6 ms·

It's terrible, plastic recycling is a myth told by the petrol industry, that purposefully messed up the recycling labels and greenwashed the entire industry. I

by h1fra 3y ago

It's terrible, plastic recycling is a myth told by the petrol industry, that purposefully messed up the recycling labels and greenwashed the entire industry. It's physically not possible to recycle plastic and get the same propriety back. About 10% of the plastic is "recycled" worlwide, meaning it's been reused to do something else but can't be used for the same thing (e.g: bottle -> insulation)

Kuinox 3y ago
It's not feasibly impossible, it's very hard, but for some type of plastic, you can recycle it infinitely (like PLA).
- h1fra 3y ago
  There is some nuance here, PLA is not a petrol based "plastic". It has the similar proprieties than regular plastic but is made from organic material. I was only referring to petrol based plastic, but not all bio-plastiscs are recyclable either.
tokai 3y ago
>but can't be used for the same thing Eh no, why would that be? Where I live 87% of all recycled plastic bottles are reused for new bottles.
- eimrine 3y ago
  Does it mean that a half (87% minus some losses of plastic material after melting it and forming again) of the brand new plastic bottles in your country are from reused material?
  - tokai 3y ago
    Yes. Or more likely over half of every new bottle is reused plastic. Multiple European countries where this is the case.
    - eimrine 3y ago
      Last thing remaining is to make clear of what "bottle" word means in the calculations. I mean that a bottle can be containing either some food (pure water, soda, milk products) or some chemistry. Former (Coca-cola in my mind) is kind of never reused in my country, but latter (some P&G products for example) is almost always from reused material.
- h1fra 3y ago
  I'm genuinely curious and would love to be wrong. Do you have some source? Most of the time they say they do it, but it's much more expensive and recycled plastic quality degrades quickly, can't be mixed with other PET, so you still need to add a majority of regular plastic to the mix. Quoting wikipedia "approximately 15% of collected PET bottles were actually recycled into new bottles" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling
  - tokai 3y ago
    https://danskretursystem.dk/klima-og-miljoe/genanvendelsen-af-plastikflasker/ https://danskretursystem.dk/klima-og-miljoe/genanvendelsen-a... From the text: "A full 87% of all collected plastic bottles were therefore recycled into new beverage bottles in 2022." The used plastic is recycled multiple times: "PET plastic bottles are also good materials for many other products, but it is best when they become new beverage bottles. This preserves the high quality of the plastic so that it can be reused again and again" Why did you write that they "can't be used for the same thing" when even wikipedia says its happens?
    - h1fra 3y ago
      Good for danemark but I would still take this information with precaution. PET which is the most common type of plastic for bottles but loose it's propriety after 2-3 cycle. It's not recyclable forever like glasses. That means your bottle of water will be a bottle of water max 2-3 times until it's not possible to use this plastic again for making bottle. Wikipedia is not contradicting this, PET is reused in a mix of brand new plastic and old one.
  - varjag 3y ago
    In Scandinavia plastic bottles are usually returned to recycling machines at the point of sale.
    - goda90 3y ago
      In Chile there are thick 3 liter bottles that actually get reused. They have a deposit charge that you get back when you return the empty bottle to the store. New bottles will often be all scuffed up from being reused so many times.
p0w3n3d 3y ago
One fascinating thing is that on the one hand, the petrol industry messed up the recycling labels, but meanwhile, I am being made responsible by my government for the amount of plastic "I create".
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  I absolutely hate the ongoing effort to shift the costs of pollution and environmental damage onto end consumers who have no say in the actual production of the products they purchase. "Carbon footprint" was heavily pushed by the oil industry to blame people who buy their shit for buying their shit.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > "Carbon footprint" was literally coined by oil industries to blame people who buy their shit for buying their shit. Where did you learn this?
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh... I misremembered the story. It wasn't literally coined by the oil industry, but it was heavily pushed by them. BP had an ad campaign talking about "personal carbon footprint" in 2005 which put the phrase into the public consciousness.
      - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
        Carbon should be taxed when it comes out of the ground. It’s the only way that price signals can actually change people’s behavior. Is also the most market friendly way to do it. But at least in the US it seems politically impossible.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Well, consumption is what drives it. Education-based messages that convince people to consume less/differently are the non-authoritarian way to effect change.
varjag 3y ago
It is highly region specific. In EU 42.1% plastics are recycled, 39.3% are burned as fuel and 18.5% go to landfill. So it's absolutely possible to do better than 10%. https://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform/sites/default/files/euric_-_plastic_recycling_fact_sheet.pdf https://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform/sites/default/fil...
- h1fra 3y ago
  As I said recycling is most of the time actually downcycling. Don't get me wrong it's better than burning, but the fact we think bottle to bottle is the norm while it's absolutely not is a sign that we have failed somewhere.
  - baal80spam 3y ago
    > the fact we think bottle to bottle is the norm Do people actually think so? I know nothing about recycling and I'd think that AT BEST 25% of materials are actually "got back" from a product.
  - phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
    As the system currently is it’s actually more environmentally friendly to burn plastics instead of shipping it to China where it will either be burnt or dumped in the ocean.
    - anticensor 3y ago
      What if we threw those thermoplastics in the oil refinery and let them pyrolyse under the heat of the distillation&cracking column?
  - soco 3y ago
    That's a question I always had: is burning plastics bad? I mean, if we had a clean burning, no toxins and toxic ashes...? If this is true, then at least we are not damaging the environment with it (the overconsumption issue aside)
lolinder 3y ago
When you quote a number like 10% you need to be more specific what you mean, and preferably provide a source. Most of the percentages I see quoted are percent of plastic in the entire use stream that ends up recycled, but then people interpret it as "there's no point in putting plastic in the recycling because it has a 1 in 10 chance of being recycled". But that's not what the number means, the number means that most plastic doesn't even get to a recycling center.
- h1fra 3y ago
  Well I'm quoting the OP: "Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled" And it's true not all plastic ends up in the recycling system.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Yes, that number is dangerous when it's used to imply that recycling programs throw most of the stuff away. That's not what it means. There are several people here who have actually said that they would rather send plastic to the landfill than to the recycling center because they read numbers like that and interpret them wrong.
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      Well, plastic in the landfill is a form of carbon capture. Eventually something will evolve to eat all that stuff, though it might take a really long time.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    That 9% is of all plastic produced between 1950 and 2015. > it’s estimated that in 2015, around 55 percent of global plastic waste was discarded, 25 percent was incinerated, and 20 percent was recycled. Of the plastic waste produced between 1950 and 2015, only 9 percent was recycled. https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#how-much-of-global-plastic-is-recycled https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#how-much-of-globa...

by h1fra 3y ago

Kuinox 3y ago

It's not feasibly impossible, it's very hard, but for some type of plastic, you can recycle it infinitely (like PLA).

h1fra 3y ago
There is some nuance here, PLA is not a petrol based "plastic". It has the similar proprieties than regular plastic but is made from organic material. I was only referring to petrol based plastic, but not all bio-plastiscs are recyclable either.

tokai 3y ago

>but can't be used for the same thing Eh no, why would that be? Where I live 87% of all recycled plastic bottles are reused for new bottles.

eimrine 3y ago
Does it mean that a half (87% minus some losses of plastic material after melting it and forming again) of the brand new plastic bottles in your country are from reused material?
- tokai 3y ago
  Yes. Or more likely over half of every new bottle is reused plastic. Multiple European countries where this is the case.
  - eimrine 3y ago
    Last thing remaining is to make clear of what "bottle" word means in the calculations. I mean that a bottle can be containing either some food (pure water, soda, milk products) or some chemistry. Former (Coca-cola in my mind) is kind of never reused in my country, but latter (some P&G products for example) is almost always from reused material.
h1fra 3y ago
I'm genuinely curious and would love to be wrong. Do you have some source? Most of the time they say they do it, but it's much more expensive and recycled plastic quality degrades quickly, can't be mixed with other PET, so you still need to add a majority of regular plastic to the mix. Quoting wikipedia "approximately 15% of collected PET bottles were actually recycled into new bottles" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling
- tokai 3y ago
  https://danskretursystem.dk/klima-og-miljoe/genanvendelsen-af-plastikflasker/ https://danskretursystem.dk/klima-og-miljoe/genanvendelsen-a... From the text: "A full 87% of all collected plastic bottles were therefore recycled into new beverage bottles in 2022." The used plastic is recycled multiple times: "PET plastic bottles are also good materials for many other products, but it is best when they become new beverage bottles. This preserves the high quality of the plastic so that it can be reused again and again" Why did you write that they "can't be used for the same thing" when even wikipedia says its happens?
  - h1fra 3y ago
    Good for danemark but I would still take this information with precaution. PET which is the most common type of plastic for bottles but loose it's propriety after 2-3 cycle. It's not recyclable forever like glasses. That means your bottle of water will be a bottle of water max 2-3 times until it's not possible to use this plastic again for making bottle. Wikipedia is not contradicting this, PET is reused in a mix of brand new plastic and old one.
- varjag 3y ago
  In Scandinavia plastic bottles are usually returned to recycling machines at the point of sale.
  - goda90 3y ago
    In Chile there are thick 3 liter bottles that actually get reused. They have a deposit charge that you get back when you return the empty bottle to the store. New bottles will often be all scuffed up from being reused so many times.

p0w3n3d 3y ago

One fascinating thing is that on the one hand, the petrol industry messed up the recycling labels, but meanwhile, I am being made responsible by my government for the amount of plastic "I create".

kmeisthax 3y ago
I absolutely hate the ongoing effort to shift the costs of pollution and environmental damage onto end consumers who have no say in the actual production of the products they purchase. "Carbon footprint" was heavily pushed by the oil industry to blame people who buy their shit for buying their shit.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > "Carbon footprint" was literally coined by oil industries to blame people who buy their shit for buying their shit. Where did you learn this?
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh... I misremembered the story. It wasn't literally coined by the oil industry, but it was heavily pushed by them. BP had an ad campaign talking about "personal carbon footprint" in 2005 which put the phrase into the public consciousness.
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      Carbon should be taxed when it comes out of the ground. It’s the only way that price signals can actually change people’s behavior. Is also the most market friendly way to do it. But at least in the US it seems politically impossible.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Well, consumption is what drives it. Education-based messages that convince people to consume less/differently are the non-authoritarian way to effect change.

varjag 3y ago

It is highly region specific. In EU 42.1% plastics are recycled, 39.3% are burned as fuel and 18.5% go to landfill. So it's absolutely possible to do better than 10%. https://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform/sites/default/files/euric_-_plastic_recycling_fact_sheet.pdf https://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform/sites/default/fil...

h1fra 3y ago
As I said recycling is most of the time actually downcycling. Don't get me wrong it's better than burning, but the fact we think bottle to bottle is the norm while it's absolutely not is a sign that we have failed somewhere.
- baal80spam 3y ago
  > the fact we think bottle to bottle is the norm Do people actually think so? I know nothing about recycling and I'd think that AT BEST 25% of materials are actually "got back" from a product.
- phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
  As the system currently is it’s actually more environmentally friendly to burn plastics instead of shipping it to China where it will either be burnt or dumped in the ocean.
  - anticensor 3y ago
    What if we threw those thermoplastics in the oil refinery and let them pyrolyse under the heat of the distillation&cracking column?
- soco 3y ago
  That's a question I always had: is burning plastics bad? I mean, if we had a clean burning, no toxins and toxic ashes...? If this is true, then at least we are not damaging the environment with it (the overconsumption issue aside)

lolinder 3y ago

When you quote a number like 10% you need to be more specific what you mean, and preferably provide a source. Most of the percentages I see quoted are percent of plastic in the entire use stream that ends up recycled, but then people interpret it as "there's no point in putting plastic in the recycling because it has a 1 in 10 chance of being recycled". But that's not what the number means, the number means that most plastic doesn't even get to a recycling center.

h1fra 3y ago
Well I'm quoting the OP: "Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled" And it's true not all plastic ends up in the recycling system.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Yes, that number is dangerous when it's used to imply that recycling programs throw most of the stuff away. That's not what it means. There are several people here who have actually said that they would rather send plastic to the landfill than to the recycling center because they read numbers like that and interpret them wrong.
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    Well, plastic in the landfill is a form of carbon capture. Eventually something will evolve to eat all that stuff, though it might take a really long time.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  That 9% is of all plastic produced between 1950 and 2015. > it’s estimated that in 2015, around 55 percent of global plastic waste was discarded, 25 percent was incinerated, and 20 percent was recycled. Of the plastic waste produced between 1950 and 2015, only 9 percent was recycled. https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#how-much-of-global-plastic-is-recycled https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#how-much-of-globa...