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

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

#191

Post by xyzzyz »

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.

Produce sold loose have to be nicer, bigger, with fewer flaws. The customers will pick those, and the less perfect produce is left to spoil. You have to remember that the retail prices of produce are as much function of the wholesale cost as it is of the spoilage rates.

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

#192

Post by xyzzyz »

trickstra wrote: post #93
pcmaffey wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the area, or so I learned recently upon moving to Montana, where they don't recycle it. Apparently most recycled glass is crushed up and used as roadbase. In MT, gravel is dirt cheap, and so it's not economical to use glass for construction, so into the landfill it goes. As for recycling glass into other glass, I can't say.

Making glass from scratch is incredibly energy intensive, and glass impurities can be handled (purified), so it always makes sense to recycle glass. Don't let your officials tell you any different.

> Making glass from scratch is incredibly energy intensive

Not much more than melting existing glass. It's not like aluminum, where melting is much cheaper than refining in the first place.

> glass impurities can be handled (purified)

It's much easier to handle impurities when you start with clean sand.

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

#193

Post by jimktrains2 »

brnt wrote: post #164
trickstra wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making glass from scratch is incredibly energy intensive, and glass impurities can be handled (purified), so it always makes sense to recycle glass. Don't let your officials tell you any different.

I heard on a recent podcast from a Dutch recycler that recycling glas only saves ~10% of energy creating new glass. Melting the glass requires heat, and the raw material is not much more expensive than collecting used glass.

You're not filling a landfill and you're not gathering more raw material. Both seem like a win, especially if it's cheaper, even by just a little.

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

#194

Post by 693471 »

ummonk wrote: post #183

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

I think the packaging waste would be more than the actual food waste and ruin the compost balance if we just tried to blindly mix it all. I compost my food waste and I definitely have more packaging waste each week than food waste.

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

#195

Post by mrspuratic »

Fradow wrote: post #146
teekert wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and I feel that way to contribute is to just add all your plastics to the recycle bin, hoping that even the most difficult types will reach a threshold amount that will trigger research into their recycle-ability, or at least into better separation techniques. Please show me I'm wrong if I am.

Please don't do that. It makes recycling more costly, as the recycling factory have to spend more time sorting it, or just refuse recyclable garbage because it's mixed with non-recyclable and sorting is too costly.

Except in my country they refuse to use resin codes. It's "rigid" or not, regardless of composite material. https://www.mywaste.ie/

I tried to engage, and was told it was about reducing confusion.

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

#196

Post by 18pfsmt »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #128
18pfsmt wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One cannot coercively distort the market with government power and expect that life will not, "uh, uh, find a way." Great intentions do not always lead to great outcomes (often the opposite).

I know what you mean. You can still buy cheap incandescent bulbs where I live, despite EU-wide phaseout, because they're clearly labeled "not for domestic use"... But this shows that regulating the market is not a "fire and forget" deal, but an iterative process. First you make the main bad thing more expensive than good behavior. Then you look for "life finding a way", "clever entrepreneurs" abusing loopholes, and m…

Eventually you create a black market like drug cartels and the Russian mob. Perhaps we should legalize narcotics and sell them in Walgreens and CVS instead of "subsidizing" SPECTRE.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." -Princess Leia

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

#197

Post by njarboe »

flavor8 wrote: post #139
18pfsmt wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One cannot coercively distort the market with government power and expect that life will not, "uh, uh, find a way." Great intentions do not always lead to great outcomes (often the opposite).

> One cannot coercively distort the market with government power and expect that life will not, "uh, uh, find a way." Uh, yes you can. Just look at the different car fleets in Europe (where gasoline taxes are high) vs the US (where gasoline taxes are low.) The first thing I notice when driving from the airport either in Europe when I'm visiting or the US when I'm back is the different composition of cars on the road…

Why many people in the US buy trucks and SUVs over cars is due to a lot of factors. A major one that is not well known is that US auto manufactures have had a high incentive to promote them since a 1964 tax law[1] set a import 25% tax on light trucks.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

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

#198

Post by lotsofpulp »

5040 wrote: post #187
lotsofpulp wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Maybe Buddhism, other than that I see lots of consumption in other religions.

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

#199

Post by nardi »

18pfsmt wrote: post #196
TeMPOraL wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you mean. You can still buy cheap incandescent bulbs where I live, despite EU-wide phaseout, because they're clearly labeled "not for domestic use"... But this shows that regulating the market is not a "fire and forget" deal, but an iterative process. First you make the main bad thing more expensive than good behavior. Then you look for "life finding a way", "clever entrepreneurs" abusing loopholes, and m…

Eventually you create a black market like drug cartels and the Russian mob. Perhaps we should legalize narcotics and sell them in Walgreens and CVS instead of "subsidizing" SPECTRE. "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." -Princess Leia

For plastic? Lol.

The point isn’t to eliminate literally all plastic use. It’s to save the freaking planet. Taxing plastics based on their harm to the environment has the capability to drastically decrease their use, and possibly (help) save the planet.

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

#200

Post by mirimir »

psychrometer wrote: post #181
mirimir wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This was in small towns. So yes, there was a milk store. Which sold milk that people delivered directly from their farms. Not pasteurized. You were supposed to boil it at home.

Also a coffee store, which also bought directly from farms. And a bakery, with wood-fired ovens. Plus many other small stores.

And then, an hour away by motor vehicle, was a Walmart. Stuff was so inexpensive there that many local stores resold stuff that they bought there.

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