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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

#71

Post by snarf21 »

alistairSH wrote: post #42

About damn time. I've always been confused by the sign - it's on pretty much all plastics, but only a fraction are actually recyclable. And like many people, I chuck it all in the recycle bin and hope some of it gets recycled and that the non-recyclables don't screw up the whole works. It really shouldn't be this hard.

Just fyi, this was completely intentional[1]. There was a big concern about increasing plastic use in the 1990s. So, the plastics producers started producing ads and adding the recycling symbol to plastics. The consumer assumed they were doing "good" and left it for the municipalities and recyclers to figure out or to just dump in the landfill. A lot of plastics can be shredded up and reused to some degree but not recycled in the truest sense. I honestly think we need to be recycling only aluminum and cardboard (from the curb). We also need to start taxing all the excessive plastic packaging and single use mindset. As long as convenience is so cheap, we'll never consider alternativess.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

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

#72

Post by anchpop »

s_dev wrote: post #54
detritus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>You mean 'The Green Dot'? Yup -- another business trick is in McDonalds -- the company that supplies the beef in Ireland is called "100% Irish Beef" and thus they put that on the packaging even if the beef doesn't come from Ireland. I've seen this don't with the equivalent of "100% recyclable" as the name of the company to pass the product off as environmental. However the main problem is still consumer knowledge of…

I'm not sure this is true. I've previously heard the exact same thing referring about "100% beef" in the US, but mcdonalds explicitly says on their website that it isn't true [0], which I assume they wouldn't do if it actually were true. I can't find anything about "100% irish beef" , but I kind of doubt it's true unless you can find some source talking about it.

[0]: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18916-is-beef-a-...

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

#73

Post by fnimick »

3pt14159 wrote: post #30
mc32 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In every part of Canada I've lived in there has been a well developed reuse system. In Ontario, for example, a beer bottle is used around 100 times on average. Reuse should be way better integrated into our systems. If I could bring a resuable bag back to any supermarket to get the $1 fee back, it would be so much easier to justify buying reusable bags that really last a long time. The trouble is I never remember to…

I keep a couple in every bag I use regularly (gym bag, work bag, briefcase, etc) so I'm never without if I decide to stop by the store on the way home. That way you don't have to proactively remember to bring it!

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

#74

Post by arsome »

3pt14159 wrote: post #30
mc32 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In every part of Canada I've lived in there has been a well developed reuse system. In Ontario, for example, a beer bottle is used around 100 times on average. Reuse should be way better integrated into our systems. If I could bring a resuable bag back to any supermarket to get the $1 fee back, it would be so much easier to justify buying reusable bags that really last a long time. The trouble is I never remember to…

Beer bottles are typically only reused if you say, bring them to The Beer Store or something similar.

If you toss them in your municipal bin like me, my understanding is they basically just smash them and use the glass bits in other products like asphalt as it's just not worth the energy cost to actually recycle it.

Aluminum cans are probably a better bet for recycling if you're just using the municipal bins. They're profitable enough that people routinely come steal the cans from my bins.

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

#76

Post by subandi »

detritus wrote: post #70
subandi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not true: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-100-beef/

I'm not sure that's the same problem. I think Parent means that beef from elsewhere arrives in Ireland, is processed there and becomes 'Irish beef', which is clearly a bit of a stretch of the truth. It's the same in Europe with many types of olive oil - much of it is grown and extracted in Iberia, but then sent to Italy, etc, for processing, becoming 'Italian' olive oil.. Doesn't bother me though - my favourite olive…

Yeah I'm not disputing the general point that some people would do something like that. But the specific claim about a company called "100% Irish Beef" sounded a bit outlandish, so I googled it.

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

#77

Post by avh02 »

malexw wrote: post #62
rib3ye wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More strangely, it’s on many styrofoam packaging products.

Styrofoam actually is recyclable, though you'd have to check with your local municipality to see if it's accepted. For example, it's listed as a "blue bin" item in Toronto: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/recycling-organics-...

there are some biodegradable packing peanuts that someone like me thought was styrofoam - a way to tell is to take one and see if it "melts" in warm water...

I THINK those can go in compost, but I'd check your local regulations

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

#78

Post by q1w2 »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #46
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.

> 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. Presumably you're referring to the Green Dot / Der Grüne Punkt [1]. Its often confused with the symbol that indicates recyclabililty. I'm never sure whether that's intentional or not. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dot_(symbol)

> Its often confused with the symbol that indicates recyclabililty.

Are people actually getting confused by this? It looks very very different from the recycling symbol. It's a different shape both inside and out, a different color, has a different number of arrows, and the arrows abut. It doesn't look anything the same to me.

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

#79

Post by throwaway2214 »

Such a waste of time.

Now we will spend a decade arguing which plastic is really recyclable, and if you can recycle it once is it enough, or should be 2 times? or does it degrade on its own? bio plastic (which turns out sometimes is worse than current common plastic) and etc.

Coca Cola's 'Please Recycle' on the caps makes me boil with rage, how about 'Please Don't Make it'?

There must be supply chain changes, probably 95% of my plastic is from the supermarket, it is increasingly more difficult to buy without plastic.

This must be banned, it will take decades until the free market regulates itself.

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