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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

#171

Post by pr0zac »

bzbarsky wrote: post #111
snarf21 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Only about 30% of "recycled" glass is actually recycled in the USA and its going down with a lot of municipalities removing it from their programs completely.

In short because glass breaks and contaminates paper and aluminum plus needs to be sorted by color it costs too much to handle and economics are more important than environmental externalities.

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

#172

Post by u801e »

asiachick wrote: post #168
detritus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly feel that governments should intervene and mandate a limited subset of plastics - including colouration - that can be used for food and beverage packaging, etc. My bottle of sparkling water doesn't really need a green top. The bottle itself doesn't really need to be a light colour tint. Put branding on paper labels, or better yet - go monochrome and laser-etch/mark everything. Have QR codes on bottles that…

That would make it so no one can introduce a better plastic

Pharmaceutical companies still introduce new medications. They just need to submit documents/applications to the relevant government authorities. The same could be done with packaging when trying to introduce a new type.

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

#173

Post by Ellipsis753 »

frumper wrote: post #148
coryrc wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people near Ireland use an obtuse definition of million/billion. Engineering notation is precise and unambiguous.

I'm just curious what 160 million Euro would mean in Ireland. Can you explain, please?

I think "1 million" means 1e6 everywhere. But the confusion might be because "1 billion" means 1e9 in USA but 1e12 in UK/Ireland. "1 trillion" similarly is 1e12 in USA but 1e18 in UK/Ireland. This is called the short/long scales. It's a headache.

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

#174

Post by billytetrud »

I was thinking about this yesterday when I saw a pizza box with the recyclable symbol on it. It's infuriating that intelligent people can't seem to understand that pizza boxes aren't recyclable after they've had pizza in them. What about oil soaked cardboard says "recyclable" to people?

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

#175

Post by snarf21 »

bzbarsky wrote: post #111
snarf21 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are concerns about the weight of glass (energy cost), the energy required to create and recycle, the likelihood that even things like "reusing beer bottles by just washing" have risks with glass chipping or having cracks that extra costs to reuse. I'm less up to speed on all of these costs and risks so take with a grain of salt.

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

#176

Post by chrisseaton »

coryrc wrote: post #135
chrisseaton wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EUR160e6 Deliberately obtuse way to write €160 million. Why write that like?

Because people near Ireland use an obtuse definition of million/billion. Engineering notation is precise and unambiguous.

Nonsense.

> The meaning of the word "million" is common to the short scale and long scale

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000

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

#177

Post by Ottolay »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #125

From my European point of view, the problem is not necessarily the almost invisible symbol but the government endorsement of recycling. Being forced to collect rubbish in some centralised way with tons of stupid rules made me think that recycling was working and that plastic was a relatively green choice (for something coming from oil). This propagated down in the economy with brands using more and more plastic in th…

Aluminum and steel actually make quite a bit of sense to recycle. The big energy cost is in the processing of ore to metal. Re-melting the metal is relatively low energy.

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

#178

Post by asiachick »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #108
detritus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly. The recycling trucks here in LDN have a campaign on the side of them that has words to the effect of "if you're unsure - leave it out!" because as you say, even partial contamination screws entire bales of reclaimed material. My eternal bugbear is Pizza boxes. Used greasy pizza boxes can often be recycled in many municipalities, BUT only in the organic or food waste. Greasy card in the paper recycling…

What you say, plus occasional reminder to wash your recycleables before throwing them into the bin, is why I consider the whole recycling scheme to be worthless distraction. Nobody in their right mind has the time and space to properly sort and clean the trash. For the rest, inefficient use of water and detergent has an environmental cost too. This stuff should be all handled by a combination of centralized work at s…

Japan, or certain cities in Japan, have pretty complex recycling rules, at least relative to California.

You're required to separate glass, PET plastic, other plastic, aluminium, clean paper (books, magazines, newspaper), burnables (food, soiled paper), unburnables, and then also large items and electronics require extra fee and an appointment.

Further, it's arguably part of the culture to clean your trash. This is probably because burnables are collected twice a week, unburnables once a week, recyclables once a week, and, if you live in an small apartment complex, of which here are many, there is no place to put the trash. You're required to store it in your apartment until the day of collection, which means if you don't clean it it will stink up your apartment.

So, people do have time or make time.

But, I 100% agree with you that this stuff should be handled by the trash companies. They could do it much more efficiently. They can do it correctly. Having it done in a few locations is also much easier to monitor, regulate, enforce.

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

#179

Post by genera1 »

coryrc wrote: post #135
chrisseaton wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EUR160e6 Deliberately obtuse way to write €160 million. Why write that like?

Because people near Ireland use an obtuse definition of million/billion. Engineering notation is precise and unambiguous.

Arguably, the short scale, not the long scale used in Ireland is obtuse. 12 zeroes for billion and 18 zeroes for trillion, 24 for quadrillion etc is 6n where n is numerical value of Latin prefix, with short scale you've got 3n+3

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

#180

Post by jdavis703 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #164
jdavis703 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody in their right mind has the time and space to properly sort and clean the trash. How do folks have time to clean their glasses but don’t have time to wash a milk bottle or whatever? It takes like 15 seconds…

> How do folks have time to clean their glasses They don't. They put it in a dishwasher. > It takes like 15 seconds… Not counting setup and cleanup times afterwards. Given the two are large enough and most packaging isn't dishwasher safe, it makes sense to clean a bunch of trash in one run, which requires having space for extra trash containers at home...

Wait people batch clean their recyclables? That seems more time intensive since the food is going to dry/harden. It’s much quicker to wash when everything is still wet.
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