plastic products that can be recycled. But if you put that recycling symbol in a green circle it means something else -- "that the companies that produces the product is committed to recycling" -- whatever that means. This to me is beyond infuriating. Absolutely in favor of these sorts of measures.

You mean 'The Green Dot'?

This piece of shit thing? https://www.pro-e.org/the-green-dot-trademark

How this has been allowed to exist for so long is beyond my ken. The logo should look ENTIRELY different as it's basically false-advertising for the vast majority of people who have no idea what it actually represents.

- ed spelling

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