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Plastic recycling is a sham. We were paying China to take it, and they were putting it in a landfill (probably). China won't take our trash, I mean recycling a

Plastic recycling is a sham. We were paying China to take it, and they were putting it in a landfill (probably). China won't take our trash, I mean recycling anymore, so now we're putting it in landfills. General rule of thumb is if you can get money for scrapping it, it's recyclable (aluminum, glass, steel, etc). Companies use plastic because it's cheap and the government won't regulate it. I remember when sodas used to come in bottles, and food came in wax paper wrapping, and it tasted better. From an npr article posted by someone else: >Here's the basic problem: All used plastic can be turned into new things, but picking it up, sorting it out and melting it down is expensive. Plastic also degrades each time it is reused, meaning it can't be reused more than once or twice. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

legerdemain 5y ago
Glass is mostly "recycled" by crushing, mostly to reduce the hazard of broken glass littering the street. In many states, buying a drink in a glass container carries a nominal extra fee to cover the "recycling." No one actually wants to buy your used glass containers for their own sake.
- handrous 5y ago
  As recently as the early 90s there were still grocery stores that'd take back glass soda bottles to refill them, but the only places I know that still do anything like that are some fancy dairies (via the grocery stores that distribute their product).
  - legerdemain 5y ago
    Yeah, and I remember beer in iron cans... and that's about as relevant to the majority of consumers.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Sure, it's just that not that long ago, it was economically feasible, so it's not like it's some kind of unattainable fantasy. A couple laws, and a 5-10% hike on the costs of drinks distributed in bottles (thanks to the added costs of handling & recycling glass), and we'd be back there. It's something we definitely could do. But yes, right now the main glass recycler in our area just crushes everything up and turns it into fiber glass. Only an irrelevantly-small fraction of bottles are re-used. I expect we'll switch to some kind of plant-based plastics before we bring back glass recycling for drink containers, though I wouldn't wholly rule out the possibility of a shift back to glass.
      - mumblemumble 5y ago
        Another challenge with bringing back reusable glass bottles is that that approach belonged to an era with more local brands and a smaller variety of products. There were a few brands of soft drink that were all being mixed and bottled at local distributors, and cities had their own breweries that mostly only distributed locally. Now that we have enough different brands of soda and beer to cover three sides of a convenience store, all made and packaged at one location and then shipped across the continent, I don't know that glass can be considered a less wasteful option. It's not just about the actual piece of packaging, it's also about how much diesel fuel is being burned in shipping such heavy packaging over long distances.
        legerdemain 5y ago
        Reusable glass bottles also mean that you either bring the exact bottle to the exact retailer to get refilled with the exact product, or brands lose the ability to use the container for advertising and brand identity. Even the frou-frou dairies that let you bring in their reusable bottles only want you to bring back their reusable bottles with their stenciled logos on them.
        pmyteh 5y ago
        In the UK there is (still, in some places) milk delivery to the doorstep in 1 pint bottles. These are all a standard size, and they're all branded by the dairy. But interestingly the dairies are perfectly happy to use another company's bottles if they end up with them - branding be damned. When I lived in a place with only one delivering dairy, this was quite rare. In Liverpool, I'd say that 10% of the bottles I get are 'foreign'.
  - weq 5y ago
    In many countries still do this, especially with things like milk and beer bottles.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  In the UK 70% of a typical green glass wine bottle will be recycled material and the limiting factor is the availability of the recycled material, the manufacturers would use more if they could get it, since it saves energy to do so. And we generally don't offer deposits. When we did, the bottles were actually re-used directly. When recycled, it is crushed, that creates something called "cullet" which can be used in the glassmaking process and is easier to transport. But I don't see the link to keeping broken glass of the street, that should be possible without crushing or recycling.

legerdemain 5y ago

Glass is mostly "recycled" by crushing, mostly to reduce the hazard of broken glass littering the street. In many states, buying a drink in a glass container carries a nominal extra fee to cover the "recycling." No one actually wants to buy your used glass containers for their own sake.

handrous 5y ago
As recently as the early 90s there were still grocery stores that'd take back glass soda bottles to refill them, but the only places I know that still do anything like that are some fancy dairies (via the grocery stores that distribute their product).
- legerdemain 5y ago
  Yeah, and I remember beer in iron cans... and that's about as relevant to the majority of consumers.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Sure, it's just that not that long ago, it was economically feasible, so it's not like it's some kind of unattainable fantasy. A couple laws, and a 5-10% hike on the costs of drinks distributed in bottles (thanks to the added costs of handling & recycling glass), and we'd be back there. It's something we definitely could do. But yes, right now the main glass recycler in our area just crushes everything up and turns it into fiber glass. Only an irrelevantly-small fraction of bottles are re-used. I expect we'll switch to some kind of plant-based plastics before we bring back glass recycling for drink containers, though I wouldn't wholly rule out the possibility of a shift back to glass.
    - mumblemumble 5y ago
      Another challenge with bringing back reusable glass bottles is that that approach belonged to an era with more local brands and a smaller variety of products. There were a few brands of soft drink that were all being mixed and bottled at local distributors, and cities had their own breweries that mostly only distributed locally. Now that we have enough different brands of soda and beer to cover three sides of a convenience store, all made and packaged at one location and then shipped across the continent, I don't know that glass can be considered a less wasteful option. It's not just about the actual piece of packaging, it's also about how much diesel fuel is being burned in shipping such heavy packaging over long distances.
      - legerdemain 5y ago
        Reusable glass bottles also mean that you either bring the exact bottle to the exact retailer to get refilled with the exact product, or brands lose the ability to use the container for advertising and brand identity. Even the frou-frou dairies that let you bring in their reusable bottles only want you to bring back their reusable bottles with their stenciled logos on them.
        pmyteh 5y ago
        In the UK there is (still, in some places) milk delivery to the doorstep in 1 pint bottles. These are all a standard size, and they're all branded by the dairy. But interestingly the dairies are perfectly happy to use another company's bottles if they end up with them - branding be damned. When I lived in a place with only one delivering dairy, this was quite rare. In Liverpool, I'd say that 10% of the bottles I get are 'foreign'.
- weq 5y ago
  In many countries still do this, especially with things like milk and beer bottles.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
In the UK 70% of a typical green glass wine bottle will be recycled material and the limiting factor is the availability of the recycled material, the manufacturers would use more if they could get it, since it saves energy to do so. And we generally don't offer deposits. When we did, the bottles were actually re-used directly. When recycled, it is crushed, that creates something called "cullet" which can be used in the glassmaking process and is easier to transport. But I don't see the link to keeping broken glass of the street, that should be possible without crushing or recycling.