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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

#21

Post by knowaveragejoe »

TylerE wrote: post #15
paultopia wrote: post #3

This is LUDICROUS. Recycling is harder than doing your taxes. We desperately need uniformity on this. " BEVERAGE BOTTLES Recyclable. Be sure to remove the plastic film label, which isn’t recyclable. " FFS. Have you ever tried to remove one of those labels? It's impossible. " A bottle with a cap or an opening the same size or smaller than the base of the bottle is probably going to be recyclable. " -- WTF does the siz…

It's really pretty simple if you actually care about results. Is it aluminum? Recycle it. Is is not aluminum? Don't recycle it.

Plastic bottles are pretty much all included according to this site. There's no reason not to include them too.

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

#22

Post by SapporoChris »

paultopia wrote: post #3

This is LUDICROUS. Recycling is harder than doing your taxes. We desperately need uniformity on this. " BEVERAGE BOTTLES Recyclable. Be sure to remove the plastic film label, which isn’t recyclable. " FFS. Have you ever tried to remove one of those labels? It's impossible. " A bottle with a cap or an opening the same size or smaller than the base of the bottle is probably going to be recyclable. " -- WTF does the siz…

Instead of raging against. Perhaps consider solutions.

Example: In Japan, the plastic film label is perforated no glue is utilized. It is fairly easily removed.

More difficult simply tossing a bottle, sure.

Think for a moment instead of raging. 2500 variations does not mean 2500 different recycling rules. There are more than 2500 variations of your potential mate, that doesn't mean there's 2500 different ways to mate.

It is a consumer problem, consumers will have to deal with the results.

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

#23

Post by spodek »

paultopia wrote: post #3

This is LUDICROUS. Recycling is harder than doing your taxes. We desperately need uniformity on this. " BEVERAGE BOTTLES Recyclable. Be sure to remove the plastic film label, which isn’t recyclable. " FFS. Have you ever tried to remove one of those labels? It's impossible. " A bottle with a cap or an opening the same size or smaller than the base of the bottle is probably going to be recyclable. " -- WTF does the siz…

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 solution doesn't work for someone, but I hope people do similar so the manufacturers' warehouses fill with plastic instead of the oceans and they stop producing it.

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

#24

Post by TylerE »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #21
TylerE wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really pretty simple if you actually care about results. Is it aluminum? Recycle it. Is is not aluminum? Don't recycle it.

Plastic bottles are pretty much all included according to this site. There's no reason not to include them too.

It takes more energy to ship and reprocess them than you save. That's why you don't.

If you do, it's explicitly because it makes you feel good - it's worse for the planet.

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

#25

Post by esotericn »

gregable wrote: post #18

I've sort of wondered if recycling plastics is actually maybe bad from a CO2 angle. It seems that using mined virgin oil for plastics that gets tossed in a landfill means that at least a little more of the oil we are mining ends up not getting burned and emitted as CO2. In this way, we're creating non-global warming demand for oil which competes with the energy demand in the market. I don't know if this is a reasonab…

The amount of oil in the ground is effectively infinite with regard to any sane carbon budget, so this could only really make sense in the short term.

Ultimately in time I suppose you could consider plastics recycling as a way to extract less oil. If, for example, you could recycle 80%, then you only need to extract 20% of the oil, which is likely to be far better for the environment (less fracking etc).

On geological timescales a lot of the stuff we are doing is bonkers. It looks sort of OK now because we've 'only' had 100 years of it.

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

#26

Post by esotericn »

spodek wrote: post #23
paultopia wrote: post #3

This is LUDICROUS. Recycling is harder than doing your taxes. We desperately need uniformity on this. " BEVERAGE BOTTLES Recyclable. Be sure to remove the plastic film label, which isn’t recyclable. " FFS. Have you ever tried to remove one of those labels? It's impossible. " A bottle with a cap or an opening the same size or smaller than the base of the bottle is probably going to be recyclable. " -- WTF does the siz…

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…

Yep. Not only do you avoid plastic but you eat better too because you have hard lines that are not to be crossed.

No more chocolate bars, ready meals, pot noodles, bags of crisps or whatever else.

Even if you end up buying a bag of rice in plastic you're cutting down the waste by a huge amount because even a small one gives you ten or more servings.

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

#27

Post by wlesieutre »

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 in my life have I had a pizza box without grease soaked through it.

Maybe they've just given up, and knowing it won't be recycled anyway, they don't bother to make a fuss about what can go in the bin? Is this flyer just there to make us feel better about our waste? Because otherwise that's a pretty major note to forget to mention. Pizza boxes are recyclable, just as long as there's never been any pizza in it.

[0] https://www.newhavenct.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?b...

[1] https://www.recyclect.com

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

#28

Post by xugy »

TylerE wrote: post #24
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic bottles are pretty much all included according to this site. There's no reason not to include them too.

It takes more energy to ship and reprocess them than you save. That's why you don't. If you do, it's explicitly because it makes you feel good - it's worse for the planet.

Source?

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

#29

Post by benrbray »

SapporoChris wrote: post #22
paultopia wrote: post #3

This is LUDICROUS. Recycling is harder than doing your taxes. We desperately need uniformity on this. " BEVERAGE BOTTLES Recyclable. Be sure to remove the plastic film label, which isn’t recyclable. " FFS. Have you ever tried to remove one of those labels? It's impossible. " A bottle with a cap or an opening the same size or smaller than the base of the bottle is probably going to be recyclable. " -- WTF does the siz…

Instead of raging against. Perhaps consider solutions. Example: In Japan, the plastic film label is perforated no glue is utilized. It is fairly easily removed. More difficult simply tossing a bottle, sure. Think for a moment instead of raging. 2500 variations does not mean 2500 different recycling rules. There are more than 2500 variations of your potential mate, that doesn't mean there's 2500 different ways to mate…

You just suggested a way that manufacturers can make it easier for consumers to recycle, did you not? You seem to be confirming the OP's point, which is that the current state of recycling is rage-inducing.

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

#30

Post by gregable »

esotericn wrote: post #25
gregable wrote: post #18

I've sort of wondered if recycling plastics is actually maybe bad from a CO2 angle. It seems that using mined virgin oil for plastics that gets tossed in a landfill means that at least a little more of the oil we are mining ends up not getting burned and emitted as CO2. In this way, we're creating non-global warming demand for oil which competes with the energy demand in the market. I don't know if this is a reasonab…

The amount of oil in the ground is effectively infinite with regard to any sane carbon budget, so this could only really make sense in the short term. Ultimately in time I suppose you could consider plastics recycling as a way to extract less oil. If, for example, you could recycle 80%, then you only need to extract 20% of the oil, which is likely to be far better for the environment (less fracking etc). On geologica…

That's a good point. It's not as though adding a little demand is likely to do anything other than increase supply in this case.
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