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Ever since ive learned that recycling is basically a scam perpetuated by the plastic industry ive been disgusted with how much plastic there is everywhere all t
by avery17 3y ago
Ever since ive learned that recycling is basically a scam perpetuated by the plastic industry ive been disgusted with how much plastic there is everywhere all the time. Its impossible not to interact with a vast amount of plastic in our daily lives. Hell, i wear plastic around all day. Its gross... Not that i dont support recycling, it just isnt the answer that the plastic industry pretends it is. We need to reduce! Massively!
- phero_cnstrcts 3y agoMany plastics can’t even be recycled. And the symbol on bottles for example looks like a recycling symbol but it isn’t. Only the number on the symbol indicates wether a bottle can / will be recycled. And most don’t.
- nine_k 3y agoPET and polyethylene, which comprise most of the bottle material around me, can be recycled almost perfectly. Aluminum would recycle even more perfectly, but it takes a bit more energy to melt.
- orev 3y agoOnce you factor in all the energy and materials required to actually recycle those plastics (water to clean, fuel to transport, personnel to sort, etc.), the act of recycling plastic itself is a net loss. And that’s only if you can find someone to actually do it, since the resulting recycled product is usually more expensive than using virgin material. Aluminum on the other hand takes so much energy to mine that the cost and effort of recycling makes it far more desirable to use the recycled version and is well worth the effort.
- nine_k 3y agoI also suppose that removing any impurities from aluminum is somehow easier than from plastics, so you can make high-grade aluminum from metal scrap, but only lower-grade plastic from plastic scrap.
- fkyoureadthedoc 3y agoI think that's mostly just plastic though, and other recycling like cardboard or glass for example is legit.
- rascul 3y agoI'm led to believe that metal and paper recycling are the most profitable, and glass has a transportation cost problem. For me personally, metal is the only thing I can recycle and get paid for around here.
- nine_k 3y agoNext to a subway station near me there is a device that accepts plastic, glass, and aluminum cans for recycling, and pays cash for it, some cents per can. Judging from the amount of plastic bottles that people bring there, it can be either recycled profitably, or the recycling company gets some subsidies for handling it.
- jmholla 3y agoAre you in one of those places where the price of the goods in a bottle has a deposit added on? That's how most of the cash for recycling programs work: you pay more then get refunded the excess when you bring the bottle back.
- nine_k 3y agoYes; this place is NYC. But I, of course, don't bring the bottle back. I leave my plastic bottles in a bag near the trash cans, and somebody interested in walking 500 feet and getting back the deposit collects them.
- l72 3y agoGlass shouldn't be recycled. It should be reused! We _had_ standard bottles that could be transported back to local producers, cleaned, and reused. It is interesting looking at beer bottling in China. Glass bottles are reused by all the different companies. The "high-end" bottles (tsing-tao) will emboss their logo into their bottles, but you'll find cheaper bottlers reusing those bottles and just slapping their label over the embossing.
- 4b11b4 3y agoYes, the problem is there are many different kinds of plastics.