Plastic Recycling a 'Failed Concept,' Study Says (cbsnews.com) 207
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as "fiction." Titled "Circular Claims Fall Flat Again," the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by U.S. households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West's plastic waste in 2018.
According to Greenpeace USA's survey, only two types of plastic are widely accepted at the nation's 375 material recovery facilities. The first is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used in water and soda bottles; and the second is high density polyethylene (HDPE), seen in milk jugs, shampoo bottles and cleaning product containers. These are numbered "1" and "2" according to a standardized system in which there are seven plastic types. But being recyclable in theory doesn't mean products are being recycled in practice.
The report found that PET and HDPE products had actual reprocessing rates of 20.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively -- both down slightly from Greenpeace USA's last survey in 2020. Plastic types "3" through "7" -- including children's toys, plastic bags, produce wrappings, yogurt and margarine tubs, coffee cups and to-go food containers -- were reprocessed at rates of less than five percent. Despite often carrying the recycling symbol on their labels, products that use plastic types "3" through "7" fail to meet the Federal Trade Commission classification of recyclable. This is because recycling facilities for these types aren't available to a "substantial majority" of the population, defined as 60 percent, and because the collected products are not being used in the manufacturing or assembly of new items. According to the report, these are the five main reasons why plastic recycling is a "failed concept": 1.) Plastic waste is generated in vast quantities and is extremely difficult to collect -- as becomes clear during what the report called ineffective "volunteer cleanup stunts" funded by nonprofits such as "Keep America Beautiful."
2.) Even if it were all collected, mixed plastic waste cannot be recycled together, and it would be "functionally impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of consumer plastic waste produced each year," the report said.
3.) The recycling process itself is environmentally harmful, exposing workers to toxic chemicals and itself generating microplastics.
4.) Recycled plastic carries toxicity risks through contamination with other plastic types in collection bins, preventing it from becoming food-grade material again.
5.) The process of recycling is prohibitively expensive. Greenpeace called on corporations to support a Global Plastics Treaty, which United Nations members agreed to create in February, and move toward refill and reuse strategies.
According to Greenpeace USA's survey, only two types of plastic are widely accepted at the nation's 375 material recovery facilities. The first is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used in water and soda bottles; and the second is high density polyethylene (HDPE), seen in milk jugs, shampoo bottles and cleaning product containers. These are numbered "1" and "2" according to a standardized system in which there are seven plastic types. But being recyclable in theory doesn't mean products are being recycled in practice.
The report found that PET and HDPE products had actual reprocessing rates of 20.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively -- both down slightly from Greenpeace USA's last survey in 2020. Plastic types "3" through "7" -- including children's toys, plastic bags, produce wrappings, yogurt and margarine tubs, coffee cups and to-go food containers -- were reprocessed at rates of less than five percent. Despite often carrying the recycling symbol on their labels, products that use plastic types "3" through "7" fail to meet the Federal Trade Commission classification of recyclable. This is because recycling facilities for these types aren't available to a "substantial majority" of the population, defined as 60 percent, and because the collected products are not being used in the manufacturing or assembly of new items. According to the report, these are the five main reasons why plastic recycling is a "failed concept": 1.) Plastic waste is generated in vast quantities and is extremely difficult to collect -- as becomes clear during what the report called ineffective "volunteer cleanup stunts" funded by nonprofits such as "Keep America Beautiful."
2.) Even if it were all collected, mixed plastic waste cannot be recycled together, and it would be "functionally impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of consumer plastic waste produced each year," the report said.
3.) The recycling process itself is environmentally harmful, exposing workers to toxic chemicals and itself generating microplastics.
4.) Recycled plastic carries toxicity risks through contamination with other plastic types in collection bins, preventing it from becoming food-grade material again.
5.) The process of recycling is prohibitively expensive. Greenpeace called on corporations to support a Global Plastics Treaty, which United Nations members agreed to create in February, and move toward refill and reuse strategies.
it is fuel (Score:5, Interesting)
What we should figure out is how to burn all these plastics as fuel without releasing all the contaminant particles into the atmosphere. Burning plastics in pure O2 and using filters to generate power and heat would really work to clean up the environment given the modern fuel prices.
Re:it is fuel (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't have to figure it out.
We are already doing it at work. In a cement kiln.
We receive it either in pelleted form or in bales. The pelleted form is fragmented in small fragments and burnt in the low end of the kiln and the bales are ripped apart and fed into the middle end.
The contaminants are absorbed by the limestone dust in the cyclones in the system as can be seen here: https://www.cementequipment.or... [cementequipment.org]
In post kiln there's also a scrubber taking care of additional contaminants in the smoke.
Re:it is fuel (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't +1 this any further, but, yeah pretty much this is what has to happen to various "forever plastic"
As far as recycling is concerned, I think after people started being told it's pointless, a lot of people born before 1980 just started throwing plastic in the landfill/incinerator destined trash again. Myself included. I look to see if it's 1 or 2, everything else, bin.
My local sushi place switched from styrofoam containers to #5 microwaveable containers. These are actually pretty sturdy and I can reuse them. BUT, how many of these do I really need? #5 also shows up as plastic bags.
The correct solution to getting rid of plastic waste has to actually start with telling the largest sources of single-use unrecyclable plastic to switch to #1 or #2, or stop using it entirely. Like KFC here has switched from using #5 plastic containers to almost entirely paper stuff other than the lids to drinks and "bowl" takeout.
And, ugh, McDonalds, has the right idea but the wrong implementation. So if you order McDonalds, everything you get is paper except the drink lid, and the nugget sauce. Except when you order, you're basically getting a over-sized happy meal layer of paper bags. I hate to say it but I think McDonalds should just straight up make "adult happy meal" a standard packaging method for take out, because it might be possible to compost it, or recycle it if it doesn't have any grease on it.
But I have to say again, one of the reasons I stopped bothering to sort my recyclables other than metal, glass and #1/#2 plastics is because I know most of this stuff is destined to the incinerator. Even when I lived in the neighboring jurisdiction there was X's on the #5 and #6 plastics , only 1-4 were accepted. Current place says "all rigid containers", not helpful.
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I'm an environmentalist and I send most plastic waste to our waste-to-energy incineration facility.
And which part of that appeal to authority argument is the not-stupid part?
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Assuming that you manage to get pure plastic burning in pure O2 and you control the reaction perfectly to avoid creating a few not-so-desirable products, what you end up is H2O and CO2.
The water may be less of a problem, but what's your plan for the carbon dioxide?
Get MORE fossil carbon into atmosphere? Brilliant! (Score:2)
And after going through all the work to stabilize all that fossil fuel into inert Garfield-shaped polymer blobs that can just sit there for hundreds of years, NOT heating up the atmosphere...
What do you do for encore?
Kill all the edible animals and release all that fossil fuel carbon we trapped in the farming cycle?
Aquaman! YOU ARE REAL!!! (Score:2)
Tell me, how does it feel to breath pond, river, lake, sea and ocean?
All us regular people only breath air. It's also the bit of the planet that contains most of our weather.
As such - fuck fish. As I'm sure you enjoy, and nobody's judging you for that.
But if the solution to global warming is getting the carbon OUT of the air, turning it into plastic and sinking that plastic into oceans - fine by me.
You know... Actually sink that cost instead of arguing for a sunk cost fallacy of "well, we burn other shit to
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Unless recovering and recycling class 3-7 plastics from landfills and setting up new recovery chains for used 3-7 plastics is less expensive than cracking coal for oil, the Hubbard Peak is entirely irrelevant, even assuming it actually happens anytime soon.
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Electronics recycling is just plain bizarre. You can go to the most official place in your area, and it could still end up in a foreign landfill being picked over by the destitute.
WE, as a people, are ready. Companies and Politicians just choose the simplest route that has
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"Plastic is way more valuable than the energy you get from burning it."
If that were true we would be recycling it. In truth the energy and labor required to recycle it is more than it's worth.
They quit pretending to recycle plastic here several years ago. Then they quit recycling glass even though a glass recycling plant is only 120 miles away, so that must be at capacity with just Seattle glass or the cost of hauling the glass over the mountains exceeds what the glass plant will pay.
They still recycle card
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Recycling plastic is expensive and often not even carbon negative.
It's better to sequester it into a landfill and use the money saved for things that make sense like building more wind turbines.
In the meantime, we should reduce all the single-use plastic crap. Drink tap water, not bottled water.
Re: it is fuel (Score:4, Insightful)
It is cheaper to use plastic than non plastic.
But it isn't: it looks 'cheaper' because the costs are externalized, at which Capitalism excels. Another example of "privatize profit, socialize risk"
Re: it is fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
But it isn't: it looks 'cheaper' because the costs are externalized
What costs? Landfill space? Carbon footprint?
Glass and aluminum are the main alternatives to plastic. Glass uses much more landfill space per unit, and aluminum uses about the same as plastic.
Both glass and aluminum have bigger unit carbon footprints than plastic.
Whether costs are internalized or externalized is irrelevant to whether recycling makes economic sense. We can tax plastic to make the costs explicit, but it is dumb to use those tax receipts to fund recycling if using the money to build wind turbines is more beneficial (as it certainly is).
Re: it is fuel (Score:4, Informative)
Primary aluminum, yes. Recycled aluminum, no.
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Or, if it's not PET or HDPE which actually does get recycled, put a cash deposit on it like some states do with PET bottles and aluminum cans. Let's give some incentive for separating these useful and recyclable plastics from the other shit that can be landfilled separately from other waste for when technology catches up and makes use of this material economical again. Now, because we've done such a good job of separating the useful from the not-yet-useful, the price to recycle the useful comes down. And
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What the fuck is wrong with you?
Are you so politically jaded that you need to bring your reprobate political horseshit into topics that have absolutely nothing to do with it?
If you haven't noticed, this is why people in your life have stopped talking to you.
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"You'll get the carbon into the atmosphere, but nothing else", "it does stink"
You will have noticed that those two statements are in direct contradiction?
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Some people haven't yet figured out that scent is based on airborne particulates.
Yep, when you smell dog shit, you're inhaling dog shit. Or, at least, volatile organic compounds present in dog shit.
It was a resounding success (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a phrase for it, externalized costs. As a business when your activities have negative financial impacts that you're not personally responsible for. As far as I know the only way to deal with externalized costs is with government regulation. You can't count on consumers to make the right choices because consumers often don't have enough information and even when they do it's easy to apply pressure to individual consumers.
Like the Walmart slogan says, save money live better. Slogans like that provide justification for supporting policies you know are wrong. It's the implication that it's okay because you're doing it for your family.
Re:It was a resounding success (Score:5, Informative)
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My favorite recycling code is "7" which just is "other" - there's basically no chance anything with a 7 COULD even be recycled as it's often a mix of plastics
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Re:It was a resounding success (Score:4, Informative)
Yes.
Plastic was lobbied for because its cheap. Governments were concerned about it so questioned the use of plastics, and the plastic industry basically said it can be recycled.
Even plastic can be an alternative to plastic - reducing the use of single-use plaxtics should be the goal. Instead of the plastic used for bottled water, how about making a reusable water bottle that gets refilled with water?
The key is the 3 R's, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - in that order.
The plastics industry went with many single use plastics because they were cheaper to make than the current alternatives.
Strong paper bags are easily recycled - and many stronger ones can be reused several times. Heck, the 80's was filled with "paper or plastic" - grocery stores would ask if you wanted a paper bag or plastic. Plastic bags took over because they cost like $5 for 1000 bags (that's 0.5 cents per bag), while paper bags were much more expensive (around 5-10 cents a bag, depending on quality). Even reusable shopping bags made of plastic are a good alternative.
For packaging, paper boxes worked reasonably well.
Plastic recycling was invented as a way to convince people that plastic was good - knowing full well it costs so much money to recycle plastic that it's cheaper to use make new plastic than recycle it. It's the only reason why we use so much of it - it's cheap.
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Plastic is a product that people who make plastic sell. The "alternative" is to make consumers of plastic not buy/use so much of it. As consumers, we have been conditioned to expect that everything is wrapped in plastic so that it's newer-than-new when we get it and that packages have tons of display space for competing on store shelves.
There's really no reason it has to be this way, but as consumers, we have no reason to oppose it - it makes things cheaper and prettier (for the first 10 seconds until we op
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And what are alternatives to plastic? Wood? Metal? Glass? Or polymers that are easier to recycle?
Old guy here, when I was young things came in glass, tin cans, wax paper and paper. A few times a year in my city, were would be recycling drives were people would drop off news papers and other to be recycled, many people saved for that. Also we had the "tin guy" and the "paper guy" going through the area were you would give him all your tin and paper and glass. He would bring it to the local recycle plant (private) which would reprocess it for resale. This is in a city of 100,000+ people.
Time to forc
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Yeah, no. We've had a few decades of materials science research between then and now.
There's a hell of a lot more we can do with paper products coated in soybean or canola wax now, which seals just as good, and is just as liquid-tight, while weighing the same or less and being compostable.
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John Oliver has a pretty good video on recycling over on YouTube.
The youtuber Climate Town also has a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnJ8mK3Q3g [youtube.com]
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It's actually pretty brilliant in a typical evil-big-oil way, since the plastic resins are made from oil distillates that aren't useful as fuel or lubricants. They basically figured out how to sell people their undesirable waste in ever-increasing quantity. And then we wonder why oil companies make so much fucking money.
Partial solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Partial solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Or... start using fewer types of plastics, like only #1 and #2, and discontinue the other types. For example. why can't the #5 typically used for yogurt containers be replaced with either #1 or 2? Expense doesn't seem like a strong enough reason.
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Unfortunately, we are too reliant on plastics as a cheap, easily formable material to easily give it up. From the plastic housing on your room fan, the plastic in your car's dashboard, the lenses in your glasses, the mesh in your screen door, to the keys on your keyboard, we are so used to having form-function housings on our disposable items that we would be hard pressed to find a sustainable alternative.
One thing that might help is to convince the public to only bother recycling Type 1 and Type 2 plastic
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the world is going to learn very soon that nothing is going to be easy to change. and the longer we wait the harder it will be. imagine if we had to give up plastic containers while there is a record drought and energy shortages and failing crops and no way to ship them cheaply. oops, would have been easier to fix this stuff 30 years ago when we first proved it was going to bite us all in the ass.
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Not all plastics are suitable for uses in all use cases. Getting into 3d printing has lead to me knowing more about different plastics than I cared to know, but suffice to say there are a ton of differences when it comes to strength, brittleness, heat-resistance, etc when it comes to different types of plastics.
Make anything that you plan to keep in a car out of a plastic that isn't up to the heat requirements and it'll be a warped mess after a hot day in the summer. Of anything that needs to absorb an i
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Price is less of an issue, most of all, physical and chemical properties matter depending on application. Different plastics have different properties. Some are brittle but hard, some are flexible but react poorly to heat. Some can take a beating but are not food safe.
There is no "perfect plastic". Mostly because a property that is desirable for one application would be very detrimental to the purpose in another one.
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My reason for not recycling plastics is it is not at all easy to do, there is no where close to me that accepts plastic for recycling. I would have to haul it 25 or so miles to get to the nearest recycling center.
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Many states in Australia have already banned and are banning various kinds of single-use plastics. QLD (where I live) has already banned drinking lightweight single use plastic shopping bags, plastic straws, plastic stirrers, plastic plates and plastic bowls as well as polystyrene food and drink containers with a ban on more items to follow later.
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"single use"
Most plastic shopping bags are dual-triple use, not single use. More if the homeless population is high. Among other things they're great for trash can liners.
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Just chop it up fine enough in a suitable liquid. The preferred term of art nowadays seems to be "smoothie".
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Or, bring back for example glass bottles. Yes, they're heavier, thus more expensive to ship, but they *are* actually recyclable, and are being recycled to great success in a lot of countries. (See: Beer bottles)
And I'm fairly certain if you'd do an *actual* cost/benefit analysis without excluding all the externalized costs, plastic would not come out as rosy as certain companies want you to believe.
Glass (Score:5, Interesting)
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Glass containers use more energy to make and transport than plastic. Their carbon footprint is worse. They also take up more space in landfills.
But glass containers can be reused
But they're not. Nor will they be reused in the future. Reusing glass is energy intensive and requires unrealistic levels of public cooperation.
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I reuse glass containers all the time too.
The process requires me to collect, store, wash and sterilize them before use.
Also, there is a recurring cost of purchasing replacement lids to replenish the ones that wear out.
I.e. It costs me work, time, storage space, water, electricity and money to be able to reuse glass containers.
Now multiply that with global supply chain and see what happens to each category - plus transport costs.
Storage space probably being the worst part as it requires building warehouses
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They used to be. The reason they aren't now is plastic took over so it killed the return/reuse market. Why return the Coke bottles when Coke is no longer washing them and reusing them? No market.
This used to be the norm (which I'm sure you are well aware of), and could be again -- but the transport "costs" due to the heavier weight of the glass bottles over the plastic could be a show-stopper.
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The reason they aren't now is plastic took over so it killed the return/reuse market.,
The reason that plastic took over is that glass was heavy, expensive to make and reuse, and the return rate was not so good.
Plastic is cheaper, uses less energy, and has a lower carbon footprint.
Going back to reusable glass makes no sense.
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Unrealistic leaves of public cooperation now, but I remember when I was young soda came in 8 pack cartons of reusable glass bottles that you got a deposit for when you returned them to the store. What we need to do is put a deposit in place on bottles to motivate people to return them. Homeless people will definitely pick up bottles if they know they can get .05-.10 cents a piece for them.
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Many states still have deposits on both plastic and glass, and often aluminum cans as well.
It improves the return rate somewhat, but way too many still end up in landfills.
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This weekend I watched a homeless guy pull all the trash out out of a public bin, pick out cans for bounty, and leave the rest scattered on the sidewalk, blowing in the wind.
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What we need to do is put a deposit in place on bottles to motivate people to return them. Homeless people will definitely pick up bottles if they know they can get .05-.10 cents a piece for them.
Some states are already doing that, but most bottles don't get redeemed, so it's a windfall for the state. And redeemed or not, the bottles still end up in the dump, but we effectively pay bums to keep some of them from becoming litter.
The redemption value is higher in California that in neighboring states, so guys were bringing in literal truckloads of plastic bottles from AZ/NV/OR to California to reap the difference.
Re:Glass (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except for peanut butter jars, and occasionally mayonnaise, if it falls, it breaks into a gazillion sharp pieces and causes headaches for cleanup in stores... I agree glass would be better. Perhaps cardboard-encased jars? Possibly more stable on the shelf, less mess when it breaks, and both are easy to recycle. But it's the weight that kills you, and that directly impacts shipping costs and fuel.
Re:Glass (Score:4, Insightful)
Not saying its the right solution, but most of those products could be sold in metallic cans which would avoid that issue. Almost all metals are pretty much infinitely recyclable.
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65% of aluminum is recycled. Other metals have lower recycling rates.
The aluminum in a soda can is used three times before it ends up in a landfill, yet it takes more than three times the energy used to make a plastic bottle.
Unless we can raise recycling rates, aluminum is not a good alternative to plastic.
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If the metal containers are made easier to recycle, say by not printing on them or just using a single type of easily removable and biodegradable ink, it would make recycling a lot easier and more efficient.
Even better is to just re-use the container. Unfortunately around here most supermarkets do not offer refills. Many restaurants do, with drink dispensers. Jerry cans exist and contain dangerous liquids. Not sure why supermarkets can't offer a standard size container for much of what they sell.
As for ener
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If the metal containers are made easier to recycle, say by not printing on them
The ink is not a problem. The aluminum is melted, impurities are removed, and then it is formed into sheets and pressed into cans.
The problem is that about a third of the cans are tossed in the trash instead of the recycling bin.
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The problem is that about a third of the cans are tossed in the trash instead of the recycling bin.
That's the thing though: aluminum recycling's point of failure is people not doing it, not a limitation of technology. Used cans are valuable enough that you can literally sell them to a recycling center and they'll pay you for them.
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We lived in a world that used glass packaging not too long ago. Coke didn't switch to plastic bottles until 1993.
Re: Glass (Score:2)
The big issue with glass is the amount of energy needed to process it. Glass is processed at around 1550ÂC. Today those temperatures are achieved by burning a lot of fossil fuels. The amount of fuel required when recycling is about the same as new glass.
If glass bottles and jars were reusable that would lower the energy cost per use.
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Hopefully we will soon be able to do this by burning hydrogen which was produced via renewable energy. But this isn't economically viable yet.
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Why would you want to burn hydrogen for that? You know you can make an electric furnace, right?
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If I understand correctly, steel refining doesn't just require heat, it also requires injection of a gas to bind oxygen from the iron ore leaving pure iron. Coal produces such gases and hydrogen works too, but you can't use just electric heat with no other inputs.
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I remember the old days when parking lots were covered with broken glass bottles.
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For that matter, why not get rid of bars altogether? If we stop people from drinking, then there will be a lot of lives saved in traffic deaths.
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Glass isn't supported by big-oil :) That's all.
Not a conspiracy theory, just truth.
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Glass bottles for one do NOT need to be resmelted. They can be reused as is for quite a number of times. This spreads out the energy cost over a much longer period and use. And to consider the actual cost, you're going to have to make a realistic cost analysis of producing/using/processing/dumping plastic, which the plastic manufacturers really don't want you to do.
You just have to look at what the beer industry does in Europe. (The US seems to be mostly stuck on cans).
trying hard to recycle creates more waste (Score:2)
If 'recycling' only means shipping junk abroad (Score:2)
then you can't expect much from these recycling efforts.
US recycling was a big joke until China stopped playing along as the garbage bin of the US.
Recycling at the wrong level (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just not cost-efficient to recycle plastics the way we're doing it now. I suspect we'd have better luck recycling it, not into new plastic, but into hydrocarbon feedstock for the processes used to synthesize plastics (replacing the petroleum feedstocks currently needed). Contamination and mixing of types wouldn't matter then because the first steps break it down into simple compounds and they work for a wide range of materials. Convert the plastics into ethane and propane and you have the starting materials for the normal synthesis processes.
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Can you really stick PVC and PET in unknown ratios through a process which splits out alkanes and doesn't leave you a chlorinated aromatic tar?
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Nope, but that's still a good thing. You've turned an unusable mix of random dirty plastic into alkanes plus a chlorinated aromatic tar that's suitable for further processing. You want those chlorines and fluorines back to feed into the plastic synthesis processes, after all, and the CHON residue can be broken down and reformed into all kinds of useful molecules. It's no worse than dealing with petroleum feedstock, and you don't even have near as much sulfur to deal with.
Nature Will Find A Better Way - Enzyme Discovery (Score:2)
Scientists have recently found a kind of beetle larvae that can eat polystyrene. [phys.org] They have a gut enzyme that breaks it down. It's possible that they will be able to create or find other enzymes that can break down other forms of plastic. If there is energy to be had, something will figure out how to harvest it.
Recycling has one major purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who has been involved in waste management at the city level knows one thing: waste generated by individual families is a significant part of the picture, but by no means the biggest part. Industrial, commercial and institutional waste, "ICI", makes up about two thirds of the total. Because big dogs get fed, ICI producers generally have more leeway with respect to how their waste is dealt with. They pay more for waste disposal, but not enough more to cover the social, practical and environmental costs of the recyclable and non-recyclable waste they generate. If you aren't really familiar with the system, you won't realize they're getting a relatively cheap ride at taxpayers' expense.
Curbside recycling programs usually have two objectives. They make average people feel responsible for the waste problem, and they make them feel like they're helping. They actually are, but not to the degree they think. Effective residential waste diversion can increase the lifespan of landfills, and help maintain a steady stream of fuel for incinerators (which is important for efficiency). Often, though, any benefits from efficient residential waste diversion are gobbled up by ICI producers in one way or another.
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The gains of recycling around here are in my opinion completely undone by all the fuel burned for that second weekly truck. Plus I guess it creates more jobs having a second crew come around each week.
Recycling needs a rethink. It doubles the fuel burned and doubles my bil
Worked in a recycling factory (Score:5, Interesting)
Built an inventory tracking system for a municipal plastic recycling factory. I can tell you that it was extremely difficult to meet 50%. To the point that I quit when they asked me to create a back door to fudge the numbers. They had the latest machinery from Germany which did spectroscopy based automated binning, specific gravity separators and what have you. Output was things like polyethylene pellets and roofing tiles, and a paper-plastic composite fuel for boilers. Machines can only do so much.. humans would have to unscrew bottle caps and do some sorting. Also.. it was disgusting. Anyway, as people write here, you cannot mix PET bottles with other plastic due to temperatures, but also what may not be noted is that all the neat things like foil backed stickers and so on cannot be recycled! I've also done a PR site for a biodegradable plastic many years ago so remember that too, at least for that process you could indeed get plastic that degrades in seawater in 6 months but seriously? The feel and strength are really different and if I was a designer I wouldn't want to use it. Caveat: Old information though. Someone here mentioned it's a carbon trap so why burn it, just store it? Well that certainly makes sense, it should be way easier than storing nuclear waste, right? But, money. People buy the paper-plastic fuel. I also researched nature friendly power generators at that time since there was no power due to a massive earthquake. Someone here mentioned a kiln which sounds a bit like it. I found a big Japanese firm created something that was like a volcanic process with a hot whirlwind and brick tunnel that basically would just melt everything even metals and let you separate it out afterwards. Not sure if that is even in production but something that burns all the contaminants like the poster's kiln sounds awesome. My take on plastic recycling is that the processes are currently too expensive but if government would support it we could recycle. We need much better separation of plastics at the point where someone drops it into a bin. I haven't studied Coke's new bottle but whatever, we need to try and stay away from unrecyclable things or at least mark what they are so that they can be automatically binned. It is not clear to me whether it makes sense to recycle soft wrappings and such instead of just burning it, at this point my main interest would be in taking every step to reduce microplastics pollution and absorption into our food chain including us. Everything else is just convenience. Also, oil is expensive. Maybe we should work away from a disposable culture. (Though I too use disposable plastics.. we need to make it easier to do this.)
Good ol' Greenpeace (Score:4, Insightful)
Once again throwing out an entire concept by pointing out to failed implementations. Haven't they done enough damage in the world by vilifying nuclear power?
Honestly their biggest issue is in their namesake. Green-peace. Sounds like a bunch of hippies getting high with signs that say "no wars", and at least that would explain where they get their ideas from.
e.g. their "Chief Scientist" was recently on the record in the same article talking about oil in the UK as saying in the same fucking paragraph:
1. oil industries such as bp are not doing enough to reduce the world's dependence on oil.
2. oil industries are making too many profits right now so poor people can't burn oil.
WHAT THE F--- DO YOU WANT!
Recycling increases global warming (Score:2)
If you don't make plastic from oil, the hydrocarbons will be burned as fuel eventually. So do you want all our oil to be CO2 gas, or sequestered underground in some landfill?
over in India (Score:2)
Always wondered (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought 'single stream' was WAY too convenient to be true. Honestly, I'd religiously separate numbers if it was needed to make this work right. If they priced containers on the ability to recycle and post it prominently, the same.
Electronics recycling is just plain bizarre. You can go to the most official place in your area, and it could still end up in a foreign landfill being picked over by the destitute.
WE, as a people, are ready. Companies and Politicians just choose the simplest route that has the least cost, the most fanfare, and nothing to do with the solution.
In the US, you see it daily. "Thoughts and prayers" when something happens. Quick action to condemn and ban. No discussion of "an underlying violence issue" and zero effort to study and adjust the current list of knee-jerk responses that haven't worked.
It's hard not to be discouraged when a few turn everything into a money and power play, and then you get Greenpeace who (though make great points) miss the point by suggesting that we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What is recycling? (Score:2)
After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West's plastic waste in 2018.
So, "ship it to China" counts as recycling?
Getting worse (Score:2)
The poor recovery of recyclable plastic has been known for awhile. My father was public works director of our town and was very early in adopting municipal-level recycling in the early 80's. After about 10 years of it I remember him telling me that plastic recycling was not worth it economically or environmentally, and most of it ended up in landfills. Teenage me vehemently disagreed with him because I wanted recycling to be a cure-all. He was right, though.
I do the grocery shopping in my house, and I find
Dirty little secret (Score:2)
There has been numerous exposé type news segments, articles, etc on this for decades. An investigator would follow their local recycling plastic pathway until they realized the stuff was simply ending up in landfills. I think the ultimate assumption was that this was eventually going to improve, and you had to get the millions of individual consumers on-board before the entire back-end (both the technology to recycle and the ability to handle the volume). However, it has not.
Now when it comes to othe
Plastics companies don't want recycling to work (Score:2)
They'd rather have every creature on the land die starvation, thirst and heat and every creature in the sea die with a gut full of microplastics than standardize on a type of plastic that would actually be easily recyclable.
the concept hasn't failed (Score:2)
The concept is fine. The implementation is bad, willfully so. If you don't let anyone use plastics which can't be meaningfully recycled, they will either come up with a way to recycle them, or come up with an alternative. The whole idea that it's ok to use whatever you want because it has a number stamped on it is bad.
However, literally all plastics can be recycled into something useful through fluid bed pyrolysis. That this is not being done is not because it can't be done. It's not being done because it's
Need to Simplify the Process (Score:2)
This is a job for Elon Musk to take on (Score:2)
It's a technology problem, plain and simple. I always cringe when my trash service sends notices to NOT put grocery plastic bags in the recycle bin. That's not the answer. Advanced robots and processes are needed to collect the trash, sort it, and break it down no matter what format it comes in. If anyone could tackle a task like this, it's Elon.
Odd?!? (Score:2)
I have more plastic in the recycle bin than household waste in the garbage bin.
The recycle center has more traffic and the lines are longer.
It appears that I am, and others in my area, are doing my part SO pedal your guilt and shame to someone else.
Saw a documentary about recycling plastic and it was a fascinating piece showing how plastic is actually recycled and about the multi-national chain of recyclers in the UK and the EU. Very, very little of plastic waste
We need to INCREASE plastic use (Score:2)
One study is meaningless (Score:2)
When you can show me a bunch of studies from non-partisan sources (sorry, Greenpeace is partisan), then we can talk about it.
We should be like Martians (Score:2)
Listen to what the market is telling you (Score:2)
Everyone is trying to contort themselves and make up justifications for why they have the right to tell everyone else how to run their business.
The simple solution is: Accept that in many cases plastics are best and most cost-effective product. And that simply landfilling the used plastic is the best way of disposing of it. Use it, bury it, and be happy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Some small percentage is useful, yes. The rest is unnecessary packaging that's designed to apparently remove fingers or cause other bodily harm while trying to open it.
Re: (Score:2)
I read that as "diodes" the first time and thought it was a throwback electronics joke...
Re: (Score:2)
I am going to be dead before the shit really hits the fan, but if scientific predictions are correct, my kids are in for a really nasty life once the ecosystem starts to fail and food production collapses.
That's already happening. Crop failures are rising rapidly. It only takes one bad day of weather to ruin a whole year's crop...