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My understanding is that it used to be true, but recently-ish China stopped taking in our recycling and now we have nowhere to put it

kelnage 7y ago
Yes, they took it. But my understanding is that only a small proportion that made it to China even got recycled and much of it ended up in Chinese landfill or being incinerated [1]. Hence they banned accepting it. 1. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782?ijkey=8a4d9e091515bf3d2427ce25c9f06afe0793f5f7&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782?ijkey=8...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ppf 7y ago
At least now we can actually see the problem, instead of passing our "recycling" to developing countries and calling it good.
Keverw 7y ago
Yeah. Seen the news station talking about that a few months ago. Some cities are just taking the recyclables to the regular city dump's landfill like regular trash, and some are just burning it since that's cheaper than sending it to China... and I thought they said not to burn plastic? Well using an incinerator, not like a campfire... but still, feels a bit misleading. Then cities got grants to fund recycling and some cities even have mandatory recycling laws too for residents. Seems like we've all been scammed in a way, but I think the intentions of recycling is good.
- redbeard0x0a 7y ago
  Recycling Aluminum cans is actually much easier and better for the environment. If I recall correctly, it takes about 5% of the energy to make aluminum from recycled sources vs. from ore. The fact that you can take cans into a recycler and get paid for them is a _really_ good indicator that recycling aluminum works.
dekhn 7y ago
China did stop doing that, but they also bought shut-down paper mills in the US, and use them to process local cardboard to higher standards and then send the QA-passing resulting pulp back to china for new cardboard production. (at least, this is what was told to me from an expert in the field who researchers these things for a living).

kelnage 7y ago

Yes, they took it. But my understanding is that only a small proportion that made it to China even got recycled and much of it ended up in Chinese landfill or being incinerated [1]. Hence they banned accepting it. 1. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782?ijkey=8a4d9e091515bf3d2427ce25c9f06afe0793f5f7&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782?ijkey=8...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ppf 7y ago

At least now we can actually see the problem, instead of passing our "recycling" to developing countries and calling it good.

Keverw 7y ago

Yeah. Seen the news station talking about that a few months ago. Some cities are just taking the recyclables to the regular city dump's landfill like regular trash, and some are just burning it since that's cheaper than sending it to China... and I thought they said not to burn plastic? Well using an incinerator, not like a campfire... but still, feels a bit misleading. Then cities got grants to fund recycling and some cities even have mandatory recycling laws too for residents. Seems like we've all been scammed in a way, but I think the intentions of recycling is good.

redbeard0x0a 7y ago
Recycling Aluminum cans is actually much easier and better for the environment. If I recall correctly, it takes about 5% of the energy to make aluminum from recycled sources vs. from ore. The fact that you can take cans into a recycler and get paid for them is a _really_ good indicator that recycling aluminum works.

dekhn 7y ago

China did stop doing that, but they also bought shut-down paper mills in the US, and use them to process local cardboard to higher standards and then send the QA-passing resulting pulp back to china for new cardboard production. (at least, this is what was told to me from an expert in the field who researchers these things for a living).