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Third grade me believed that my recycling got recycled. But it didn’t. We paid extra taxes for corrupt deals to get it dumped in the ocean. That was my plastic

by jl2718 8y ago

Third grade me believed that my recycling got recycled. But it didn’t. We paid extra taxes for corrupt deals to get it dumped in the ocean. That was my plastic that killed the whale. Why did they lie to me? I did always wonder where all the recycling plants were. Would it really have been worse if we had put it in the landfill?

01100011 8y ago
Did your plastic really end up in the ocean? I'm guessing most of my plastic went to a landfill to be dealt with later or was shipped to a reprocessing facility. I understand your western guilt, but I'm guessing most of the plastic comes from places that aren't economically able to deal with their waste streams properly.
- Ultramanoid 8y ago
  As already mentioned, many Western countries ( and others, like Japan ) shipped their plastic waste to China, until recently China refused to take it in anymore.
  - A2017U1 8y ago
    So you are claiming China paid money for recycling waste and then threw it straight in the ocean? Seems incredibly implausible.
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      Nah we paid China to "recycle" trash. And instead of actually recycling they just pocketed the money and dumped it.
      - thereare5lights 8y ago
        That makes no sense. If they were doing that, why would they stop taking free money.
        onion2k 8y ago
        The piles of trash grew too big. The money wasn't worth it any more.
        thereare5lights 8y ago
        Grew too big for the ocean? What?
      - A2017U1 8y ago
        Can you provide a source for that claim? Id happily wager net payments are huge and going in the other direction.
    - calt 8y ago
      They got paid money to take the plastic off our hands and recycle it, not the other way around.
    - robjan 8y ago
      China was usually paid money to deal with the waste
      - riffraff 8y ago
        it was not, china paid to buy plastic and recycle it. Then, oddly enough, it sold it back to the west. The current situation is that they stopped doing that because it's not economic anymore (and some "green backlash"). If they were just being payed to buy plastic and dump it in the rivers there would be no problem in continuing to do that.
    - kirkules 8y ago
      I think the claim is rather that China got paid for taking recycling waste and then did that.
    - Ultramanoid 8y ago
      I am not saying such thing. Quite the opposite. First of all, China was paid to receive it. And I am pointing to the fact that the Western plastic waste problem ( to the point of the comment saying if you're in the West, whatever happens in China is not something to feel guilty about ), is not limited to the West, when for processing it is sent to Asia.
      - A2017U1 8y ago
        > First of all, China was paid to receive it. That is completely wrong, you'll need to provide evidence here, it's strange so many replies say the same. China pays for their recycling imports and get a good deal on shipping. Current tariff wars have changed this environment and now they won't take it. California alone earns billions selling waste to them > In 2016, California’s exports of recyclables amounted to 15 million tons, worth an estimated $4.6 billion. Some 62 percent of that exported material went to China in 2016 https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fallout-shaking-recycling-california/ https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fal...
        Ultramanoid 8y ago
        Tariffs are not an issue between China and the EU / Japan as they are with the U.S., that has little to do with China's decision to ban imports of trash globally. You pay recycling companies to process waste, and the cost of doing so locally in the U.S. now after the Chinese ban is so high that it means cities cannot afford it, thus waste that would have been sent to China for recycling is now piling in landfills or being burnt. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china...
        DougBTX 8y ago
        That article contradicts your assertion that “China was paid to receive it”, it says, “Franklin could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton.“
    - Theodores 8y ago
      They had lots of poor people and their children separate it, wash it and slice it up into lots of strips that then get compressed together into bundles of 'raw feedstock'. In this process lots gets washed away, the local water is no longer drinkable (so they have to buy water to drink from trucks that do the rounds). Any guesses where the river leads to? The ocean. Also many plastics are hard to identify. So you were having kids with lighters burn a bit of that microwave tray (in black) to sniff it and then guess what the rest of the tray was made of. Then it would be put in one of the twenty or so piles of different types of plastic. The Chinese President saw the film about all of this banned the imports and banned the film. That is how we got here. The bit you didn't see (because the film was band) is how water intensive the process is. The leftover food on the microwaved tray does not clean itself. When it has been sliced up into lots of small pieces, washed and compressed into some block of recyclable stuff you get bits of it washed away to end up eventually in the ocean, even if it blights local fields first before the rains come.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  I am going to believe plastic is "accidentally" dumped into oceans same as it is "accidentally" burned on landfills: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger_for_europeans_health_garbage_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger... But on statistics everything is fine for some.
EGreg 8y ago
Government propped up fossil fuels and held back electric cars since 1910. We could have had CHOICE in how our energy is generated. Why in all this time haven’t some alternatives to non-biodegradable plastic emerged?
- chrisco255 8y ago
  It's called glass. We used to bottle everything with it.
  - avuton 8y ago
    Don't know why you got downvoted. I've made a effort in my life to replace new plastics in my life with glass & metal when it makes sense.
- inertiatic 8y ago
  Government did that? They had no reason to unless it's policies were dictated by someone who stood to benefit from such a thing. And then you shouldn't simply blame the government who is just an intermediary in this case. I'd suggest taking your analysis a step further.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  My reading was that electric cars were edged out because of poor battery life compared to gas. Edison tried for many years to invent a better battery, and failed.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    This is true. Edison would have loved for cars to be electric and stood to profit a lot from it. He was also great friends with Henry Ford. Folks act like there's a conspiracy here. 1910 battery tech was pretty primitive. We didn't even discover Lithium tech until the 70s.
    - cr0sh 8y ago
      > 1910 battery tech was pretty primitive. The whole electric powertrain was primitive. The motor speed controller was essentially a giant multi-tap resistor (such a motor controller is still used for most automobile HVAC blower speed control, because it is cheap to manufacture - though PWM systems are becoming more common in newer vehicles). Electric motors were brushed series or shunt wound devices (not permanent magnet, not brushless, not multi-phased). Today's electric cars are virtually all 3-phase systems with a controller that converts from DC to 3-phase AC, with appropriate brushless motors. Major power losses all along the way, coupled with poor battery technology. It is honestly amazing that they were able to get any workable range at all in the vehicles that were manufactured.
WalterBright 8y ago
I don't really understand what's wrong with putting it in a landfill. If it's inert, it shouldn't cause any harm. Animals don't eat buried plastic.
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  Its not the worst solution. Problem is a load of it doesn't make it to the bin and everywhere that isn't carefully cleaned daily is covered in bits of plastic.
barbs 8y ago
How is no-one linking to any sources in this thread? Seriously, it's easy to be misinformed on this topic, mostly because the truth is hidden and because people make all sorts of claims without any evidence. Enough with the FUD
lixtra 8y ago
Here is an argument about burn vs. bury: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-43120041 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-43120041
cr0sh 8y ago
Third grade me was told that partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (margarine, crisco, etc) was healthier for my heart vs other fats. For 30+ years "they" were basically slowly killing us. Whether they knew it or not. In this case - with "recycling" - they likely knew what was really going on - but because money - they sold us a bill of goods; though we happily went along with it, too. I don't think there's any way out of this mess.
r_smart 8y ago
I mean, the article mentions right away that it's in the Philippines, and the whale's stomach was full of rice bags as sold in local grocery stores. It also says the Philippines is one of the worst plastic polluters in the world. Flagellate yourself as much as you want, but you can't take much blame for this one.

by jl2718 8y ago

01100011 8y ago

Did your plastic really end up in the ocean? I'm guessing most of my plastic went to a landfill to be dealt with later or was shipped to a reprocessing facility. I understand your western guilt, but I'm guessing most of the plastic comes from places that aren't economically able to deal with their waste streams properly.

Ultramanoid 8y ago
As already mentioned, many Western countries ( and others, like Japan ) shipped their plastic waste to China, until recently China refused to take it in anymore.
- A2017U1 8y ago
  So you are claiming China paid money for recycling waste and then threw it straight in the ocean? Seems incredibly implausible.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Nah we paid China to "recycle" trash. And instead of actually recycling they just pocketed the money and dumped it.
    - thereare5lights 8y ago
      That makes no sense. If they were doing that, why would they stop taking free money.
      - onion2k 8y ago
        The piles of trash grew too big. The money wasn't worth it any more.
        thereare5lights 8y ago
        Grew too big for the ocean? What?
    - A2017U1 8y ago
      Can you provide a source for that claim? Id happily wager net payments are huge and going in the other direction.
  - calt 8y ago
    They got paid money to take the plastic off our hands and recycle it, not the other way around.
  - robjan 8y ago
    China was usually paid money to deal with the waste
    - riffraff 8y ago
      it was not, china paid to buy plastic and recycle it. Then, oddly enough, it sold it back to the west. The current situation is that they stopped doing that because it's not economic anymore (and some "green backlash"). If they were just being payed to buy plastic and dump it in the rivers there would be no problem in continuing to do that.
  - kirkules 8y ago
    I think the claim is rather that China got paid for taking recycling waste and then did that.
  - Ultramanoid 8y ago
    I am not saying such thing. Quite the opposite. First of all, China was paid to receive it. And I am pointing to the fact that the Western plastic waste problem ( to the point of the comment saying if you're in the West, whatever happens in China is not something to feel guilty about ), is not limited to the West, when for processing it is sent to Asia.
    - A2017U1 8y ago
      > First of all, China was paid to receive it. That is completely wrong, you'll need to provide evidence here, it's strange so many replies say the same. China pays for their recycling imports and get a good deal on shipping. Current tariff wars have changed this environment and now they won't take it. California alone earns billions selling waste to them > In 2016, California’s exports of recyclables amounted to 15 million tons, worth an estimated $4.6 billion. Some 62 percent of that exported material went to China in 2016 https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fallout-shaking-recycling-california/ https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fal...
      - Ultramanoid 8y ago
        Tariffs are not an issue between China and the EU / Japan as they are with the U.S., that has little to do with China's decision to ban imports of trash globally. You pay recycling companies to process waste, and the cost of doing so locally in the U.S. now after the Chinese ban is so high that it means cities cannot afford it, thus waste that would have been sent to China for recycling is now piling in landfills or being burnt. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china...
        DougBTX 8y ago
        That article contradicts your assertion that “China was paid to receive it”, it says, “Franklin could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton.“
  - Theodores 8y ago
    They had lots of poor people and their children separate it, wash it and slice it up into lots of strips that then get compressed together into bundles of 'raw feedstock'. In this process lots gets washed away, the local water is no longer drinkable (so they have to buy water to drink from trucks that do the rounds). Any guesses where the river leads to? The ocean. Also many plastics are hard to identify. So you were having kids with lighters burn a bit of that microwave tray (in black) to sniff it and then guess what the rest of the tray was made of. Then it would be put in one of the twenty or so piles of different types of plastic. The Chinese President saw the film about all of this banned the imports and banned the film. That is how we got here. The bit you didn't see (because the film was band) is how water intensive the process is. The leftover food on the microwaved tray does not clean itself. When it has been sliced up into lots of small pieces, washed and compressed into some block of recyclable stuff you get bits of it washed away to end up eventually in the ocean, even if it blights local fields first before the rains come.
imhoguy 8y ago
I am going to believe plastic is "accidentally" dumped into oceans same as it is "accidentally" burned on landfills: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger_for_europeans_health_garbage_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger... But on statistics everything is fine for some.

EGreg 8y ago

Government propped up fossil fuels and held back electric cars since 1910. We could have had CHOICE in how our energy is generated. Why in all this time haven’t some alternatives to non-biodegradable plastic emerged?

chrisco255 8y ago
It's called glass. We used to bottle everything with it.
- avuton 8y ago
  Don't know why you got downvoted. I've made a effort in my life to replace new plastics in my life with glass & metal when it makes sense.
inertiatic 8y ago
Government did that? They had no reason to unless it's policies were dictated by someone who stood to benefit from such a thing. And then you shouldn't simply blame the government who is just an intermediary in this case. I'd suggest taking your analysis a step further.
WalterBright 8y ago
My reading was that electric cars were edged out because of poor battery life compared to gas. Edison tried for many years to invent a better battery, and failed.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  This is true. Edison would have loved for cars to be electric and stood to profit a lot from it. He was also great friends with Henry Ford. Folks act like there's a conspiracy here. 1910 battery tech was pretty primitive. We didn't even discover Lithium tech until the 70s.
  - cr0sh 8y ago
    > 1910 battery tech was pretty primitive. The whole electric powertrain was primitive. The motor speed controller was essentially a giant multi-tap resistor (such a motor controller is still used for most automobile HVAC blower speed control, because it is cheap to manufacture - though PWM systems are becoming more common in newer vehicles). Electric motors were brushed series or shunt wound devices (not permanent magnet, not brushless, not multi-phased). Today's electric cars are virtually all 3-phase systems with a controller that converts from DC to 3-phase AC, with appropriate brushless motors. Major power losses all along the way, coupled with poor battery technology. It is honestly amazing that they were able to get any workable range at all in the vehicles that were manufactured.

WalterBright 8y ago

I don't really understand what's wrong with putting it in a landfill. If it's inert, it shouldn't cause any harm. Animals don't eat buried plastic.

ndnxhs 8y ago
Its not the worst solution. Problem is a load of it doesn't make it to the bin and everywhere that isn't carefully cleaned daily is covered in bits of plastic.

barbs 8y ago

How is no-one linking to any sources in this thread? Seriously, it's easy to be misinformed on this topic, mostly because the truth is hidden and because people make all sorts of claims without any evidence. Enough with the FUD

lixtra 8y ago

Here is an argument about burn vs. bury: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-43120041 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-43120041

cr0sh 8y ago

Third grade me was told that partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (margarine, crisco, etc) was healthier for my heart vs other fats. For 30+ years "they" were basically slowly killing us. Whether they knew it or not. In this case - with "recycling" - they likely knew what was really going on - but because money - they sold us a bill of goods; though we happily went along with it, too. I don't think there's any way out of this mess.

r_smart 8y ago

I mean, the article mentions right away that it's in the Philippines, and the whale's stomach was full of rice bags as sold in local grocery stores. It also says the Philippines is one of the worst plastic polluters in the world. Flagellate yourself as much as you want, but you can't take much blame for this one.