- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.world
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We sort trash in 4 bins and one bag.
- Paper
- Glass and metal
- Bio, food waste
- General waste that doesn’t belong in the other bins.
- Isn’t a bin but a plastic bag for plastic.
Lets say we didn’t have a bag specifically for plastic, that waste would have ended up in 4. Most of 4 is burned. By putting plastic in its own bag it increased the amount of plastic returned to waste management and reduced the amount left out in nature and burned.
We’ve been dealt a shit hand, but we can try making the best out of the situation. Giving up isn’t an option.
Here we just ship out plastic to SEA and they toss out whatever they cannot use
Sorry I don’t follow.
Is 4 a bin or a bag?
Is everything in 4 bagged or only the plastic?
How does bagging the plastic avoid it being left out in nature or burned?
Fudge, formatting fooled me! Since 1-4 were numbers and the 5th didn’t have to be a number but just “Bag”, when I wrote it without a number it didn’t start on the next line, but at the end of “4”. Edited the comment to show it better.
The 4th is a bin, and the last one (5th for clarity) is a big plastic bag.
And there’s people who thing trash bins in general are just optional
the people who try to force the burden of a species worth of impact onto individuals are always just running cover for corporations n conglomerates; give them time to build society’s tolerance for bleakness and whatever industrial-scale crime they’re doing and internalise guilt for it before coming back to win the pr war and make money in some other slightly less evil way
The problem isn’t just recycling; it’s consumption. Also, aluminum still holds some value. What else is worth recycling?
Glass
Glass used to be washed and reused. It’s a lot more energy (and therefore greenhouse gases) to melt and reform into whatever.
Supply for high quality white sand used for almost all glass making will be exhausted in 2037, according to British Geologist Michael Welland.
There will be a point in the near future where recycling glass will be less expensive than sourcing high quality sand.
Perhaps, but it’s 100% reusable as far as I’m aware. It can also be used for other things, such as roads, or even to help plants grow.
This is how it works in Germany. Lots of their water bottles are made of glass, and end up with textured/worn rings along the bottle; The rings are from where it goes through the recycling machines to get prepped for the next use. The rings mean the bottle has been reused a lot, and has gone through the machines enough to get slightly worn.
electronics
Paper, all metalls and glass. Collecting organic waste for either compost or, if your city does this, biogas plants is also good.
The highest value for the economy is cardboard recycling. Honestly, cardboard recycling creates a LOT of jobs. Companies get into bid wars trying to buy cardboard scrap to recycle.
Cellulose is generally recyclable but as I understand it degrades through each cycle, until it’s basically unfit for recycling and is more efficient to burn for energy.
Recycled plastic gets used more when the price of oil goes up as these commodities are closely tied. Some places like automotive manufacturers only take auto grade plastics and those recycled materials can be in short supply so their is often demand for it.
Recycling started off as the third R and last resort, the first two were Reduce and Reuse. Those were not compatible with an economy based on consumerism and growth, so Recycling became the focus, creating an industry to pick through the few things that could be recycled and trashing the rest, and encouraging the public to buy more because it’s not a problem as long as you participate.
And if you don’t participate, all the problems are your fault. Not the companies making the stuff, they’re just doing what you want.
They also told us all this stuff was recyclable. They got us to separate our trash. Municipalities changed their waste collections services. Added new trucks. For 40 years. Then they were like “yeah, none of this stuff can actually be recycled”. lol. And THEN after they got called out on that, they’re like “yeah, we lied last time. But now we really are working on a way to recycle these things. And it’s really really going to work this time totally for sure.”
I think it’s even worse. They didn’t tell us what was and wasn’t recyclable. They used symbols very similar to the recycling logo to stamp on various types of plastics to classify them. Most of the types used are one time use, they never were meant to imply recycling, that’s just the symbol appearance.
And even still, not everything of any particular code is recyclable.
I finally discovered that what is accepted in my recycle cart is determined by who will buy it for recycle. For example, some company might buy yogurt tubs and milk jugs but not other shapes of the same plastics.
It’s a system for more than just plastics, like batteries are that symbol with 43? In the logo. It is a classification system for waste handling, some materials more recyclable than others. The idea is as technology increases we may have methods to deal with more of them. For now, what plastic isn’t recycled is often made into fuel pellets, and used as heating sources for industrial stuff. It’s better than mining coal, and oil, but still not an ideal reuse method.
Reuse repair and recycle are in this order for a reason.
Companies should use recycle as a last resort. And especially should consider repair when producing items.
However people buy cheap new shit more often than try to repair sth.
Fuck consum economy
the order is actually Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
i think it’s reconsider (buying this product), reuse, recycle
Isn’t it Reny, Refend, Repose?
that’s the anarchic stance. mine was more a chemical/technical one.
Some stuff has to be consumed, like food. And that’s a major problem with plastic. Plastic is being used to protect and preserve foods, but it’s also being used as a cheap binding for shipments.
The right solution introduces an added logistic hurdle to send back packaging for reuse and to reprocess/clean that packaging.
There is actually a way out of this, but marketers hate it. It’s standardized reusable containers and outlawing or severely limiting the use of plastic and inks for product distribution.
Sure, it’d turn our grocery stores into a warehouse-like feel, but it would also make it easy and possible for reuse and recycle centers to process and redistribute packaging with very minimal waste.
It’d also make it a lot harder for companies to play the shrinkflation game.
Standardization like this does wonders.
Sometimes the only option is to buy the cheap shit too and it pisses me off. Theres so many times where I want a quality version of some tool or item and I can only find the item in cheap materials barely different than any other version. Ive started even designing my own stuff and going through sendcutsend or having it manufactured otherwise
Or there is only a cheap option or an option over 10x as expensive with no middle ground.
I think if we can’t convince people to reduce their consumption which is a Sisyphean effort, The next best step would be to try to convince manufacturers and packaging companies to switch over to either mostly cardboard or metal. Metal is almost infinitely recyclable, and cardboard once it reaches the end of its recyclable life span can be used as fertilizer and as a product for other things.
Yes, ship all Amazon packages in metal boxes! I like this future 😎
Or, ya know. Cardboard.
Cardboard boxes? That will never catch on
I have plastic in my testicles and I don’t even have any.
MY GOD… The plastic took your testicles?!? WHY ARE WE NOT DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THIS???
Maybe you have plastic testicles now… isn’t evolution amazing!
Plasticles
the most flexible greek philosopher
Big oil…
Sauce? Asking for a friend
Someone had to. And I thank you for it, although it always makes me cry for Tasha.
The Middle East, Texas, Russia, Canada… there’s a bunch of sources, but it’s still a lot of work to get. Plus, you know, its usage is slowly killing us.
Not to mention how plastic recycling isn’t exactly easy anyway. Not all jurisdictions take all kinds of plastic. So you have to know what your recycling center can handle and what you’re tossing in or risk contamination.
I go out of my way to buy things shipped in paper, glass, or metal containers. Even though steel and aluminum cans do have a little plastic in them, it’s far less plastic than containers made entirely of it.
It would be nice if we could have more things sold in the bulk section so you can bring your own container. Like, if I could buy laundry detergent or shampoo using my own containers, that’d be sick.
My coffee shop used to take my own cup and they would fill that up. The pandemic hit and they stopped doing taking reusable cups. After the pandemic, they still aren’t taking cups. This just feels like corpo propaganda.
The problem is plastic can’t be broken down and reassembled forever. Recycling isn’t Lego. The focus should be finding ways to reuse something without altering it too much. But yeah it’s not gonna save the planet sadly.
This is actually incorrect, you can absolutely break plastic into its basic constituents and create new plastic. But that costs more than simply using already existing oil.
The cheaper downcycle method is roughly separating the plastics and using certain ones to make new items like plastic bags, buckets etc.
You can? I thought it deteriorates with every time that’s being done but maybe that’s just true for the methods that are economically viable.
The polymer decomposes when you heat it up, yes. But you can also start from scratch, so to speak. But that is a more involved process. The same way you can reuse steel or melt it completely new.
That’s interesting, thanks for the input!
I mean, plastic recycling is easy; burn it with filters, then put the filters in the hole where the oil came from. Then use a biodegradable replacement according to your needs.
What do you mean with filters?
Those active coal and/or electrostatic ones you put in the chimney?
But why put them in the hole? If you have no clean burning, the filter mostly gets carbon, which can be burned again. Some plastics like PVC release HCl, so you need to scrub that, but the result is harmless table salt. The biggest issue is formation of dioxins, so you need to have a high flame temperature to make sure everything burns clean. Otherwise dust etc. could contain heavy metals, but that is not directly from the plastic.
I mean, climate change is coal © we take out of reserves in the form of oil and gas (from times where climate was warmer) and then burn it with oxygen (O) to CO².
Yes, plastic is a problem with pollution. But no matter how much we recycle it or if it rots away over centuries, hurting animals and poisoning environments: the end result is still that it is processed oil © out of a hole, contributing to greenhouse effect.
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I really agree with your point. However:
First of all, it’s reduce, reuse, recycle.
Nobody implied that recycling would solve everything. (at least i didn’t, i don’t know about what other people said)
Secondly, plastics is actually less of a problem than people think. Plastics is essentially non-toxic, or has a similar toxicity than wood, grass, and other carbohydrates. So essentially non-toxic. The fact that there is traces of it in your blood is not surprising, because our detection systems these days are very sensitive and can detect even the tiniest amounts.
The additives are the problem, and they should either be forbidden or strictly regulated.
The point that “chemical recycling is infeasible” is wrong. It used to be financially infeasible because the energy required to recycle was many times more expensive than just buying crude oil and making new plastics. Nowadays, however, that might change, depending on how cheap solar energy turns out to become over the next 10 years.
Furthermore, i guess Aluminum and glass are actually often worse for the environment, because while they could be recycled close to 100% when properly collected, such a good collection system is totally unreasonable and off the bat IMO. Consider: if there’s one stupid guy who throws a lead acid battery into the recycle container, all of you now have lead poisoning for the rest of your lifes. It’s a medical hazard.
Additionally, the problem with plastic waste in the environment is a problem of insufficient regulation, not with the plastics itself. Plastics can be burned very close to 100%, so it leaves no traces. Different than say nuclear which leaves back toxic waste. Additionally, burning plastics releases close to 100% of the energy stored in it, so it could be used as a fuel. In the future, optimized plastics power stations might burn plastics in the winter to generate energy to compensate for lower solar energy. That’s why i’m actually in favor of collecting all plastics in gigantic landfills, because it might become a very valuable resource later on.
Burning plastic has similar issues to fossil fuels, with all the waste ending up in our lungs.
Nuclear waste can be rendered inert in glassified casks, while having a much higher power density and reliability.
corporations only fuel what the consumer wants most.
its humanities own greed ideologically refusing 20cents more for another packaging. best thing is how family and friends belittle you for investing 10% more into other products like that
idc we are past 1,5° anyway, theres no hope really (sorry for looking so negative, im trying to be rational tho)
