Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic • Hacker News Board

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#191

Post by andrekandre » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

chockablock wrote: post #15

coliveira wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an individual choice. I can try to recycle plastic, but if there is no government programs to handle this issue, it will not work.

You can choose to reduce or reuse, though.

imagine you are a single, office worker, with long hours (no time to prepare your own lunches) and the only place you can get any food is the convenience store around the corner, you can get your lunch in a plastic container (bento box, sandwich container etc) and your drink from a pet bottle...

where is the choice to reduce there?

more than anything, the problem is the system and limited capabilities we have to reduce the usage of most plastic items

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#192

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

macinjosh wrote: post #171

pfdietz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recycling is a hack to try to fix the downside of another hack. The other hack is that the cost of trash disposal is artificially depressed to reduce the incentive to dispose of refuse by illegal dumping. But this means refuse is overproduced. Recycling is an attempt to reduce this increased volume of refuse going into landfills. The better strategy would be to charge a fee, up front, for all goods that reflects thei…

There is nothing a new tax can’t solve! /s gimmeabreak

Gosh, you must be right. There's a god-given right to not be charged the cost of the services you consume. Something for nothing!

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#193

Post by SahAssar » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

neltnerb wrote: post #180

SahAssar wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Metal and plastic are super easy to separate by density or by electrical conductivity Yeah, what I meant by better segmentation is not to separate them from each other (we do that) but rather by type. Some plastics are easier to recycle than others and I don't know if metals can be easily and automatically sorted from each other.

Plastic separation is tricky, they tend to have similar physical properties so you end up relying on small density differences or optical properties or computer vision which is obviously not so great. I think most places it's still more cost effective to do it by hand. Metals are easy to separate from one another, they tend to have substantially different densities and electrical properties. Aluminum for instance is…

So what you're saying is that separating glass, cardboard, paper, compost, metal (which we can separate from one another if it is just metal by the methods you described) is valuable, but the all plastic can go in the "general" type, right?

Glass, cardboard, paper and compost are either recyclable or reusable, metal is recyclable when sorted correctly, and plastics are pretty much a no-go as the parent article suggests, right?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#194

Post by neltnerb » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

wool_gather wrote: post #159

neltnerb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, plastic degrades each time it is recycled. They knew that, every materials scientist knew that, and it is just not possible to fully reclaim recycled plastic. What really pisses me off is the use of the recycling number as marketing. Which is still ongoing and being modernized. Leave a complaint card any time you see compostable plastic being used in a city that doesn't have specialized industrial composting plan…

> Leave a complaint card any time you see compostable plastic being used in a city that doesn't have specialized industrial composting plants, A store's refuse is not necessarily going through the municipal waste process. Stores have contracts with speicfic waste management companies, who may have their own facilities. (Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean the private company can handle the plastic either -- I kn…

I agree. I honestly applaud the stores for paying that much attention, I'd say in Boston/Cambridge I think about 20% of stores understand that their containers require special disposal to handle and couldn't just get mixed in with the municipal compost.

Most just use the compostable containers without a second thought, because why should they give it a second thought? Honestly, I don't blame them, there's no reason they would think about this. It's marketed evil to get people to pay extra for a worse product all around, it's supposed to be confusing.

At MIT they use these compostable containers everywhere. From their own information their compost system cannot handle these containers that their own subcontractors use and don't even communicate this information well enough to avoid confusing MIT FACULTY MEMBERS. It confused me for over a year and I have a PhD in materials science!

Most stores in practice maybe have one waste container under such a special contract in their stores, but customers dispose of their to-go containers elsewhere.

If they were really green they wouldn't have throw away containers for in-store use anyway (setting aside the current situation where it makes sense for now).

So how can it make sense? If the customer is in-store they shouldn't be making waste containers. If the customer is using a container that gets thrown away they're probably walking out the door in which case the special waste container is useless.

I think it would be great if this all worked in a way that makes sense, but as it is now it is worse than nothing anywhere that doesn't have municipal compost already capable of handling these materials.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#195

Post by SahAssar » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

macinjosh wrote: post #166

SahAssar wrote: post #66

When I first heard that in the US they just throw all "recycling" in the same bin it sounded insane. I'm used to sorting into colored glass, clear glass, paper, cardboard, metal, compost, batteries, plastic and "general". I'm pretty sure the metal and plastic (if it actually is ever recycled) categories could benefit from better segmentation too.

It is different in the US depending where you are. Where I am our recycling has all those bins. It is a big country and it’s not all the same.

It would be interesting to see where that is the case, for all countries. Is it decided per city, county or state in the US?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#196

Post by andrekandre » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

franciscop wrote: post #184

andrekandre wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So more plastic in packaging but more goes into bins, wonder if it equalizes out on harm-done compared to Japan? in japan, most trash is incinerated... ive never looked into it, but i suspect that some amount of that turns into fine-grained soot (e.g not very healthy)

They have these very fancy incineration towers distributed around Tokyo, I suspect they do filter a lot of the stuff being burned since I have never even seen them throw smoke nor smelled any burning: https://www.tokyotimes.com/mysterious-tower-in-tokyo/

thats good to know, i wonder if there are some differences between older and newer inceneration facilities...

when i lived near the ocean in kawasaki there was always some black fine-grained soot that would slowly build up over the year on a veranda, and wondered if it wasnt the nearby incinerators...

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#197

Post by PeterisP » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #84

SahAssar wrote: post #66

When I first heard that in the US they just throw all "recycling" in the same bin it sounded insane. I'm used to sorting into colored glass, clear glass, paper, cardboard, metal, compost, batteries, plastic and "general". I'm pretty sure the metal and plastic (if it actually is ever recycled) categories could benefit from better segmentation too.

Can you fill in the rest of the picture? How many different receptacles do you have to put out on the street?

Not the OP, but my apartment building has three different types of trash containers in the yard; there's one for glass; there's one for paper, plastic and aluminum cans together (I presume because those can be separated automatically somehow), and the third is for general household waste. The garbage collection fees are based on the volume of the general waste, collecting the sorted "recyclable"(it's not necessarily recycled) trash is subsidized to be free.

There's the fourth type of trash that we sort out which is things like batteries and electronics waste; these shall not be put in household waste but should be disposed in 'centralised' containers which are located at e.g. supermarkets.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#198

Post by fsflover » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

macinjosh wrote: post #189

fsflover wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of people are "dumb enough" to believe what TV says, because they expect the government should put in jail everyone who openly lies for profit.

Exactly. Too many people see the government’s role to be their parent and protect them from every bad thing in the world. Grow up folks. If everyone who lied for their own gain were to be sent to prison we’d have no politicians left in government. Come to think of it we would all probably be in jail at some point. Maybe just don’t believe everything you hear.

But if you have to do everything yourself, check everything in the world yourself, defend yourself, why on earth do you need government at all?

I think those people rightfully expect that from the government, because no one can be aware of every single thing.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#199

Post by neltnerb » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

hosh wrote: post #153

neltnerb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, plastic degrades each time it is recycled. They knew that, every materials scientist knew that, and it is just not possible to fully reclaim recycled plastic. What really pisses me off is the use of the recycling number as marketing. Which is still ongoing and being modernized. Leave a complaint card any time you see compostable plastic being used in a city that doesn't have specialized industrial composting plan…

> In almost all locations, PLA, "compostable plastic" (often labeled number 7 or 0 for marketing) is not only not recyclable but actively contaminates compost and recycling plants. I see all these places using "compostable plastic" because they think it's more environmentally friendly. I don't know the answer to this question -- have you heard of any work using fungi or "eco-vats" to break down plastics like this?

It is entirely possible technically to decompose PLA. It is "poly-lactic acid" and is a fairly straightforward polymer to decompose down to lactic acid which naturally degrades. It is legitimate to describe it as "compostable" in that there are a variety of ways to destroy it, including enzymes but I think just high pressure steam will do it. Modern industrial composting processes will destroy it.

What's broken is that in places where municipal compost isn't both commonly used and capable of handling the modern process this stuff gets chucked in compost that's capable of nothing more than food scraps or thrown in the recycling where it ruins the entire batch. Compost that can't handle more than food scraps is super common, it's much cheaper and easier to set up than an industrial system. I've seen people chuck this compostable plastic into home compost bins -- that's just not how it works.

These containers should not exist anywhere that a city does not have an existing commonly used compost system capable of handling them. Until then this stuff needs to be understood to be trash. It is not recyclable under any circumstances, it's too hard to sort out and throw away.

There's very few places that this does more good than harm.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#200

Post by neltnerb » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

petulla wrote: post #123

neltnerb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, plastic degrades each time it is recycled. They knew that, every materials scientist knew that, and it is just not possible to fully reclaim recycled plastic. What really pisses me off is the use of the recycling number as marketing. Which is still ongoing and being modernized. Leave a complaint card any time you see compostable plastic being used in a city that doesn't have specialized industrial composting plan…

Does this include plastic bags? I find that barely anyone recycles 7 or flexible plastic, so I'm not sure stores are gaining much from collection in terms of image.

7 is actually a catch-all for anything that's not 1-6 that are actually defined. Often 7 is used for PLA because it's common that way but it's not wrong if it's used for other polymers.

Your plastic bags are probably not 6 or 7, my guess is that they are recyclable material. They are probably just challenging to recycle because they fly all over the place when you collect them. I think this is basically why stores collect the film stuff, it's too physically annoying to handle it otherwise.

I think I see 7 mostly on things like to-go containers, cups, and lids. Of course straws are PET I think but they aren't numbered so they're always trash in practice.