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

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

#111

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

AceLewis wrote: post #78
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #46

I call it bullshit. PET used in plastic bottles can easily be depolymerized or even used as fuel. I live in a poor ex-USSR republic, and plastic recycling is a popular business; it were a scam no one would do that, as government neither mandate nor sponsor recycling.

I think when people call it a scam they are referring to the idea that it is marketed as a way that plastic can be green and good for the environment because it can be recycled. It may be profitable to be used as fuel but it is not green. Another thing in the article is richer countries with higher environmental regulations just export to poor countries where the pollution is less regulated. Just exporting the proble…

Yes agree. recycling won't make plastics green.

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

#112

Post by machine_coffee »

zer00eyz wrote: post #51

Candybars Im old enough to remember foil and paper wrappers. Im old enough to remember wax paper. It all comes in plastic now. Get a bag and put every piece of plastic for your week in it. Bottles, wrappers... bring it all home. The ammount of it is obscene.

We have a separate service that we pay for to recycle our plastic, and do exactly that; separate out all plastic and put in these bags - and yes, agreed, the amount of plastic is sometimes unbelievable.

Last night I cooked 2 packets of fresh Udon noodles. Each packet contained 2 plastics bags of vacuum packed noodles, so in total I had 6 separate plastic bags to throw away, for a total of 200g of noodles.

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

#113

Post by amluto »

cfr2023 wrote: post #98
amluto wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are solutions that don’t involve reaching into the mess and sorting it.

Some places incinerate their waste for energy. If done well, pollution (except CO2) is minimal, and the outputs are energy and ash. Perhaps some day the ash could be processed to extract useful minerals.

More generally, if you imagine waste to be a clumpy soup of organic goo, assorted interesting elements and minerals, and polymers (which are technically organic goo but are sort of worthy of a different category), perhaps it could be treated as such and processes could be developed to economically extract useful things from it, kind of like how geological processes turn dead cells into oil.

But I see no fundamental reason that, say, old polyester needs to turn into new polyester as opposed to anything else. And keep in mind that, even if burnt to CO2 and ash, there are processes that use energy that turn CO2 into valuable chemical feedstock.

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

#114

Post by mathgradthrow »

mariusor wrote: post #96
mathgradthrow wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

it doesn't save work, sifting requires the same labor inputs for any fraction, a more dilute trash stream doesn't help.

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

#115

Post by switch007 »

beej71 wrote: post #108
switch007 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it had the opposite effect. Are you saying that the annual total tonnage of plastic bags increased?

Not the gp, but I think they're referring to this: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-02-12/califor...

Fascinating. Thanks

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

#117

Post by cfr2023 »

amluto wrote: post #113
cfr2023 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are solutions that don’t involve reaching into the mess and sorting it. Some places incinerate their waste for energy. If done well, pollution (except CO2) is minimal, and the outputs are energy and ash. Perhaps some day the ash could be processed to extract useful minerals. More generally, if you imagine waste to be a clumpy soup of organic goo, assorted interesting elements and minerals, and polymers (which a…

Much to consider here, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

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

#118

Post by hn72774 »

CubsFan1060 wrote: post #53
hn72774 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single use plastic bags were banned here. Two things happened as a result - the plastic thickness was increased so they can call them reusable instead of single use, and stores started charging for them. Instead of reducing plastic waste it had the opposite effect.

I think something like this is really on people. It isn't really hard to use your same bag hundreds of times. It also isn't hard to just not use a bag (I regularly just wheel items out to the car, put them in a box I have there, then take the box inside). If individuals can't be bothered with simple things like this, is there really any hope that any law will help?

> If individuals can't be bothered with simple things like this, is there really any hope that any law will help?

I personally think that the law is a waste of taxpayer resources. In the end, stores are still offering plastic bags.

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

#119

Post by klysm »

infecto wrote: post #11
klysm wrote: post #2

Plastic recycling isn't the only kind of recycling...

Yes but I would guess plastic makes up the majority of items. Paper/cardboard too which is also a scam to recycle in most systems.

Perhaps in a MRF context, but there's all kinds of recycling going on that isn't MRF.

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

#120

Post by LMSolar »

anticorporate wrote: post #37
cfr2023 wrote: post #15

Is there no value in merely separating and gathering this material, even if it's all dumped in a "plastics only" landfill, as opposed to one containing other types of trash? Isn't keeping different types of waste sorted inherently useful in other ways?

Probably, but, separating is actually a really hard problem. People do not do as good of a job separating their own recycling as they think they do. Others don't care at all. MRFs are expensive due to maintenance, labor, and other operating costs, and if there's no cost recovered from the recycling there's little to fund their existence.

I've toured our local MRF and was shocked at how good it was at robotic / magnetic separation. Incredibly fast AI trained 'pickers' pulling material off a belt (sorting by visually distinct plastic types, e.g. PET vs opaque plastics, paper, etc), combined with some human labor and magnetic extractors. Very high capture rates for all plastics except films - those remain hard to sort / grab. I was not expecting this level of performance...
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