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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

#51

Post by Scoundreller »

skybrian wrote: post #40
gregable wrote: post #17

Worth noting for anyone who thinks "why bother recycling", this is specifically about plastics. If you have metal, aluminum especially is a very valuable recyclable, so definitely keep recycling that.

Even then, your curbside recycling probably can't deal with random scrap metal. The one at our house only wants aluminum and tin containers . Anything else, you should probably give to a scrap metal recycler. It doesn't matter what is theoretically recyclable. All that matters is what the recycler can handle. So the rule of thumb is: there is no rule of thumb. Follow the local rules.

Dépends on your area. Around here, scrappers roam around on garbage day and pickup the scrap metal or anything salvageable.

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

#52

Post by shkkmo »

xugy wrote: post #28
TylerE wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Plastic and Glass recycling can be borderline and it depends on the specific local implementation. Either way, the savings are never going to be massive and it is an open question if it is worth the effort. (Glass re-use is different)

Aluminum is completely different. Prices for aluminum recycling per ton is an order of magnitude higher than other recyclables.

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

#53

Post by yawz »

esotericn wrote: post #36
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…

Shouldn't a pizza box be compostable anyway? It's mostly cardboard?

AFAIK composting or compost collection is not available everywhere.

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

#54

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

xugy wrote: post #28
TylerE wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is what the big kerfuffle is all about.

All we’ve been doing is paying the Chinese and Malaysians to feed our plastics to the dolphins for us.

Now they won’t take it, and people here get upset if you feed the animals, we’re realise the whole deception for what it is.

Edit to add sources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/whale...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/29/malaysia-to-se...

Self evident that if it were economically & environmentally sound to recycle we wouldn’t be shipping it around the planet to do so.

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

#55

Post by vostok »

Reedx wrote: post #39
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…

I mean c'mon, individually plastic-wrapped apples? It's crazy how much unnecessary packaging there is at the grocery store. But yeah, it is possible to avoid a lot of it. And if you're really dedicated, you can essentially get to zero waste. Here's someone that was able to fit 5 years of their trash into mason jar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT0uqEPzbd0

Worse yet are styrofoam padded pears

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

#56

Post by cmroanirgo »

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…

My niece has now stopped eating meat... because of plastic. She started out avoiding plastic wrapped meats, and went to a butcher instead, only to find (due to food handling laws in my country) that they used one disposable glove per customer! I applaud her resilience in this aspect: we need to do what we can to stop buying stuff that uses plastic - especially when it doesn't need to.

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

#57

Post by oska »

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 only ludicrous because the plastics industry wants to pretend that plastics are recyclable when, mostly, they're not (because it's impractical or uneconomic).

The rules for recycling when you exclude all plastics are pretty simple.

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

#58

Post by outside1234 »

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…

I'm so glad to hear its not just me. If anyone else is reading this, I highly recommend these reusable mesh bags:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BW1DSMV

Way better than the plastic bags at the store.

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

#59

Post by prawn »

vostok wrote: post #55
Reedx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean c'mon, individually plastic-wrapped apples? It's crazy how much unnecessary packaging there is at the grocery store. But yeah, it is possible to avoid a lot of it. And if you're really dedicated, you can essentially get to zero waste. Here's someone that was able to fit 5 years of their trash into mason jar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT0uqEPzbd0

Worse yet are styrofoam padded pears

I like the boiled eggs in plastic at Walmarts. As though it's just a stretch too far to expect someone to take eggs in their existing shells and boil them briefly!

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

#60

Post by TaylorAlexander »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #49
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.

That’s not an entirely terrible idea. Could all(?) packaging intended for recycling by made from aluminium?

Well aluminum does take a whole lot of energy to manufacture, so if it doesn’t all get recycled there would likely be a lot of waste there.
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