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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

#111

Post by bzbarsky »

snarf21 wrote: post #71
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 r…

> we need to be recycling only aluminum and cardboard

And glass?

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

#112

Post by RyEgswuCsn »

formerly_proven wrote: post #93
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. I don't know what you mean by this. If you bottle stuff into PET bottles (the usual stuff, being shredded after one use), then you have to buy one new PET bottle for each bottle you produce. If you bottle stuff into reusable glass bottles (98+ % returned intact, cleaned and reused), then you mostl…

I think what the parent comment meant was that for the environmental impact of producing and transporting a glass bottle (glassware are heavy), one can produce and transport many PET bottles. The ratio can be high enough to the point where producing a glass bottle is more environmental impactful if they are not reused enough.

For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvzvM9tf5s0

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

#113

Post by chrisseaton »

conistonwater wrote: post #104
s_dev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Is that actually true? According to [1], McDonalds (in 2020) was buying EUR160e6 worth of Irish beef accounting for 20% of its beef sales across Europe. It would make quite a loss for them if they shipped beef into Ireland while buying that much locally and exporting it. I can't find anything that mentions this "100% Irish beef" theory. [1] https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0323/1124769-corona...

> EUR160e6

Deliberately obtuse way to write €160 million. Why write that like?

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

#114

Post by mrweasel »

jacknews wrote: post #75

It's astonishing that this symbol is allowed to used on non-recyclable products in the first place.

Yeah, I got the same angry feeling that I get when a company write: "Made with real chocolate". Well... no you don't have to write that, it's the product made with fake chocolate that should have a label.

Why would you even put a recycling label on a non-recyclable product, unless you're an asshole.

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

#115

Post by vxNsr »

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…

> If people think there is a small chance that something is recyclable they will throw it in the recycling bin -- this is the complete wrong approach. Put everything in the trash unless you're 100% sure it's recyclable.

I disagree with this, there are some municipalities that will fine you for putting recycling in the regular trash.

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

#116

Post by gruez »

horsawlarway wrote: post #61
burkaman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Further - I don't understand why we don't just have mandated bottle/jar form factors. We broke the fucking loop by claiming that people could just throw plastic containers away and "somewhere, somehow (over the rainbow!!!) people will recycle them into new goods". That story is bullshit - even for most plastics that can actually be recycled. I want legislation that lays out a set of standardized form factors that are…

>I want legislation that lays out a set of standardized form factors that are as re-usable as possible (NOT RECYCLABLE - Literally washable and reusable), and if companies use those - great! No extra taxes for you.

Is that seriously the impediment to plastic container reusability, that they're not standardized? People don't reuse plastic containers because there aren't that many uses for them around the house.

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

#117

Post by burkaman »

sokoloff wrote: post #106
burkaman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think I am misreading it, but rather thinking about the holistic solution differently. The waste processing that the various CA communities have contracted for is not recycling those resins, even though they're capable to be recycled and being presented for recycling. That gives me the view that the most effective action is not an on-the-street "consumers, please put these into the landfill stream" but rather…

The goal is not to get people to put them in the trash, the goal is to get companies to stop using them. Basically, ask companies to be more responsible vs. let them do whatever they want and ask communities to clean up after them. It is not ethical to label something as recyclable when that is theoretically possible, but not practically possible in 90-100% of the state.

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

#118

Post by lotsofpulp »

farmerstan wrote: post #88
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.

I’ve been putting everything with a recycling symbol in the recycling waste. I find it reprehensible that it’s not recyclable.

Good chance it did not matter because recycling does not happen many times.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-...

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

I am under the impression it mostly used to mean plausible deniability for consumers whose consumption could be exported back to China for “recycling”.

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

#119

Post by gruez »

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…

>In Ontario, for example, a beer bottle is used around 100 times on average.

fact check: no, only 15

https://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2013/06/28/the_averag...

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

#120

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ceh123 wrote: post #91
twoodfin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letting the price mechanism work (externalities accounted for) is a great way to do this.

> externalities accounted for Well yeah, that's kinda where the problem is. How do we price in all the different kinds of externalities for cotton bags and plastic bags in a way that is consistent and everyone agrees with? Debating these externalities and how they should be accounted for is exactly the hard problem the parent comment was talking about.

A carbon tax would go a long way, even if it wouldn’t capture everything.
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