Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why • Hacker News Board

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#181

Post by psychrometer » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #154

cujo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, we have a local market/co-op type thing where you can bring your containers to be filled with laundry detergent, various liquid soaps, and similar products. I wish this type of thing was more popular.

Maybe our local coop does that. I don't recall seeing it, but I'll ask. One of the things that I liked about Mexico was the survival, at least in the sleepy little city I lived in, of old-school commerce. Market places, of course. But also stores where customers were expected to supply their own "packaging". A milk store, where you got milk in a 1L plastic bag, if you didn't bring your own container.

They have stores which only sell milk?

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#182

Post by psychrometer » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

sleavey wrote: post #108

spodek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found a simple 80% solution for home plastic: I avoid packaged food in favor of fresh, unwrapped fruits, vegetables, and foods from bulk bins. Now I have a load of garbage to empty a little less than once a year and a load of metal and plastic recycling once or twice a year. Plus my food tastes better and costs less. Everyone is free to do what they want, and experience shows someone will have to tell me the soluti…

One absolutely crazy problem, at least in the UK, is that supermarkets sell pre-packed fruits and vegetables cheaper than the equivalent weight loose. I can't think of any logical reason why.

I assume the prepackaged varieties take less time to check out.

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#183

Post by ummonk » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

We all know recycling is a scam. Packaging should all be compostable, not recyclable.

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#184

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

baroffoos wrote: post #65

esotericn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small pack sizes are such a load of shite. Some small number of people are travelling. For the rest, 500g of rice is a pointlessly small amount. It lasts forever, is dense enough to stash, etc.

I once got a 10KG sack of rice from an Asian store once. After a year it got full of tiny bugs less than 1mm in size. Now I buy 1kg bags that I can more easily seal airtight with pegs.

For bulk foods, like grains, you can use aluminized polyester film bags, and blow in pure nitrogen or drop in an oxygen-absorber packets while sealing the bag. Then you put the bags in a food-grade bucket and seal it. The bags can have resealable zip-locks on them.

Yes, this uses plastic, but all of it is reusable when using certain bag-sealing methods.

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#185

Post by vict00ms » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #27

I live in New Haven and saw on our handy recycling flyer [0] that pizza boxes are listed, with no caveat, as being a single stream curbside recyclable item. Which is great, because pizza is a whole thing in this town. We eat a lot of it. So I was surprised to learn, if you go poking around and find the RecycleCT website [1] and hover your mouse over the pizza box, up pops this note. "No food residue. No liner." Never…

It's worse than you realize: a single pizza box can contaminate an entire bale of (otherwise recyclable) cardboard.

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#186

Post by daveslash » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

I like the "wishcycle" term - have never heard that before. Where I life in Southern California we have "single stream recycling" -- you throw all of your recyclables into one bin. I used to have a roommate who I had to continually remind "leftover burritos and hair extensions are not recyclable". Her attitude was "I just throw everything in there... they'll pick out what they don't want." Some days I really wonder how effective such a recycling system is at recycling vs. how much it only serves to make us feel good about ourselves.

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#187

Post by 5040 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #135

baroffoos wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully. Recycling almost feels like it has been a trick by corporations "Don't worry, you can consume as much as you want and as long as you put it in the recycling bin its all good"

It was a trick, and by politicians and people themselves, who wanted to be seen as being environmentally conscious. The only solution has always been to reduce consumption, but deep down, everyone wants to consume more and more, while at the same time feel better about and blissfully ignore that they are destroying the environment.

>The only solution has always been to reduce consumption, but deep down, everyone wants to consume more and more, while at the same time feel better about and blissfully ignore that they are destroying the environment.

Maybe I'm only thinking of this because I've been reading Tocqueville, but might not religion be the thing to encourage restraint here?

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#188

Post by 5040 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #9

Someone has run the numbers and figure out energy cost and total tonnage and figure out what makes sense to streamline. Plastics is a term which applies to thousands of different polymers. Some it makes sense to recycle, some don’t. We can then begin to whittle down on the plastics we allow on the items which make most sense. For example we don’t needs tends of different plastics just because one vendor prefers the a…

>Someone has run the numbers and figure out energy cost and total tonnage and figure out what makes sense to streamline.

Prices are dynamic though. Some things make sense to recycle today, but may not tomorrow, and some things may not make sense to recycle today, but may tomorrow.

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#189

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

I always joke that we'll have robots that take care of this problem before we have self-driving cars.

On a more serious note: This is far too confusing, and most of this burden belongs to the recycling processor, not the consumer.

Re: Plastics: What's Recyclable, What Becomes Trash and Why

#190

Post by eloff » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

paultopia wrote: post #11

eloff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that people aren't actually fully capable of just sorting the recycling correctly. There's always stuff in the wrong bins in my building despite an ongoing education effort to fix that and helpful illustrated rules above the bins. Rules about lids and labels is a joke.

Since lids and labels and such seem to actually matter, the only sensible solution is for the governments of the world to legislate to mandate specific shapes and material compositions for things like drink containers. Standardize it all.

I think in general the government should mandate that companies take care of their goods from start to end including negative externalities. If you produce something in plastic packaging then you have to make sure it's recyclable in the markets where is sold or pay an environmental impact fee. Ditto if you sell oil that produces CO2. Buy equivalent carbon credits. If it means no body can afford your product anymore, you shouldn't be selling it anyway.