4 ms·
In my local jurisdiction (a part of the US) the recycling bin is only allowed to be filled with cardboard and metal cans. Glass/plastic/contaminated cardboard
by ArchOversight 3y ago
In my local jurisdiction (a part of the US) the recycling bin is only allowed to be filled with cardboard and metal cans.
Glass/plastic/contaminated cardboard and others are all required to go into the trash.
Which makes no sense, glass is infinitely recyclable, yet it is not, it is instead brought to the local dump.
Now here's the kicker, I was talking the to the trash collection people around the winter break (tip your trash collection folks well, and they will make all kinds of stuff disappear) and they mentioned to me that because there is no demand for cardboard/metal recycling while they load it into two different trucks, they end up at the exact same dump.
This was confirmed not too much later when I went with my contractor to the dump to get rid of a ton of construction material, where I saw two dump trucks right next to each other, one filled with trash and one with recyclables.
So very little actually gets recycled in the United States. Most of it ends up in giant piles, buried...
- phil21 3y ago> Which makes no sense, glass is infinitely recyclable, yet it is not, it is instead brought to the local dump. It's reusable, sure. Glass milk bottles you return to be washed and refilled are great. Glass recycling though makes little sense in many areas of the world. You are basically trucking sand around. Just far less efficiently. Glass takes about 40% less energy to melt than sand does, so you need to have a relatively efficient recycling supply chain to make up for that. I haven't looked into it for over a decade, but the RoEI on that was exceedingly negative for my locality when I did.
- donatj 3y agoYes, but https://theweek.com/news/science-health/960931/why-is-the-world-running-out-of-sand https://theweek.com/news/science-health/960931/why-is-the-wo...
- 0xffff2 3y agoI only skimmed this particular article, but the problem it discusses isn't relevant to glass, in which the particle shape doesn't matter. Am I missing something that makes it relevant?
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago> Glass takes about 40% less energy to melt than sand does Energy is not the only metric. We need metrics to roughly quantify ecological destruction due to mining, and account for those in our calculations.
- xyzzyz 3y agoMining sand for glass is really negligible environmental destruction. Extra energy needed for recycling vs fresh glass has worse environmental impact.
- khrbrt 3y agoMining sand has terrible effects on riverine ecosystems. You can't just use the sand at the beach.
- Dylan16807 3y agoFor bottle purposes, why can't you use basically any sand? Assume the bottles don't have to be super clear.
- stronglikedan 3y ago> tip your trash collection folks well, and they will make all kinds of stuff disappear Mine even stops, gets out, and puts my bins away. Only for my neighbor and me, because we take care of him at the holidays.