10 ms·

Start a Business from Plastic Waste

147 points by manx 6y ago

donkarma 6y ago
Crazy how we use one of the most durable materials on Earth for disposables
NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
What type of plastic types can be recycled this way? From what I read, only a small percent of all plastic product can be recycled. For instance, bags that are on their logo flag, are not recyclable, in UK when you sorting out recyclable materials they tell you that bags are not suitable for recycling. And in some way they tear quickly and contribute hugely to micro-plastic pollution that goes into food chain.
- herbst 6y ago
  "not recycleable" sometimes only means its not economically feasable to recycle, which for example is true for diapers too (which make up about 30% of our houshold trash). There is some weird trash town in agypt that over 90% recycling rate especially with plastics (afaik).
xyst 6y ago
If billions of dollars spent on various recycling programs fail, I can’t see these homemade machines solving this problem either. It’s clear this is not immune to the sorting problem which is the root cause of why plastic recycling is unprofitable. I can see this as an educational program for children and adults that ignorantly throw anything plastic into the recycling bin thinking it would be recycled. But in reality, it’s likely going into the local landfill (or overseas). The only way to solve this plastic problem is to ban all single use applications (ie, cups, straws, takeaway containers, grocery bags, ...).
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  There's a lot of things that can be economically viable at the personal/household scale that can't work at the commercial scale because of the regulatory requirements of a modern first world workplace. Most of the time when you see a kit to DIY something this is the niche in which it lives. Not saying the economics work out for this particular thing but just because it's not commercially viable doesn't mean it's not economically viable. You don't see scrapyards hiring people to drive around picking up scrap metal yet people do it for a net profit, same concept.
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    That’s true, this might actually work if it’s done at the household or neighborhood level. The big problems with recycling plastic are manual sorting and cleaning the gross stuff people leave in it. If you’re recycling your own waste you can tackle those problems easily. If it’s your neighbour’s water then you can ask them to be responsible or lose access to your service and good will.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  The sorting problem is mostly due to people feeling like they can get away with not washing their recyclables and throwing anything into the recycling bin. If you have to deliver those recyclables to a local business in person and they can tell you to your face that you didn’t do it right and you have to take your bin over to a washing station and redo it before you can leave it there you can be sure it won’t happen again.
  - _rpd 6y ago
    > If you have to deliver those recyclables to a local business in person But you don’t have to. You can just throw it in the trash or blue lid recycling bin, emptied every Monday. What motivates someone to spend hours scrubbing and personally delivering clean plastic?
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
      Trillion dollar question.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >What motivates someone to spend hours scrubbing and personally delivering clean plastic? Image. If you can convince a bunch of dumb yuppies that they will sound like the hippest hipster in the break room when they chat with all their coworkers about what they're up to they will shovel inordinate amounts of money in your direction. And after a good run at that either you sell out and move down market or someone else comes along and develops a 90% as good solution that's accessible to a much broader cross section of the population. Pulling that off is the big question though. Premium consumers are more fickle than normal consumers.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > What motivates someone to spend hours scrubbing and personally delivering clean plastic? Hence why taxes on fossil fuels should be so high that a plastic bottle costs $10 and plastic toys cost $100, so the alternatives are worth it and the plastic is not made in the first place.
- _rpd 6y ago
  > It’s clear this is not immune to the sorting problem which is the root cause of why plastic recycling is unprofitable Yeah, they depict collectors bicycling around town with a trailer and then washing and delabeling the collected plastic in a domestic kitchen sink. They would have to charge thousands per ton for the clean stock.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  Plastic needs classified as toxic and treated as such. There are beaches now covered in plastic chips instead of sand (the sand is underneath). The real scary part is waking up one day and realizing that we are infested with microplastics to a dangerous and irreversible saturation point from the natural breakdown. Man made fibers, water bottles, children's toys...all will break down to microscopic levels. We can probably filter it out effectively for drinking but the whole deal is just another log on the fire that humanity has built under themselves.
  - slver 6y ago
    You know, I actually prefer plastic sand.
- CannisterFlux 6y ago
  The latest trick for plastic items is for companies to say they are reusable. So instead of a box of plastic straws, it is now a box with "reusable plastic straws" written on it. Same exact product, but now marketed to get around any single-use bans.
Daniel_sk 6y ago
A lot of these plastic-recycling products don't cope with the big issue of pollution with micro plastic particles. I read about making pavement from plastic waste. Sure you can do that, but the plastic will be slowly worn down and the micro particles will pollute everything. That's the same problem with low quality plastics being recycled into household items. I see a health risk here. I will prefer something from wood, glass or metal - or from high quality (and bio-degradable?) plastics.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  It's a very bad idea to use recycled plastic for anything that will face abrasion, harsh temperatures or harsh chemicals, or a combination. Or any plastic really, microplastics don't care about which generation recycling your plastic has been through. Obviously the most important thing to do is to reduce how much plastic is produced in the first place. Plastic recycling doesn't solve the microplastic issue, it arguably makes it worse, so any scrap plastic should be responsibly burned for energy and that energy should go towards production using materials that aren't plastic. Use plastic only for products where the use of plastic is necessary for some critical functionality, and cannot be replaced with sustainable, biodegradable, properly recyclable materials. And only for products that are meant to last a long time, all single use and disposable plastic (such as packaging) needs to disappear ASAP.
  - bottled_poe 6y ago
    Seems like a strange jump from “recycling is bad” to “we should burn plastic for energy”.
    - KozmoNau7 6y ago
      Then you misunderstand. Recycling is good wherever and whenever reducing or reusing is not possible. Especially aluminum recycling (and most other metal recycling) is a win-win, both when looking at energy expenditure and environmental impact from mining. Plastic recycling doesn't work currently. There are too many mutually incompatible types, and sorting is painfully manual and slow, it's exceedingly hard to automate and make efficient. A lot of plastic types cannot be reformed or remolded at all, so the only use for them is to be ground up and used as filler material. All of this plastic processing just further exacerbates the microplastic problem. The further you grind down and reuse plastic, the worse the end product becomes and the more it sheds microplastic when used or exposed to abrasion, UV light and other forms of wear and tear. So I propose that we cut the head off the beast, strongly curtail plastic production and try to responsibly get rid of the microplastic-generating plastic we already have. Incineration -when done correctly- is a responsible way of disposal that also generates power. We already burn dioxins and many other harmful compounds to dispose of them safely and with minimal environmental impact, if done correctly.
motohagiography 6y ago
Two interesting things, and a third. The first is that the whole business is upcycling disposable products/material into more long term durable ones. The second is the success of the collection depends entirely on the demand for the upcycled products up the supply chain. (extrusion, sheetpress, injection moulding, and the stuff you make out of them) So inventing very long term useful things made from recycled plastic (bricks, roads, large boats) would improve demand for recycling. The third is the collection point business is a straight bounty program, which seems like the most basic business model in nature. There was a guy who trained crows to trade cigarette buts for peanuts in a machine, and it seems like you could do the same with plastics litter collection. Maybe we could build machines that other wild animals could figure out that accepted litter and waste and returned food.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  Wouldn’t upcycling plastic into more durable plastic actually exacerbate the problems with plastic?
ladybro 6y ago
A friend has been making clothes from 100% certified ocean plastic: https://seathreads.co/ https://seathreads.co/ As a business owner, I don't envy his margins, but I certainly hope to see more companies doing similar in the future. We need to make re-use cool and something to brag about.
- hypertele-Xii 6y ago
  Plastic is bad because it degrades into microplastic which is mechanically toxic to life (gets stuck in yer body). Why would you want to wear something toxic? That's like taking asbestos out of the walls and rubbing it on your body. Also, (machine) washing plastic clothes further degrades them into microplastics. Bad idea all around.
  - gtk40 6y ago
    Hmm I'm a runner and pretty much everything I wear for running is plastic. The common advice I've gotten is to avoid cotton and it's worked well for me. Anywhere I can read more about this?
    - millzlane 6y ago
      Not OP, But I've read about it recently. While, I'm not yet avoiding these products, it's cause for concern. https://appalachiangearcompany.com/blogs/appgear-insider/your-fleece-s-dirty-secret-microplastics https://appalachiangearcompany.com/blogs/appgear-insider/you...
    - snypher 6y ago
      I'd like to know who is advising you against cotton, and why? Unless you are in a strange climate it's one of the best materials for clothing.
      - pastage 6y ago
        Silk and wool breaths and keeps fresh much longer without having to wash them all the time. Wool is the best IMHO.
gadders 6y ago
This company was recently featured on a BBC Podcast called "People Fixing the World": https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09ddhz6 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09ddhz6 "Machines to shred, melt and mould waste plastic are popping up in workshops around the world - from the UK to Malaysia, Kenya to Mexico. The project is being led by an organisation called Precious Plastic. They put designs for the devices online for anyone to download and build themselves. More than 400 teams around the world are now taking on the challenge of plastic waste using these machines, making everything from sunglasses to plastic bricks in the process."
Lio 6y ago
Plastic breaks down is horrible ways and gets everywhere. It's hard to clean well enough to be recycled. Even when recycled it's still constantly breaking down into micro-particles and getting everywhere. If we can't persuade retailers to use something else I kind of think that the best and cleanest use for single use plastic might be to just incinerate it with a very good scrubber system on the exhaust from the incinerator. Get the energy back and do something useful with it. e.g. use it as base load for renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Anything but let it get buried or broken down and into water courses.
- specialist 6y ago
  > persuade retailers to use something else I've been daydreaming about alternatives. Wrapping bars of deodorant in rice paper. Making it like a bar of soap that you can hold. I found a (mostly) bamboo toothbrush. It's ok. The bamboo dental floss is pretty terrific. Hoping to never buy fleece or spandex again, I'm still looking for hemp (or whatever) "athleisure" clothing. Like pullovers. (My lame attempts to learn to my make own clothing didn't get very far.)
  - erikcw 6y ago
    I really like Smart Wool[0]. Really durable product and hi performing — seems to be much more environmentally friendly than synthetic textiles. [0] https://www.smartwool.com/ https://www.smartwool.com/
    - awestroke 6y ago
      They sell clothes made of wool and plastic mix. Nylon, elastane, polyester.
      - intergalplan 6y ago
        Pretty much anything wool that's form-fitting or otherwise meant for athletics or other activity is gonna have some plastic in it, for the stretchiness. Socks, undershirts, athletic shirts, all that kind of thing.
aliswe 6y ago
There is a process called pyrolysis which basically distills any kind of plastic into oil / diesel fuel. A number of things can be added to the process, such as pressure, vaccuum, and catalysators, to make it more efficient. It even works on old tyres! The rest is basically sludge or soot which allegedly also can be utilized in some way. It also emits "pyrolytic gases" (iirc) which I guess are bad? Toxic? Bad for the environment? Idk... Heres one out of tonnes of YT videos: https://youtu.be/TFuTCpCVSbM https://youtu.be/TFuTCpCVSbM
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  This is an underrated solution. As everyone mentions in this thread, plastic reuse furthers the problem due to microplastic breakdown. Ideally, you're gasifying with plasma [1] [2] [3], with the slag going into road aggregate or other construction processes as feedstock. This doesn't work (yet) at hobbyist/small scale, but is entirely possible at municipal waste stream scale. Plastics (anything really, except metals, soil, and rock) go in, clean burning syngas and slag come out. Could even do carbon capture off the syngas to sequester the CO2 if you colocate somewhere where you can mineralize below ground, and use renewables to provide whatever power you can't recover from generation off the syngas. This assumes you also outlaw single use plastics/disposable plastics to solve for the other side of the equation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification [2] https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=honorstheses https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... (Treatment of Plastic Wastes Using Plasma Gasification Technology) [3] https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/westinghouse https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasificati...
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    I've read about plasma gasification for years, including some nebulous plan for New York City to buy one. But from the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification_commercialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification_commercial...) it looks like there are a total of 5 sites operating anywhere in the world, which is quite a small number. The Wikipedia page also lists a bunch of failed projects which seem to mostly have been held up by red tape and locals being afraid that it's unsafe or toxic. Moreover, the Wikipedia page lists these downsides: * Little or even negative net energy production. * Frequent maintenance and limited plant availability. The former I find weird, because landfills don't generate energy either. But the latter could be a problem. The UNL paper you linked also mentions that such plasma gasification isn't necessarily more profitable than traditional recycling. This is such a weird angle to me. Safe and environmentally-friendly waste disposal is a public good, specifically one for which the benefits are dispersed across many individuals while the costs are concentrated on whoever has to build and run the facility. So why should we rely on for-profit market forces to produce it in efficient (welfare-maximizing) quantities? It's strange what in the USA does and does not get seen from this angle. Fire protection, police, drinking water treatment (I think?), and schools are owned and operated directly by towns/cities. But medical facilities & ambulance companies, electricity, sewage/wastewater treatment, and heating fuel are provided by private companies that residents either pay directly or through the town/city government. Not sure about landfills. Garbage collection and road construction are (usually, I think?) contracted out. I'm sure there are, or were, economic reasons why each of these scenarios evolved the way it did. But inertia is very much a thing, and just because something was sensible in the past doesn't mean it remains sensible today.
fudged71 6y ago
Based on today's technology and knowledge, I think every community center should have plastic recycling and reuse, workshop tool library, community garden, and compost. We can do things super-local now, use it as a teaching opportunity, and use volunteer effort within walking distance to make a change. Are there any public communities in the world that are actually doing this on a super local basis? Making, Growing, Recycling.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
singleuseuser 6y ago
Anyone interested in starting up some of these recycling facilities as a community project? I'm in Austin and could provide all of the funding but would love some volunteers to help. It would be a non-profit. plasticproject@fastmail.com
dinamic 6y ago
Despite loving such projects, sometimes I have a feeling that concentration on recycling shifts attention too much from the real causes of waste pollution, such as overproduction, overconsumption and lack of investment in biodegradable materials.
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  You are going to have to define what "over" means for each of those categories. Contrary to popular belief, I believe people generally consume what they need. It's much of the world coming "online", due to the global prosperity capitalism has enabled, that has resulted in such mass production of things we would do well to get rid of such as single use disposable plastics (that aren't for medical purposes, of course).
  - titzer 6y ago
    If "need" includes paying $NN/mo to rent a storage container to put your extra junk, then sure, people are consuming what they need.
    - dimitrios1 6y ago
      Most was the key qualifier in my statement. There is no doubt that about 5% of the population have some sort of compulsive hoarding habit. But it wouldn't matter because this is irrelevant to the issue of single use plastics, the thing that generates the most waste in oceans and waterways. Nice attempt at a "gotcha" though. Let's try a good faith dialogue next time.
      - titzer 6y ago
        It's not only that. Do we "need" to consume sodas and bottled water? Americans throw away 35 billion plastic bottles every year. That's just the US. Literally every country I've visited, including third world countries, are consuming ungodly amounts of one-time use plastics. The reason? Plastics make the job of global megacorporations, whose only goal is to make more money, much easier, since they can package their junk food and drinks and ship them the world over. It's not a "gotcha." I just very strongly disagree, given what I've seen everywhere I've traveled.
scottyvg 6y ago
It's 2021 and your site isn't serving https...
Ancalagon 6y ago
Realistically, with the health issues coming up, the microplastics leaching into everything, and the energy-intensive process of reusing plastic, I think we should give up on recycling plastic completely. Bury it back in the oil holes we got it from (this is semi-sarcastic, I know burying it in such a way is not entirely feasible) in the first place below the bedrock and end the age of plastic.
xsmasher 6y ago
This may sound the like the economists with the $20 bill, but if waste plastic is an untapped and valuable resource then why aren't other entrepreneurs already in the space? This seems like fun for DIYers and makers, but it can't be viable business, can it?
- mc007 6y ago
  not really - with being in that project since years, the only guys who make money are the machine builders and the project maintainers on Patreon.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
As great as recycling is, less plastic would be better. Recycling is the marketing tool that the oil industry used to sell plastic.

147 points by manx 6y ago

Crazy how we use one of the most durable materials on Earth for disposables

What type of plastic types can be recycled this way? From what I read, only a small percent of all plastic product can be recycled. For instance, bags that are on their logo flag, are not recyclable, in UK when you sorting out recyclable materials they tell you that bags are not suitable for recycling. And in some way they tear quickly and contribute hugely to micro-plastic pollution that goes into food chain.

herbst 6y ago
"not recycleable" sometimes only means its not economically feasable to recycle, which for example is true for diapers too (which make up about 30% of our houshold trash). There is some weird trash town in agypt that over 90% recycling rate especially with plastics (afaik).

xyst 6y ago

If billions of dollars spent on various recycling programs fail, I can’t see these homemade machines solving this problem either. It’s clear this is not immune to the sorting problem which is the root cause of why plastic recycling is unprofitable. I can see this as an educational program for children and adults that ignorantly throw anything plastic into the recycling bin thinking it would be recycled. But in reality, it’s likely going into the local landfill (or overseas). The only way to solve this plastic problem is to ban all single use applications (ie, cups, straws, takeaway containers, grocery bags, ...).

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
There's a lot of things that can be economically viable at the personal/household scale that can't work at the commercial scale because of the regulatory requirements of a modern first world workplace. Most of the time when you see a kit to DIY something this is the niche in which it lives. Not saying the economics work out for this particular thing but just because it's not commercially viable doesn't mean it's not economically viable. You don't see scrapyards hiring people to drive around picking up scrap metal yet people do it for a net profit, same concept.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  That’s true, this might actually work if it’s done at the household or neighborhood level. The big problems with recycling plastic are manual sorting and cleaning the gross stuff people leave in it. If you’re recycling your own waste you can tackle those problems easily. If it’s your neighbour’s water then you can ask them to be responsible or lose access to your service and good will.
throwaway316943 6y ago
The sorting problem is mostly due to people feeling like they can get away with not washing their recyclables and throwing anything into the recycling bin. If you have to deliver those recyclables to a local business in person and they can tell you to your face that you didn’t do it right and you have to take your bin over to a washing station and redo it before you can leave it there you can be sure it won’t happen again.
- _rpd 6y ago
  > If you have to deliver those recyclables to a local business in person But you don’t have to. You can just throw it in the trash or blue lid recycling bin, emptied every Monday. What motivates someone to spend hours scrubbing and personally delivering clean plastic?
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    Trillion dollar question.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >What motivates someone to spend hours scrubbing and personally delivering clean plastic? Image. If you can convince a bunch of dumb yuppies that they will sound like the hippest hipster in the break room when they chat with all their coworkers about what they're up to they will shovel inordinate amounts of money in your direction. And after a good run at that either you sell out and move down market or someone else comes along and develops a 90% as good solution that's accessible to a much broader cross section of the population. Pulling that off is the big question though. Premium consumers are more fickle than normal consumers.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > What motivates someone to spend hours scrubbing and personally delivering clean plastic? Hence why taxes on fossil fuels should be so high that a plastic bottle costs $10 and plastic toys cost $100, so the alternatives are worth it and the plastic is not made in the first place.
_rpd 6y ago
> It’s clear this is not immune to the sorting problem which is the root cause of why plastic recycling is unprofitable Yeah, they depict collectors bicycling around town with a trailer and then washing and delabeling the collected plastic in a domestic kitchen sink. They would have to charge thousands per ton for the clean stock.
datavirtue 6y ago
Plastic needs classified as toxic and treated as such. There are beaches now covered in plastic chips instead of sand (the sand is underneath). The real scary part is waking up one day and realizing that we are infested with microplastics to a dangerous and irreversible saturation point from the natural breakdown. Man made fibers, water bottles, children's toys...all will break down to microscopic levels. We can probably filter it out effectively for drinking but the whole deal is just another log on the fire that humanity has built under themselves.
- slver 6y ago
  You know, I actually prefer plastic sand.
CannisterFlux 6y ago
The latest trick for plastic items is for companies to say they are reusable. So instead of a box of plastic straws, it is now a box with "reusable plastic straws" written on it. Same exact product, but now marketed to get around any single-use bans.

Daniel_sk 6y ago

A lot of these plastic-recycling products don't cope with the big issue of pollution with micro plastic particles. I read about making pavement from plastic waste. Sure you can do that, but the plastic will be slowly worn down and the micro particles will pollute everything. That's the same problem with low quality plastics being recycled into household items. I see a health risk here. I will prefer something from wood, glass or metal - or from high quality (and bio-degradable?) plastics.

KozmoNau7 6y ago
It's a very bad idea to use recycled plastic for anything that will face abrasion, harsh temperatures or harsh chemicals, or a combination. Or any plastic really, microplastics don't care about which generation recycling your plastic has been through. Obviously the most important thing to do is to reduce how much plastic is produced in the first place. Plastic recycling doesn't solve the microplastic issue, it arguably makes it worse, so any scrap plastic should be responsibly burned for energy and that energy should go towards production using materials that aren't plastic. Use plastic only for products where the use of plastic is necessary for some critical functionality, and cannot be replaced with sustainable, biodegradable, properly recyclable materials. And only for products that are meant to last a long time, all single use and disposable plastic (such as packaging) needs to disappear ASAP.
- bottled_poe 6y ago
  Seems like a strange jump from “recycling is bad” to “we should burn plastic for energy”.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    Then you misunderstand. Recycling is good wherever and whenever reducing or reusing is not possible. Especially aluminum recycling (and most other metal recycling) is a win-win, both when looking at energy expenditure and environmental impact from mining. Plastic recycling doesn't work currently. There are too many mutually incompatible types, and sorting is painfully manual and slow, it's exceedingly hard to automate and make efficient. A lot of plastic types cannot be reformed or remolded at all, so the only use for them is to be ground up and used as filler material. All of this plastic processing just further exacerbates the microplastic problem. The further you grind down and reuse plastic, the worse the end product becomes and the more it sheds microplastic when used or exposed to abrasion, UV light and other forms of wear and tear. So I propose that we cut the head off the beast, strongly curtail plastic production and try to responsibly get rid of the microplastic-generating plastic we already have. Incineration -when done correctly- is a responsible way of disposal that also generates power. We already burn dioxins and many other harmful compounds to dispose of them safely and with minimal environmental impact, if done correctly.

motohagiography 6y ago

Two interesting things, and a third. The first is that the whole business is upcycling disposable products/material into more long term durable ones. The second is the success of the collection depends entirely on the demand for the upcycled products up the supply chain. (extrusion, sheetpress, injection moulding, and the stuff you make out of them) So inventing very long term useful things made from recycled plastic (bricks, roads, large boats) would improve demand for recycling. The third is the collection point business is a straight bounty program, which seems like the most basic business model in nature. There was a guy who trained crows to trade cigarette buts for peanuts in a machine, and it seems like you could do the same with plastics litter collection. Maybe we could build machines that other wild animals could figure out that accepted litter and waste and returned food.

lostlogin 6y ago
Wouldn’t upcycling plastic into more durable plastic actually exacerbate the problems with plastic?

ladybro 6y ago

A friend has been making clothes from 100% certified ocean plastic: https://seathreads.co/ https://seathreads.co/ As a business owner, I don't envy his margins, but I certainly hope to see more companies doing similar in the future. We need to make re-use cool and something to brag about.

hypertele-Xii 6y ago
Plastic is bad because it degrades into microplastic which is mechanically toxic to life (gets stuck in yer body). Why would you want to wear something toxic? That's like taking asbestos out of the walls and rubbing it on your body. Also, (machine) washing plastic clothes further degrades them into microplastics. Bad idea all around.
- gtk40 6y ago
  Hmm I'm a runner and pretty much everything I wear for running is plastic. The common advice I've gotten is to avoid cotton and it's worked well for me. Anywhere I can read more about this?
  - millzlane 6y ago
    Not OP, But I've read about it recently. While, I'm not yet avoiding these products, it's cause for concern. https://appalachiangearcompany.com/blogs/appgear-insider/your-fleece-s-dirty-secret-microplastics https://appalachiangearcompany.com/blogs/appgear-insider/you...
  - snypher 6y ago
    I'd like to know who is advising you against cotton, and why? Unless you are in a strange climate it's one of the best materials for clothing.
    - pastage 6y ago
      Silk and wool breaths and keeps fresh much longer without having to wash them all the time. Wool is the best IMHO.

gadders 6y ago

This company was recently featured on a BBC Podcast called "People Fixing the World": https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09ddhz6 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09ddhz6 "Machines to shred, melt and mould waste plastic are popping up in workshops around the world - from the UK to Malaysia, Kenya to Mexico. The project is being led by an organisation called Precious Plastic. They put designs for the devices online for anyone to download and build themselves. More than 400 teams around the world are now taking on the challenge of plastic waste using these machines, making everything from sunglasses to plastic bricks in the process."

Lio 6y ago

Plastic breaks down is horrible ways and gets everywhere. It's hard to clean well enough to be recycled. Even when recycled it's still constantly breaking down into micro-particles and getting everywhere. If we can't persuade retailers to use something else I kind of think that the best and cleanest use for single use plastic might be to just incinerate it with a very good scrubber system on the exhaust from the incinerator. Get the energy back and do something useful with it. e.g. use it as base load for renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Anything but let it get buried or broken down and into water courses.

specialist 6y ago
> persuade retailers to use something else I've been daydreaming about alternatives. Wrapping bars of deodorant in rice paper. Making it like a bar of soap that you can hold. I found a (mostly) bamboo toothbrush. It's ok. The bamboo dental floss is pretty terrific. Hoping to never buy fleece or spandex again, I'm still looking for hemp (or whatever) "athleisure" clothing. Like pullovers. (My lame attempts to learn to my make own clothing didn't get very far.)
- erikcw 6y ago
  I really like Smart Wool[0]. Really durable product and hi performing — seems to be much more environmentally friendly than synthetic textiles. [0] https://www.smartwool.com/ https://www.smartwool.com/
  - awestroke 6y ago
    They sell clothes made of wool and plastic mix. Nylon, elastane, polyester.
    - intergalplan 6y ago
      Pretty much anything wool that's form-fitting or otherwise meant for athletics or other activity is gonna have some plastic in it, for the stretchiness. Socks, undershirts, athletic shirts, all that kind of thing.

aliswe 6y ago

There is a process called pyrolysis which basically distills any kind of plastic into oil / diesel fuel. A number of things can be added to the process, such as pressure, vaccuum, and catalysators, to make it more efficient. It even works on old tyres! The rest is basically sludge or soot which allegedly also can be utilized in some way. It also emits "pyrolytic gases" (iirc) which I guess are bad? Toxic? Bad for the environment? Idk... Heres one out of tonnes of YT videos: https://youtu.be/TFuTCpCVSbM https://youtu.be/TFuTCpCVSbM

toomuchtodo 6y ago
This is an underrated solution. As everyone mentions in this thread, plastic reuse furthers the problem due to microplastic breakdown. Ideally, you're gasifying with plasma [1] [2] [3], with the slag going into road aggregate or other construction processes as feedstock. This doesn't work (yet) at hobbyist/small scale, but is entirely possible at municipal waste stream scale. Plastics (anything really, except metals, soil, and rock) go in, clean burning syngas and slag come out. Could even do carbon capture off the syngas to sequester the CO2 if you colocate somewhere where you can mineralize below ground, and use renewables to provide whatever power you can't recover from generation off the syngas. This assumes you also outlaw single use plastics/disposable plastics to solve for the other side of the equation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification [2] https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=honorstheses https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... (Treatment of Plastic Wastes Using Plasma Gasification Technology) [3] https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/westinghouse https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasificati...
- nerdponx 6y ago
  I've read about plasma gasification for years, including some nebulous plan for New York City to buy one. But from the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification_commercialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification_commercial...) it looks like there are a total of 5 sites operating anywhere in the world, which is quite a small number. The Wikipedia page also lists a bunch of failed projects which seem to mostly have been held up by red tape and locals being afraid that it's unsafe or toxic. Moreover, the Wikipedia page lists these downsides: * Little or even negative net energy production. * Frequent maintenance and limited plant availability. The former I find weird, because landfills don't generate energy either. But the latter could be a problem. The UNL paper you linked also mentions that such plasma gasification isn't necessarily more profitable than traditional recycling. This is such a weird angle to me. Safe and environmentally-friendly waste disposal is a public good, specifically one for which the benefits are dispersed across many individuals while the costs are concentrated on whoever has to build and run the facility. So why should we rely on for-profit market forces to produce it in efficient (welfare-maximizing) quantities? It's strange what in the USA does and does not get seen from this angle. Fire protection, police, drinking water treatment (I think?), and schools are owned and operated directly by towns/cities. But medical facilities & ambulance companies, electricity, sewage/wastewater treatment, and heating fuel are provided by private companies that residents either pay directly or through the town/city government. Not sure about landfills. Garbage collection and road construction are (usually, I think?) contracted out. I'm sure there are, or were, economic reasons why each of these scenarios evolved the way it did. But inertia is very much a thing, and just because something was sensible in the past doesn't mean it remains sensible today.

fudged71 6y ago

Based on today's technology and knowledge, I think every community center should have plastic recycling and reuse, workshop tool library, community garden, and compost. We can do things super-local now, use it as a teaching opportunity, and use volunteer effort within walking distance to make a change. Are there any public communities in the world that are actually doing this on a super local basis? Making, Growing, Recycling.

deleted 6y ago
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singleuseuser 6y ago

Anyone interested in starting up some of these recycling facilities as a community project? I'm in Austin and could provide all of the funding but would love some volunteers to help. It would be a non-profit. plasticproject@fastmail.com

dinamic 6y ago

Despite loving such projects, sometimes I have a feeling that concentration on recycling shifts attention too much from the real causes of waste pollution, such as overproduction, overconsumption and lack of investment in biodegradable materials.

dimitrios1 6y ago
You are going to have to define what "over" means for each of those categories. Contrary to popular belief, I believe people generally consume what they need. It's much of the world coming "online", due to the global prosperity capitalism has enabled, that has resulted in such mass production of things we would do well to get rid of such as single use disposable plastics (that aren't for medical purposes, of course).
- titzer 6y ago
  If "need" includes paying $NN/mo to rent a storage container to put your extra junk, then sure, people are consuming what they need.
  - dimitrios1 6y ago
    Most was the key qualifier in my statement. There is no doubt that about 5% of the population have some sort of compulsive hoarding habit. But it wouldn't matter because this is irrelevant to the issue of single use plastics, the thing that generates the most waste in oceans and waterways. Nice attempt at a "gotcha" though. Let's try a good faith dialogue next time.
    - titzer 6y ago
      It's not only that. Do we "need" to consume sodas and bottled water? Americans throw away 35 billion plastic bottles every year. That's just the US. Literally every country I've visited, including third world countries, are consuming ungodly amounts of one-time use plastics. The reason? Plastics make the job of global megacorporations, whose only goal is to make more money, much easier, since they can package their junk food and drinks and ship them the world over. It's not a "gotcha." I just very strongly disagree, given what I've seen everywhere I've traveled.

scottyvg 6y ago

It's 2021 and your site isn't serving https...

Ancalagon 6y ago

Realistically, with the health issues coming up, the microplastics leaching into everything, and the energy-intensive process of reusing plastic, I think we should give up on recycling plastic completely. Bury it back in the oil holes we got it from (this is semi-sarcastic, I know burying it in such a way is not entirely feasible) in the first place below the bedrock and end the age of plastic.

xsmasher 6y ago

This may sound the like the economists with the $20 bill, but if waste plastic is an untapped and valuable resource then why aren't other entrepreneurs already in the space? This seems like fun for DIYers and makers, but it can't be viable business, can it?

mc007 6y ago
not really - with being in that project since years, the only guys who make money are the machine builders and the project maintainers on Patreon.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

As great as recycling is, less plastic would be better. Recycling is the marketing tool that the oil industry used to sell plastic.