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Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

beyondplastics.org

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Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#111

Post by JohnFen »

dylan604 wrote: post #96
malfist wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking out of my ass, but I think that's only for concrete right? Same reason saudi arabia imports sand for their construction projects.

Not sure. I've never really read the articles. The headlines tend to be from sites that lean a little further that I'm willing to read normally. Search assist AI suggested it was even for glass bottles, but I don't trust anything an AI suggests as it could be sourcing from the same places.

If you're just reading headlines (from any news source), then you're likely misinforming yourself. Headlines are advertisements, not summaries of the articles, and are frequently misleading. At the very least, keep in mind that the headlines are not written by the article's author(s), they're written by editors whose only goal is to get you to read the article.

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#112

Post by kube-system »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #72
synack wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I toured a sorting facility in Seattle recently. They said the only really profitable output is aluminum, everything else costs more than virgin material.

I worked at a plastic furniture manufacturer in Indiana for a few projects. They got paid to accept bales of recycled "HDPE" that they could mix at between 10 and 30% into their virgin materials. They get paid to accept it! Negative profit for the waste management company, pure profit for the "user". This worked best on black, coffee, slate grey, mahogany - you get the idea - the whites and tans and bright colors wer…

That says a lot, doesn't it? HDPE is one of the most recyclable plastics and recycling feedstock still has a negative market value.

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#114

Post by Aboutplants »

The argument can be made, and I’m basically right there, is that we shouldn’t be recycling any plastics period. The energy, waste water, micro plastic production, toxic chemicals, etc involved in any plastic recycling that it is so much worse than simply throwing all Plastic into landfills and use virgin plastic for when you need to use it. The micro plastic pollution that is produced through plastic recycling is astonishing

And that’s only the plastic that isn’t shipped to third world countries to be piled up in their countryside

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#115

Post by notact »

Aboutplants wrote: post #114

The argument can be made, and I’m basically right there, is that we shouldn’t be recycling any plastics period. The energy, waste water, micro plastic production, toxic chemicals, etc involved in any plastic recycling that it is so much worse than simply throwing all Plastic into landfills and use virgin plastic for when you need to use it. The micro plastic pollution that is produced through plastic recycling is ast…

We are already burning coal for power generation, whether we like it or not. I have wondered why we don't "recycle" plastic by shoveling it into the same furnace and a) get some energy out of it, and b) solve the landfill problem. That should be carbon neutral, since burning X tons of plastic is X tons of coal we didn't burn.

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#116

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

dzink wrote: post #14

Visited a recycling facility recently. It’s a private company that covers an entire county in California. They filter the garbage wit people and a big machine and seem to get paid by companies abroad to ship them all recyclable materials - plastics, cardboard, metals, glass. That pays enough to keep them in business for decades. Someone really needs to look at where the materials from our garbage go.

> Someone really needs to look at where the materials from our garbage go

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/21/us-plastic-r...

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

https://gijn.org/stories/case-studies-investigating-where-ga...

https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2022/5/16/wha...

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#117

Post by joering2 »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #97
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and paper in a landfill is just fine.

Carbon negative, in fact!

I swear for a moment I thought you mean like putting paper in a soil/landfill, a tree will come up :)

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#118

Post by JMiao »

gritspants wrote: post #92
antran22 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I bring my thermos to a coffee shop, brew the beverage in their own mixer before pouring it in my thermos. There is exactly no contact between their equipment and my container, beside the barista hands (which they should periodically wash anyway) and between the butt of the thermos and the table. Also most of them give the thermos a few rinses & wash with the soapy water jet thingy before pouring. I'm assuming y…

I think you and your environment are very different from the average consumer. At least in the office there's a shared community. I think you'd shudder to see what comes to the Starbucks/Dunkin drivethru.

true, but the starbucks etc. scenario was already answered above. personal cups shouldn't contact cafe equipment. although i trust peet's/starbucks and not dunkin to actually follow it.

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#119

Post by brewcejener »

School-Cotton wrote: post #33
brewcejener wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way for one to reduce their carbon footprint is to stop supporting large corporations. Unfortunately this involves not being lazy and we are lazy.

> The best way for one to reduce their carbon footprint is to stop supporting large corporations. Not really, no. The carbon footprint associated with your consumption has little-to-nothing to do with the type of economic structure that provides it. Lots of fossil fuels are produced by the state, some even in socialist countries. Burning oil extracted by Pemex or Petróleos de Venezuela releases just as much carbon as…

I didn't say anything about capitalism. I said this is our fault. It is a direct result of human behavior.

Re: Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling

#120

Post by kube-system »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #80

Corporations aren't recycling the stuff they say they are recycling. World except America: I'm going to legally mandate what they do. Americans: I'm going to get mad at the abstract concept of recycling.

Plastics recycling is fundamentally a technological issue. Europe doesn't have any magical technology that the US doesn't have. PET is the only plastic for which there is any industrial process that exists anywhere on the planet for closed-loop recycling.

Europe has great rates of recycling collection, but processing remains just as much of a problem there as it does anywhere in the global market for recycled plastic. Quite a bit of recycling that is collected does not actually end up being recycled.

Furthermore, Europe's recycling rate has declined over the past decade? Why? Probably the same difficulties that the entire globe faces -- China stopped allowing "recycling" imports because much of it ended up in the Yangtze. Now, a lot of the "recycling exports" are sent to countries in Africa with the same issues. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/06/90-of-plastic-pollut...

The reality is that the promises made by recycling companies in developing nations that accept the western world's recycling are not very rigorous to say the least. Much of your recycling sent to Africa is picked through for the most valuable stuff and the rest is burned or dumped.

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