3 ms·

It's great that machinery can separate out the most valuable components of trash. But ... It's not just about materials handling. It's also about the fact that

by not2b 3y ago

It's great that machinery can separate out the most valuable components of trash. But ... It's not just about materials handling. It's also about the fact that there is almost no market for recycled plastic. Alumin(i)um cans, hell yes. Glass, cardboard and paper can be effectively recycled (though we were better off back when we made glass bottles sturdy and reused them). But no one wants the plastic. That's why "reduce" (use less plastic) and "reuse" (can we use that plastic object again before tossing it?) is a hell of a lot more important than recycling.

hinkley 3y ago
Method's hand soap refills initially came in unrecyclable containers, and the company blogged about why this was a good thing (I really should search the wayback machine for the original article). Their defense of this decision went like this: By using a proprietary composite of plastic compounds, they had created packaging that was roughly 20% the volume of a normal HDPE container. The actual recovery rate for plastic is something around 20%, so we have already broken even here by reducing. Not all packaging is recycled (turns out in the last ten years we've learned that next to none is), so not making it in the first place is at least twice as good as attempting to recycle it. By getting a refill onto the market they were allowing customers to reuse the plastic dispensers they originally bought (for me I get anywhere from 1.5-6 uses). And last of all, the smaller packaging means more product per case, less dead weight shipped to stores, and so the carbon footprint of the product is reduced just that little extra bit as well. Now somewhere along the way a recycling symbol appeared on those packages, but that was not so when they were introduced. And they made the correct decision in doing that instead of waiting for perfect (which, as we know, is mostly fictional anyway).

by not2b 3y ago

hinkley 3y ago

Method's hand soap refills initially came in unrecyclable containers, and the company blogged about why this was a good thing (I really should search the wayback machine for the original article). Their defense of this decision went like this: By using a proprietary composite of plastic compounds, they had created packaging that was roughly 20% the volume of a normal HDPE container. The actual recovery rate for plastic is something around 20%, so we have already broken even here by reducing. Not all packaging is recycled (turns out in the last ten years we've learned that next to none is), so not making it in the first place is at least twice as good as attempting to recycle it. By getting a refill onto the market they were allowing customers to reuse the plastic dispensers they originally bought (for me I get anywhere from 1.5-6 uses). And last of all, the smaller packaging means more product per case, less dead weight shipped to stores, and so the carbon footprint of the product is reduced just that little extra bit as well. Now somewhere along the way a recycling symbol appeared on those packages, but that was not so when they were introduced. And they made the correct decision in doing that instead of waiting for perfect (which, as we know, is mostly fictional anyway).