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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

#181

Post by nineplay »

billytetrud wrote: post #174

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?

I think the relationship between food and recycling is justifiably unclear to most people. Can you recycle cans of refried beans? Prior to today I would have thought yes, but now I see I'm supposed to rinse them. For refried beans I'm already wondering about the water wasted washing the can vs. the benefit of recycling it. I live in a drought region so I'm probably going to chuck it.

Cardboard sandwich containers? Is there a go/no-go depending on how much mayonnaise had dripped out?

It's no surprise people are confused.

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

#182

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#183

Post by ejstronge »

ortusdux wrote: post #159
dieortin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could I have a source on the waste on local rivers being local?

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz5803

> https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz5803

I don't see a comment in that article about the original provenance of the waste in rivers - can you paste it?

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

#184

Post by dheera »

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.

The other thing is, how does California define recyclable?

As far as I know San Francisco recycles clean plastic food containers, plastic cups, plastic plates, and utensils [0], but backwards Mountain View specifically does NOT recycle utensils, black-colored containers, and fruit containers [1].

[0] https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/your-three-c...

[1] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...

https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...

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

#185

Post by Jolter »

pwg wrote: post #153
gruez wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I read @horsawlarway's comment as "reusable for the original use" as in how the US used to have glass soda (soft drink) bottles that were collected at stores, returned to the bottler, who would wash them out, refill them with new soda, and put them back out on store shelves or in vending machines. The return of the empty bottles to the stores was incentivized via a ten cent per bottle "deposit" one made upon purchase…

Bottle deposits are still in force around the world. For instance in parts of the EU. They provide the most benefit where they support re-use (glass bottles) but are also used for recyclable PET bottles.

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

#186

Post by omgwtfbyobbq »

q1w2 wrote: post #98
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #63

John Oliver did a rant on plastics recycling, a few weeks ago[0]. TL;DR: Anything with a "Number in triangle" over 2, is probably not going to be recycled, and you might as well toss it in the trash, as that's where it will end up, anyway[1]. Different from this symbol, and probably won't be affected, but recycling has a great deal of "PR spin" to it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiu9GSOmt8E [1] https://dilber…

Burying plastic is likely the best solution anyway as it's a CO2 sink. It's a great way to sequester carbon.

That's a great point. Shred it and use it as infill.

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

#187

Post by alex_young »

Why don’t we ban the production or import of products which can’t be reused or recycled, and for which alternatives exist?

For instance, soda bottles. We used to have a closed loop system for these. All of the bottles were glass, the same dimension and color, and one exchanged them at the store you purchased them at. Similar systems exist in other countries for beer and wine bottles.

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

#188

Post by obblekk »

Wouldn't this violate free speech laws? I'm all for regulation to disclose information, but regulation to prevent people from saying something is a bit more dicey.

Even trademarks to an extent feel unfair (should you really be unable to say the word Google in a TV Ad?).

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

#189

Post by dheera »

entropyie wrote: post #94
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…

> However the main problem is still consumer knowledge of whats recyclable. Strongly disagree here. Expecting average consumers to know the difference between polypropylene, polyurethane and polystyrene etc..., just by looking at something, is beyond the pale. That doesn't even take into account bonded materials, like paper coffee cups lined with plastic. The "main problem" is manufacturers / supermarkets using any k…

> Consumer knowledge of what's recyclable

There's also a huge disconnect between what's actually recyclable across California cities, unfortunately.

As far as I know San Francisco recycles clean plastic food containers, plastic cups, plastic plates, and utensils [0], but backwards Mountain View specifically does NOT recycle utensils [1], black-colored containers [2], and fruit containers [2].

[0] https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/your-three-c...

[1] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...

[2] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...

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

#190

Post by p_j_w »

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.

>I would much rather

Why not both? Is one mutually exclusive of the other?

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