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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

#211

Post by madacol »

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…

I wouldn't be surprised if the environmental impact of glass bottle maintenance, storage, replenishment-production, ends up being higher than the impact of single-use plastic bottles

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

#212

Post by thih9 »

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?

Sample size one, but my pizza boxes don't end up being oil soaked. I might order pizzas with less oil, or it could be a different way of handling. I also recall a bit of parchment under the pizza that helps keep the box free of oil.

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

#213

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Robotbeat wrote: post #60

I hope they don’t get rid of the symbol entirely! It’s useful to know what resin a product is made of. Things like PLA (which is kinda sorta compostable) are not often recycled, but they can be. If you don’t know what resin the plastic is, then it’s even harder. Keep the resin symbol. Remove the arrows on it. We get better with recycling stuff over time, so eventually more resins could be recycled. But. Part of me wo…

If you make plastic by pulling CO2 out of the air, then it would still be more efficient to recycle that into new plastic. You'd still be storing the carbon, just in things that are in active use.

There's some potential methods when you can just extract the carbon, which in turn you could also bury, but why not use it for something instead?

I feel the "lets put it in a hole" thing has been artifically boosted by fossil fuel interests who just happened to be emptying a hole as they dug it up anyway. If that wasn't the case I'm not sure storing stuff underground would be an obvious solution.

Using it for plastics, concrete or other things we need that contain carbon seems like it'll likely be always be a better choice than burying.

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

#214

Post by frumper »

Ellipsis753 wrote: post #173
frumper wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I knew billion was different, but the commenter mentioned million specifically as having a different meaning.

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

#215

Post by billytetrud »

thih9 wrote: post #212
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?

Sample size one, but my pizza boxes don't end up being oil soaked. I might order pizzas with less oil, or it could be a different way of handling. I also recall a bit of parchment under the pizza that helps keep the box free of oil.

I guess if you actually keep food material off the cardboard you put into the recycling, it should be fine. The vast majority of pizza boxes I've seen have way too much food material on them to be recyclable. TBH paper is hardly worth recycling in the first place. Sure it saves trees, but it adds a ton more chemical waste and produces low quality paper.

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

#216

Post by aeturnum »

alistairSH wrote: post #56
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 agree that we must incentivize packaging that's better for the environment. The problem is who gets to define "better". Cloth bags were once thought to be better than plastic for grocery use, but that might not be the case - the cloth has a larger environmental cost to produce (cotton is water-intensive) and has to be used a lot more than one might expect before it surpasses the basic plastic bag. And if the plasti…

Using cloth bags as an example feels so frustrating to me because banning them seems to so obviously be addressing things other than the embodied carbon represented by the particular container you bring your groceries home with.

A low-quality, low-reuse solution will almost always be the lower carbon solution if you analyze it from the point where someone picks up the product. It also ignores the question of if the embodied carbon in bags is a large factor (I doubt it) and sets aside the question of the impact of generating and disposing of many plastic bags. The latter question is further complicated by comparing how we could, in theory, design an efficient and environmental disposal system v.s. the patchwork reality of the world and the plastic shoals in the oceans.

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

#217

Post by billytetrud »

nineplay wrote: post #181
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…

The giant recylcing symbol on a lot of pizza boxes sure doesn't help.

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

#219

Post by skybrian »

throwaway2214 wrote: post #79

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, probabl…

You should follow the local rules on recycling. Only the company picking up the recycling knows what they can really handle.

Unfortunately this information isn’t always as easy as it should be to look up. It should be a simple web search away.

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

#220

Post by ZeroGravitas »

burkaman wrote: post #32
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.

I favor letting them do whatever they want, and then charging them whatever it costs to recycle, pick up, and/or safely dispose of the packages.

No opportunity to blame the consumer or play games.

Make the "this is not recyclable" message small and fuzzy and green next to a planet giving the thumbs up? I dont care, because you'll be getting the bill for every senior citizen you confuse.

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