6 ms·
Recycling.
by Mehticulous 2y ago
Recycling.
- Ma8ee 2y agoThat one is a bit complex. Recycling things like paper, metal and glass works very well, in particular if they are sorted at the source. Most plastics can’t be recycled cost effective, which a lot of plastics producers have work very hard to hide.
- AceyMan 2y agoI've been wanting to post an Ask HN on this: What's to stop us from going back to steel, paper and glass? You know, packaging we can actually recycle.
- namdnay 2y agoConvenience
- nick3443 2y agoProfits
- Pasorrijer 2y agoLast three years I've been in the Netherlands, all pop was glass bottles, similar with most water
- vpribish 2y agoclose the externality with a carbon tax
- apothegm 2y agoCost differences and price sensitivity.
- matthewdgreen 2y agoAnd more importantly, how much of a tax would it take to make single-use plastic bottles uneconomical? Are we talking 20 cents?
- Ma8ee 2y agoNot very much. I rarely buy beverages in anything else than aluminium, glass or cardboard. For some food stuff, like meat, cheese and some vegetables I think it is hard to get rid of plastics completely, but you can easily reduce the amount by 80%-90%.
- marcosdumay 2y agoMaking those things emits a lot more pollution than plastics. And costs a lot more too.
- Ma8ee 2y agoWhy do you think so?
- slau 2y agoRecycling glass is terribly inefficient. It’s so heavy that it requires a ridiculous amount of energy to heat up, and even then needs a very high amount of “fresh” glass to keep it usable. In addition, transporting glass is inefficient, and it is much more prone to breakages. The real issue is the fact that every company gets to have their own plastic bottle design, with 3-4 different plastic types that have to be triaged. They typically also want way thicker bottles than required because they feel more premium. A government that mandates a specific shared plastic bottle designed to be recyclable would be much, much ecologically effective than switching back to glass. I don’t know if metal cans or tetrapack are better.
- llm_trw 2y ago>A government that mandates a specific shared plastic bottle designed to be recyclable would be much, much ecologically effective than switching back to glass. Given the thread we're in that bottle will some type of unimaginable cancer after 30 years and in 2070 people will be talking about how big plastic captured government. Glass on the other hand is the definition of inert, who cares if it's more expensive if it keeps us alive longer?
- salawat 2y agoThe people who live near the glass recycling foundries, and the environmentalists pissed at the footprint of the continual energy requirement to melt it all down and move it around. Also, it doesn't further enrich/entrench the oil industry to the same degree as most plastics based manufacturing does.
- llm_trw 2y agoEnvironmentalists are pissed wind turbines kill birds. We should stop paying attention to people who want us to live in a cave licking moss.
- Ma8ee 2y ago> Environmentalists are pissed wind turbines kill birds. Those are not environmentalist, but people who are trying to find any excuses to oppose renewable energy. Environmentalists know that wind turbines kill a fraction of the numbers of birds killed by things like house cats or power lines.
- infecto 2y agoIt’s complex enough that I don’t think your answer really covers it. For example glass is not very efficient to recycle. It needs to be transported to be used and often the cost of transporting it is not worth it.
- Ma8ee 2y agoGlass bottles are still reused in big parts of the world, and millions of tons of glass is recycled every year. So clearly some people think it is worth it.
- infecto 2y agoDid you read what I said? It is indeed recyclable but it’s quite inefficient unless said glass collection is geographically near glass manufacturing facilities. Cullet is heavy and usually glass plants are built in a geographically advantageous area. For example, while glass is commonly collected in the US as recycling, it is often trashed because cullet is not cost effective to transport. It definitely is great to be recycled but hauling around cullet in diesel trucks that is further away than your raw materials might not be the best decision.
- nothrabannosir 2y agoAs far as I heard paper can’t be recycled because the fiber gets shorter every turn. It can be respiralled until it’s worthless pulp. Eg: > Fiber cannot, however, be recycled endlessly. It is generally accepted that a fiber can be used five to seven times before it becomes too short (as a result of repulping and other handling) to be useable in new paper products. - https://archive.epa.gov/wastes/conserve/materials/paper/web/html/papermaking.html https://archive.epa.gov/wastes/conserve/materials/paper/web/... I thought the same about glass but that turns out to be genuinely endlessly recyclable. Good to know!
- Ma8ee 2y agoIt’s a very big different between “can’t be recycled” and “can’t be recycled endlessly”. If the fibers can be used 5 times, it means that we can reduce the numbers of trees that have to be chopped down by 80%.
- valval 2y agoHaving spent two years working for a paper company, marketing had a lot of work trying to get rid of the public perception that recycled paper is good. It takes a lot more energy to deink and treat recycled paper than manufacturing from fresh fiber.