Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 120 posts

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#81

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

bertil wrote: post #9

If we can, we should, but you probably want to consider most plastic wrappers as temporally displaced fossil fuel that will be burned for heat in a specialized kiln. The logo that designates plastic types should be changed to match local conditions, from the three circling arrows to a flame—with the same numbers. I believe that using those logos requires a license, but I doubt that it pays for the recycling of most o…

The logo with 3 arrows going around a triangle and a number inside is a resin identification number (RIN), and has no relation to the recycling symbol (3 arrows going around a triangle with nothing inside) other than the arrows. It's meant to be deliberately confusing, to trick people into buying things made with unrecyclable plastics. Generally only resins 1 & 2 can be economically recycled, the rest get burned.

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#82

Post by rascul »

declan_roberts wrote: post #24
bryanlarsen wrote: post #8

One of the big problems with plastic recycling is that people read "plastic recycling is a scam" but internalize "recycling is a scam". Some types of recycling are massively successful and efficient, like the recycling of vehicle lead acid batteries or post industrial steel recycling.

You don’t need to put metals in the recycling (at least not ferrous ones) because they pick those out of the trash anyway. They just charge you extra to feel good about it.

> You don’t need to put metals in the recycling (at least not ferrous ones) because they pick those out of the trash anyway.

I've never seen that done at any of the various landfills I've been to. I wonder if perhaps some do that I'm not aware of, or if I misunderstood your meaning.

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#83

Post by Ma8ee »

asimovfan wrote: post #38
Ma8ee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think so?

Probably because its easy to do with a magnet so someone must be doing it already

I don’t think it is easy. Most of the other garbage will just tag along when you lift the metals. It would be different if the garbage was burned. Then you could just get the metals out of the ashes. But to have a clean incineration, the temperature will be high enough to evaporate some metals too.

Maybe if you ground all garbage to a powder it could work too. But that is another step that costs time and energy.

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#84

Post by hinkley »

bombcar wrote: post #61
hinkley wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand they want a mix of recycled and virgin glass to maximize the characteristics of the glass. Once upon a time they used to reuse coke and beer bottles, not just recycle them.

I've heard (but am not sure) that the (energy) cost of transporting the empties + washing/sanitizing them may be more than making new ones. At least the dollar cost is higher, or they'd still do it (some local milk farms wash and reuse their jugs, so at some low level it's still efficient).

I wonder if that was true when Coke had licensees in every town handling the bottling?

I don’t think people appreciate what a franchising operation Coke is. Because they don’t have names.

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#85

Post by epistasis »

baggy_trough wrote: post #80
epistasis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars do cause absolutely untold amounts of death and suffering. Something like 60-80 millions deaths and 2 billion injuries have been caused by cars. It's one of the major causes of early death. Most of our fire departments' time in the US is spent dealing with the carnage and bodily mutilation caused by cars, and only a tiny fraction spent on actual fires.

That may well be true, and yet, getting rid of oil and cars would be much worse by many orders of magnitude.

You think getting rid of oil and gasoline cars would kill 6-8 billion people and injure all the rest?

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#86

Post by Ekaros »

wreckdropibex wrote: post #71
bombcar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass is sand. Even for all the separating and such, most of it is "recycled" by using it for fill, because sand is plentiful. The best thing for glass is reuse .

You would think sand is plentiful, but eg https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is... .

I have been wondering about this in context of glass... With concrete and such applications you cannot have too smoot sand, but is it same for glass? As you are going to melt it anyway, it shouldn't matter if it is not usable in concrete...

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#88

Post by wolfi1 »

Ma8ee wrote: post #22
dmoy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or aluminum recycling, crazy efficient compared to making new aluminum.

Or glass, or paper, and almost all types of metal.

glass recycling is way more inefficient than you think, granted, you don't need the sand to melt but you still need the same energy, so, if the glass bottles are used just once you gain nothing, ecologically

Re: Plastic experts say recycling is a scam. Should we even do it anymore?

#89

Post by wolfi1 »

calebegg wrote: post #49
declan_roberts wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately glass isn’t recycled here. I’ve been trying to figure out why. Probably more common in places that have glass production.

Glass recycling is very efficient, but manufacturing new glass is just cheaper. So without a government subsidy, it's usually not worth it for the recycling plant.

I don't see the efficiency claim if we're talking about glass that's used just once
Post reply on HN