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This is for glass recycling not plastic, but I recently found out that my county ships all of their glass recyclables to be dumped in a landfill of a neighborin
by narwally 6y ago
This is for glass recycling not plastic, but I recently found out that my county ships all of their glass recyclables to be dumped in a landfill of a neighboring state. In my state, waste disposal companies are legally obligated to recycle everything they can that ends up in a recycling bin. But with glass it's actually vastly cheaper to produce new glass bottles than it is to make them out of recycled material. So there isn't a market for the waste management companies to even sell the product they legally have to produce. To get around this regulation they just ship their recycled glass to a state without this regulation, and dump it all in a landfill there.
It seems like the only way to make recycling truly effective at a large scale is to make it economically viable, either through the creating of new recycling techniques that make using recycled materials the cheapest option, or through subsidies to artificially produce the same effect.
- leafmeal 6y agoIf the cost of recycling was added in as a tax on the material, that could be effective as well. Then the market could decide which materials are truly cost effective.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago>It seems like the only way to make recycling truly effective at a large scale is to make it economically viable I think it's easier and less corruptible to have the goal be to reduce the consumption causing the waste and attack the problem at the root. I.e. a tax increasing the cost of everything to reflect the cost of properly disposing it. Recycling doesn't undo the environmental damage, and in many cases it takes huge amounts of energy to recycle causing even more damage.
- wolco 6y agoDoesn't this hurt the poor while enabling the rich to continue being wasteful.
- Goronmon 6y agoDoesn't this hurt the poor while enabling the rich to continue being wasteful. Absolutely
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIt solves the problem of excess consumption by humans as a whole. If this creates a new problem, such as allowing some humans consume disproportionately more than others, then that can be solved separately. The easiest and least corruptible solution that comes to mind there is wealth redistribution.
- fullstop 6y agoAt least the glass is inert. At some point in the future landfills will be on par with gold mines, and only then will we see how truly wasteful we have been.
- snowbrook 6y agoPossible new use for recycled glass: https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/two-startups-seek-grow-interest-foam-glass-fill https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/two-startups-se...
- hinkley 6y agoI believe you can also use glass in concrete and asphalt (although we just talked about how nasty asphalt is). I think I heard brown glass can use mixed color feedstock, but other uses for commingled glass should also help with the logistics of recycling it. Especially since multiple consumers should decrease shipping distances.
- ZeroGravitas 6y agoHere, specifically about glass, are some of the reasons the US fails at this, while Europe just does it. https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recycling-US-broken/97/i6 https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recy... Basically the lack of sensible policy.
- acomjean 6y agoIn Massachusetts the last glass recycling plant closed a couple years ago. The main problem glass bottle demand was down and the plant making the bottles closed ( beer being more popular in cans is cited as a cause) https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2018/07/19/massachusetts-only-glass-recycling-plant-closes https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2018/07/19/massachusett... They've been using the ground glass as aggregate in roads.. You are 100% correct in that there needs to be economic incentive.
- lopmotr 6y agoGlass is about the most harmless thing you could put in a landfill. Right down there with naturally occurring rocks. What environmental problem are they causing by burying it?
- armandhammer 6y agoI remember finding out 15 years ago that the moderately progressive well-known "university town" where I lived at the time (Southeastern U.S.) didn't actually recycle anything, they just buried the plastic stuff and the clear vs colored glass in different sections of the landfill, so that it'd be easier to dig it up one day when recycling was actually economically viable. The recycling lie isn't new.