So dumb question but when they recycle plastics into water/soda containers - how do they know it is food-safe plastic making it back into the chain and not contain molecules that will "bleed" into the beverage/food?
The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
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Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#12The article mentions the Bottle Bill system: this is a system where you pay a small deposit on every bottle you buy which is then refunded when you return the bottle to the supermarket.
This results in the bottles being recycled.
We have this system here in The Netherlands and I must say it's fantastic: we get proper thick Coke bottles and my bin doesn't get filled up so quickly.
Sadly this system isn't used for all bottles - 500ml bottles aren't covered - and it's only drinks (soft drinks + beer). It's also far from Europe-wide - the UK for example doesn't have this system.
Recently the soft-drink manufacturers - presumably Coke/Pepsi - have been lobbying hard to kill this system.. Nice to see how they care about the environment..
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#13I'm old enough to remember when the milkman delivered glass bottles of milk into a box at our back door and picked up the previous week's empties. I remember reading once that the average milk bottle had a life span of 38 round trips. The same was pretty much true for soda bottles. Some progress, huh?
Glass bottles still work that way. Cleaned and reused. And at least in Germany, sturdy PET bottles get reused too; Wikipedia says 50x for glass, 25x for PET.
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#14Regardless of one's feelings about 'climate change,' it really behooves us to stop doing a variety of things in a way that are hugely destructive to the planet and ourselves. That would be good policy no matter what, but the fact that so often our hugely destructive actions are in the service of deriving relatively minimal value makes it patently absurd.
So it was quite striking that in the few images I saw from the recent Climate Summit in Paris, there were people standing around tables scattered with plastic water bottles. Really? Given the subject matter under discussion and you're going to sit around drinking water from a material derived from oil, that after it's brief service to you will have negative and hugely long-lasting effects on the biosphere, really?
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#15The article mentions the Bottle Bill system: this is a system where you pay a small deposit on every bottle you buy which is then refunded when you return the bottle to the supermarket. This results in the bottles being recycled. We have this system here in The Netherlands and I must say it's fantastic: we get proper thick Coke bottles and my bin doesn't get filled up so quickly. Sadly this system isn't used for all…
When I was a child, there was the same system in place in Italy for Coca-Cola glass bottles, and maybe for other sodas as well. It then disappeared, unfortunately.
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#16The article mentions the Bottle Bill system: this is a system where you pay a small deposit on every bottle you buy which is then refunded when you return the bottle to the supermarket. This results in the bottles being recycled. We have this system here in The Netherlands and I must say it's fantastic: we get proper thick Coke bottles and my bin doesn't get filled up so quickly. Sadly this system isn't used for all…
The German system is also really great. It's a 15 cent Pfand for a plastic water bottle. Everyone recycles them. Failing that, the bottles are so thick that I just keep refilling mine. I've had the same 8 for more than a year.
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#17The article says plastics are washed repeatedly, so I'm trying to figure out if putting dirty plastic in the bin is acceptable or not. My city's recycling instructions say to wash plastics before putting them in the bin, and if I can't adequately clean something I've been more inclined to put it in the garbage instead. What's the right answer?
It also says:
> “Unfortunately the bags themselves can’t be recycled—they are too dirty, so they will end up in a landfill.” This holds true for all plastic items that haven’t been cleaned properly—hence, the leaflets calling for us to “rinse our recyclables.” The cleaner a plastic bottle is, the more likely it will be marked for reincarnation as something new.
That bit happens before the washing, so I think the advice to wash plastics is correct. Sounds like there may not be harm in placing all plastics into the recycling bin regardless of their cleanliness, though; sounds like they'll just end up as waste if not clean enough.
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#18The article mentions the Bottle Bill system: this is a system where you pay a small deposit on every bottle you buy which is then refunded when you return the bottle to the supermarket. This results in the bottles being recycled. We have this system here in The Netherlands and I must say it's fantastic: we get proper thick Coke bottles and my bin doesn't get filled up so quickly. Sadly this system isn't used for all…
A number of the states in the US have a bottle deposit, which sounds like the same idea. Problem is, it is only 5 cents, where it has been for like forty years, so it is only worth collecting and trading in the bottles if your time is effectively value-less. And it's not universal, so we still get the crap thin plastic bottles, they just cost a nickel more in some places than others.
There was a Seinfeld episode involving Kramer collecting a busload of bottles in NY (with $.05 deposit) and driving them to Michigan, where there is a $.10 redemption value.
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#19I'm old enough to remember when the milkman delivered glass bottles of milk into a box at our back door and picked up the previous week's empties. I remember reading once that the average milk bottle had a life span of 38 round trips. The same was pretty much true for soda bottles. Some progress, huh?
Not only that, but a milk bottle that my mother saved from the late 60s we reused for keeping water in the fridge for the next 40 years. We reused that one thousands upon thousands of times.
Re: The Violent Afterlife of a Recycled Plastic Bottle
#20Regardless of one's feelings about 'climate change,' it really behooves us to stop doing a variety of things in a way that are hugely destructive to the planet and ourselves. That would be good policy no matter what, but the fact that so often our hugely destructive actions are in the service of deriving relatively minimal value makes it patently absurd. So it was quite striking that in the few images I saw from the…
>So it was quite striking that in the few images I saw from the recent Climate Summit in Paris, there were people standing around tables scattered with plastic water bottles. Really?
I'm pretty sure the people there are politicians. So my cynical view is that most of which only care about the environment only because their constituency does.