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

91–100 of 120 posts

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

#91

Post by cassepipe »

ofrzeta wrote: post #54

It's a favourite German pastime to drive to the Wertstoffhof (recycling centre) in your car to drop off the collected plastic for recycling. Now there are some bins where people can put some specific plastics like yoghurt cups (mostly cleaned by people, probably with a lot of hot water). Some are plastic foils with aluminium, styrofoam but most of it goes into the "mixed plastic" bins. There's all kind of stuff in it…

Isn't it ironic that you are making a specific trip in a one ton metal box that burns gas in order to recycle plastic that can't realistically be recycled ?

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

#92

Post by infecto »

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.

Yes because we pay core charges on items or get back money for the metal.

I don’t think most people think recycling in general is a scam. What is a scam are most of the municipal/local efforts to recycle. Those are practically all scams and I wish we were more honest. Give me a little bin, take my glass and metals. The rest just throw in the dump.

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

#93

Post by infecto »

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.

Paper is not efficient to recycle as far as I know. I guess if you have a pure source of quality paper then sure but from what I gather it’s mostly trash. Was that not the big issue a few years ago in the Bay Area? China stopped accepting it.

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

#94

Post by infecto »

bombcar wrote: post #62
Arn_Thor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you’re right. From my hometown’s local waste authority: After [we have] collected the waste from your bin, the purple dotted bag [with plastic waste] is sent on for collection and pressing before being transported to large sorting facilities in Northern Germany and other places in Europe. Here, 75% of the content in the purple dotted bag (figures from 2019) is recycled, and the remaining waste (often residu…

> remaining waste is used for energy This really is the key - if people weren't so scared of incinerators, the "landfill" problem would be basically solved.

I still don’t fully understand. Would there be unwanted gasses coming out? Could we not burn the specific plastics where it’s economically worth it for electric generation? I don’t know the full science so my assumptions might be wrong but I wonder how much worse it is compared to coal and natty gas plants?

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

#95

Post by bryanlarsen »

infecto wrote: post #93
Ma8ee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Paper is not efficient to recycle as far as I know. I guess if you have a pure source of quality paper then sure but from what I gather it’s mostly trash. Was that not the big issue a few years ago in the Bay Area? China stopped accepting it.

Paper recycling was worth it when it was mostly newsprint. Now it's mostly packaging so is too contaminated.

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

#96

Post by mariusor »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #67
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.

Sorting your recycling is probably a scam. My understanding is that the aluminum content is already high enough to hire workers to sift through garbage. It's a terrible job but robots will do it soon.

Could you tell me why spending a modicum of effort to sort one's trash in order to save more work for other people in the pipeline is a scam? Until we get robots to do this, I mean.

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

#97

Post by Tagbert »

wolfi1 wrote: post #89
calebegg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

that why the comment was about "Glass recycling"

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

#98

Post by cfr2023 »

amluto wrote: post #75
cfr2023 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valuable considerations. Seems like a perfect machine learning/robotics application, but probably not one that will receive funding if it's pitched with the objective of, "look now all of this problematic crap is in one place."

I don’t think separating the disgusting mess in mixed recycling is an ML/robotics problem. Neither robots nor human hands can turn food-splattered paper into clean recyclable paper. Nor can they turn plastic/paper composite materials into anything else. Or dirty plastic bags or dirty polystyrene foam or (yuck!) fluorinated HDPE.

Fair observations but, doesn't this assume that disposal and containment are truly our only options now and forever?

Even so, you think there would be no worthy efficiency gains for pure sorting or materials mining in using machines that can identify known objects effectively, and hands that will go where humans will not?

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

#100

Post by bombcar »

hinkley wrote: post #84
bombcar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The shorter the distances the easier to break even, which could probably be done with a bit of effort.

I wonder if the loss of glass had more to do with plastic ease of use (no bottle openers) than directly cost.

Post reply on HN