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> Trouble is proper recycling is expensive and rarely done Especially with plastics. There have been plenty of stories in the past year or two showing that it'

> Trouble is proper recycling is expensive and rarely done Especially with plastics. There have been plenty of stories in the past year or two showing that it's basically all been a sham and that it just ends up in the trash. 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-...

NikolaNovak 5y ago
Thx for the link. I keep hearing and reading such articles; I need help connecting the dots though - I literally know people who work as "sorters" in local "recyling plants". Is that makeshift work? Why are we sorting, what do the recycling plants do? If there is an intentional deception on such a pervasive low level scale, that's astonishing. At the same time if there's not, what is the operational model or output of the local "recycling plants"? Are they really just sorting places that are unaware all their nicely sorted stuff ends up in same place?
- dr_orpheus 5y ago
  No, there are still other things that are worth recycling. Sorting would separate out aluminum, paper, glass, plastic in a single stream recycling. The recycled material all gets bundled up and tested for some purity (i.e. this giant block of aluminum cans we crushed together is 98% aluminum). It is kind of more the fact that for a the blocks of aluminum, glass and paper there are buyers that can actually use that recycled material (if it is of a high enough purity) but the market for recycled plastic is small so it is likely cheaper to just throw anything plastic (or has some plastic) back in to the garbage. The purity of the recyclables has been a problem and there are companies (like AMP Robotics [0]) working on machine learning to better sort and re-sort recycled material to get it up to a purity that it is actually financially worth using and won't get abandoned and thrown in the trash. [0] https://www.amprobotics.com/ https://www.amprobotics.com/ Edit: Not to say that there isn't intentional deception as well. The most blatant example I have seen in some municipalities is a city that has a "recycling program" to make people feel good but the trash truck comes by and dumps both the trash bin and recycling bin in to the same truck.
  - AaronM 5y ago
    You have to be careful with that last statement. Our truck does the same thing. Its a split body truck, and has separate compartments for garbage and recycling. Here's an example of one in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd9-j0rHidU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd9-j0rHidU
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  >If there is an intentional deception on such a pervasive low level scale, that's astonishing. There is, by ourselves to ourselves. Everyone wants to save the planet, but no one wants to give up their detached single family houses, 2 cars, toys, and trips to Tahiti. Which is why there is no political support for the real solution to the problem - drastic increases in fossil fuel taxes to the point that consumption is drastically curbed.
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    >> but no one wants to give up their detached single family houses, 2 cars, toys, and trips to Tahiti. Who has those things? I'd love to own two cars, one would be electric, but my apartment does not have parking available for two. Tahiti? When? I have a job. I have a cellphone. Those things don't go away. Vacations are for the rich and unemployed/retired. We normals spend our "vacation" days catching up on sleep. (As I type this I realize that I had totally forgotten that is Friday. Weekends are for rich people. I'm going to be at work tomorrow, except for when I duck out to pick up an amazon package before it gets stolen from my apartment lobby. Amazon delivery drivers don't take weekends off either.)
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      The people that consistently vote and contribute to election campaigns have those things. And many people aspire to have those things, so removing all doubt that they will ever get them may also be an undesirable thought.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  For decades there's been a 'climate change denier'-esque movement against recycling. They used to attack all recyling as government overreach, and claim it was a scam invented by the mafia and that it was bad for the planet and other things that now seem ridiculous. Here's a classic of the genre from 1996: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-gar... Notice that even in that, he admits recycling of certain things is a sensible idea, but the bleading heart liberals have taken it too far. As it became more standard globally they had to slowly shift their target as they retreated. Now they're down to complaining really loudly about how some subset of plastic recycling is all a big scam by evil corporations and using that to pivot to how environmentalist are all stupid and evil and communist and we should never listen to them. Regulating these evil corporations that are lying to us apparently isn't an option.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    I hadn't read that in years, amazing to revisit it. There's a paragraph about how expensive recycling is, which is all sourced from "Keep America Beautiful" the green washing group that are the people cited in the recent "corporate America invented recycling to fool you" stories. That organization was set up originally to stop governments introducing 5 cent returns on bottles in the 1950s, which the corporations didn't want, so instead they said it was all the public's fault. The very next paragraph in the article attacks these return schemes as even worse than recycling.
tomp 5y ago
But the point is that properly burying plastics is better than burning it; that way, fossil fuels are returned into the ground.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  This is only true if no fossil fuels are being burnt. It is getting truer, as the grid becomes greener, which both a) means less fossil fuels are being burnt and b) any energy used for recycling is less carbon intensive, but anyone telling you it was best to bury plastic for the last couple of decades likely was politically connected to the people who sell the raw input for making current plastics, fossil fuels.
  - tomp 5y ago
    It’s also true if burning gas is “cleaner” than burning plastics.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      It's not just the burning you need to worry about, there's greenhouse gas concerns around both fossil fuel extraction and landfills. Energy recovery comes one stop above above disposal or incineration without energy recovery in the waste hierarchy.
diebeforei485 5y ago
I agree. Plastic basically cannot be recycled. Most so-called "recycled" plastic is actually mixed with virgin (new) plastic from oil
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I often think about 'How did this work before cheap plastic was avaliable" and often I don;t know the answer. Like supermarkets with pre-packaged food are literally impossible without plastic
  - lesuorac 5y ago
    A History of Packaging: https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/cdfs-133 https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/cdfs-133
    - geoduck14 5y ago
      Summary: Leaves -> paper -> glued paper -> cardboard -> corrugated cardboard Also: wax paper, glass, metal Overall, the article is pretty interesting
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
> He says what he saw was an industry that didn't want recycling to work. Because if the job is to sell as much oil as you possibly can, any amount of recycled plastic is competition. Key quote, which nails the key question. Does recycling not work or was it intentionally and turned into a culture war topic in America, while many other nations just got on with it. And now the same industry, is using their own shady moves in the 70s, to undermine and stall further regulation. This is like quoting fossil fuel industry internal documents about how renewables can never work, and their ads pretending they were going green, to undermine renewables as a scam.
- nsonha 5y ago
  why do you assume recycling works? If it has never worked (for plastic)? The devil may not be pretending to recycle, but pretending that it could ever work. Pretending recycling works is also to the benefit of commerce to never have to "degrow" or "turn off the tap". If they genuinely cared about recycling, containers and bottles would all have standard shapes and sizes. That is not a thing afaik.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "containers and bottles would all have standard shapes and sizes" Indeed, thsts the absolute sinolest thing to do, takes no real effort. Reuse before you recycle - and
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    It does happen where it's been regulated that it's the producers responsibility to pay for the full cost of disposal. Because it's cheaper.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

Thx for the link. I keep hearing and reading such articles; I need help connecting the dots though - I literally know people who work as "sorters" in local "recyling plants". Is that makeshift work? Why are we sorting, what do the recycling plants do? If there is an intentional deception on such a pervasive low level scale, that's astonishing. At the same time if there's not, what is the operational model or output of the local "recycling plants"? Are they really just sorting places that are unaware all their nicely sorted stuff ends up in same place?

dr_orpheus 5y ago
No, there are still other things that are worth recycling. Sorting would separate out aluminum, paper, glass, plastic in a single stream recycling. The recycled material all gets bundled up and tested for some purity (i.e. this giant block of aluminum cans we crushed together is 98% aluminum). It is kind of more the fact that for a the blocks of aluminum, glass and paper there are buyers that can actually use that recycled material (if it is of a high enough purity) but the market for recycled plastic is small so it is likely cheaper to just throw anything plastic (or has some plastic) back in to the garbage. The purity of the recyclables has been a problem and there are companies (like AMP Robotics [0]) working on machine learning to better sort and re-sort recycled material to get it up to a purity that it is actually financially worth using and won't get abandoned and thrown in the trash. [0] https://www.amprobotics.com/ https://www.amprobotics.com/ Edit: Not to say that there isn't intentional deception as well. The most blatant example I have seen in some municipalities is a city that has a "recycling program" to make people feel good but the trash truck comes by and dumps both the trash bin and recycling bin in to the same truck.
- AaronM 5y ago
  You have to be careful with that last statement. Our truck does the same thing. Its a split body truck, and has separate compartments for garbage and recycling. Here's an example of one in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd9-j0rHidU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd9-j0rHidU
lotsofpulp 5y ago
>If there is an intentional deception on such a pervasive low level scale, that's astonishing. There is, by ourselves to ourselves. Everyone wants to save the planet, but no one wants to give up their detached single family houses, 2 cars, toys, and trips to Tahiti. Which is why there is no political support for the real solution to the problem - drastic increases in fossil fuel taxes to the point that consumption is drastically curbed.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  >> but no one wants to give up their detached single family houses, 2 cars, toys, and trips to Tahiti. Who has those things? I'd love to own two cars, one would be electric, but my apartment does not have parking available for two. Tahiti? When? I have a job. I have a cellphone. Those things don't go away. Vacations are for the rich and unemployed/retired. We normals spend our "vacation" days catching up on sleep. (As I type this I realize that I had totally forgotten that is Friday. Weekends are for rich people. I'm going to be at work tomorrow, except for when I duck out to pick up an amazon package before it gets stolen from my apartment lobby. Amazon delivery drivers don't take weekends off either.)
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The people that consistently vote and contribute to election campaigns have those things. And many people aspire to have those things, so removing all doubt that they will ever get them may also be an undesirable thought.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
For decades there's been a 'climate change denier'-esque movement against recycling. They used to attack all recyling as government overreach, and claim it was a scam invented by the mafia and that it was bad for the planet and other things that now seem ridiculous. Here's a classic of the genre from 1996: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-gar... Notice that even in that, he admits recycling of certain things is a sensible idea, but the bleading heart liberals have taken it too far. As it became more standard globally they had to slowly shift their target as they retreated. Now they're down to complaining really loudly about how some subset of plastic recycling is all a big scam by evil corporations and using that to pivot to how environmentalist are all stupid and evil and communist and we should never listen to them. Regulating these evil corporations that are lying to us apparently isn't an option.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I hadn't read that in years, amazing to revisit it. There's a paragraph about how expensive recycling is, which is all sourced from "Keep America Beautiful" the green washing group that are the people cited in the recent "corporate America invented recycling to fool you" stories. That organization was set up originally to stop governments introducing 5 cent returns on bottles in the 1950s, which the corporations didn't want, so instead they said it was all the public's fault. The very next paragraph in the article attacks these return schemes as even worse than recycling.

tomp 5y ago

But the point is that properly burying plastics is better than burning it; that way, fossil fuels are returned into the ground.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
This is only true if no fossil fuels are being burnt. It is getting truer, as the grid becomes greener, which both a) means less fossil fuels are being burnt and b) any energy used for recycling is less carbon intensive, but anyone telling you it was best to bury plastic for the last couple of decades likely was politically connected to the people who sell the raw input for making current plastics, fossil fuels.
- tomp 5y ago
  It’s also true if burning gas is “cleaner” than burning plastics.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    It's not just the burning you need to worry about, there's greenhouse gas concerns around both fossil fuel extraction and landfills. Energy recovery comes one stop above above disposal or incineration without energy recovery in the waste hierarchy.

diebeforei485 5y ago

I agree. Plastic basically cannot be recycled. Most so-called "recycled" plastic is actually mixed with virgin (new) plastic from oil

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
I often think about 'How did this work before cheap plastic was avaliable" and often I don;t know the answer. Like supermarkets with pre-packaged food are literally impossible without plastic
- lesuorac 5y ago
  A History of Packaging: https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/cdfs-133 https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/cdfs-133
  - geoduck14 5y ago
    Summary: Leaves -> paper -> glued paper -> cardboard -> corrugated cardboard Also: wax paper, glass, metal Overall, the article is pretty interesting

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

> He says what he saw was an industry that didn't want recycling to work. Because if the job is to sell as much oil as you possibly can, any amount of recycled plastic is competition. Key quote, which nails the key question. Does recycling not work or was it intentionally and turned into a culture war topic in America, while many other nations just got on with it. And now the same industry, is using their own shady moves in the 70s, to undermine and stall further regulation. This is like quoting fossil fuel industry internal documents about how renewables can never work, and their ads pretending they were going green, to undermine renewables as a scam.

nsonha 5y ago
why do you assume recycling works? If it has never worked (for plastic)? The devil may not be pretending to recycle, but pretending that it could ever work. Pretending recycling works is also to the benefit of commerce to never have to "degrow" or "turn off the tap". If they genuinely cared about recycling, containers and bottles would all have standard shapes and sizes. That is not a thing afaik.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "containers and bottles would all have standard shapes and sizes" Indeed, thsts the absolute sinolest thing to do, takes no real effort. Reuse before you recycle - and
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  It does happen where it's been regulated that it's the producers responsibility to pay for the full cost of disposal. Because it's cheaper.