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People should look up how "waste disposal" works in their municipality and then act accordingly. Where I live, if you believe the annual report, more than 75% o

People should look up how "waste disposal" works in their municipality and then act accordingly. Where I live, if you believe the annual report, more than 75% of material is what they call "recovered". They claim that this > contributed to the reduction of 125.2 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) being released into the atmosphere (presumably from decomposition?) Genuinely asking, is that particular example a scam?

koolala 1y ago
I think "recovered" includes burning it. I can't imagine how burning recycling is carbon positive.
- jerf 1y ago
  Oh, it's quite easy. If you'll consult this slick marketing diagram I have over here, as you can plainly see, the carbon coming out of our incinerator is brightly colored and can be plainly seen to be smiling broadly. It's very positive carbon. Whereas this carbon you see coming out of the tailpipe of this car is colored ominously darkly, is clearly wearing an angry expression, and for some reason, is substantially "spikier" carbon than the stuff coming out of our environmentally-responsible incinerator. Much more dangerous stuff. You wouldn't want to meet this carbon in a dark alley at night! It's all quite simple, really.
NotAnOtter 1y ago
> ‘recovery’ means any operation the principal result of which is waste serving a useful purpose by replacing other materials which would otherwise have been used By the definition, 75% seems very good. I'm not sure if that definition is a legally sanctioned term or if your municipality has some screwy definition of 'recovered'. But if it really translates to "If this service didn't exist, we would 4x our production of plastic" - then that does not seem like a scam at all. With that definition, a plausible extreme is they take 75% of waste plastic to create one single plastic cup. Meaning the production of plastic would not change if this program did not exist. If that's the case - then yes scam. TL;DR not enough info
- barbazoo 1y ago
  The 2023 report is here: https://ar.return-it.ca/ar2023/pdf/Return-It_2023_Annual_Report.pdf https://ar.return-it.ca/ar2023/pdf/Return-It_2023_Annual_Rep... > Plastic > Plastic containers were sold and shipped to a recycler in Canada to their facilities in British Columbia and Alberta. The commodity is cleaned and pelletized to become FDA-approved new raw material for manufacturers of various plastic products including new containers, strapping material and fibres. > Recovery: 78.50% We should use less plastic! But it's not true that "it just ends up in the landfill" or "it just gets burned", at least not everywhere.
  - NotAnOtter 1y ago
    That's nice but it doesn't really refute my extreme counter example. Maybe all that plastic is shipped off, the recycling plant collects a bunch of state/federal grants (e.g. CRV), and the plants in BC or Alberta convert all that plastic into just a couple of products. Not making a dent in the actual production of new container. The existence of plastic being used in new products doesn't help anyone - it's only beneficial if it helps reduce the production of new plastic
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - barbazoo 1y ago
      Ok, you're describing some kind of scam. I have no reason to believe yet that that's what's going on here. > The existence of plastic being used in new products doesn't help anyone - it's only beneficial if it helps reduce the production of new plastic I can't follow your logic. It's legal to produce plastic containers. This system here collects them and turns ~80% of it into a new product. You're saying this system shouldn't be in place because we're not changing anything about the amount of plastic we produce?
      - chneu 1y ago
        The goal is to remove plastics from the environment. They eventually break down. So recycling it into new products just makes it wind up in the environment later on. Less plastic is the goal. Not reusing it. Recycling plastic makes people use more plastic because they think it's being reused.

koolala 1y ago

I think "recovered" includes burning it. I can't imagine how burning recycling is carbon positive.

jerf 1y ago
Oh, it's quite easy. If you'll consult this slick marketing diagram I have over here, as you can plainly see, the carbon coming out of our incinerator is brightly colored and can be plainly seen to be smiling broadly. It's very positive carbon. Whereas this carbon you see coming out of the tailpipe of this car is colored ominously darkly, is clearly wearing an angry expression, and for some reason, is substantially "spikier" carbon than the stuff coming out of our environmentally-responsible incinerator. Much more dangerous stuff. You wouldn't want to meet this carbon in a dark alley at night! It's all quite simple, really.

NotAnOtter 1y ago

> ‘recovery’ means any operation the principal result of which is waste serving a useful purpose by replacing other materials which would otherwise have been used By the definition, 75% seems very good. I'm not sure if that definition is a legally sanctioned term or if your municipality has some screwy definition of 'recovered'. But if it really translates to "If this service didn't exist, we would 4x our production of plastic" - then that does not seem like a scam at all. With that definition, a plausible extreme is they take 75% of waste plastic to create one single plastic cup. Meaning the production of plastic would not change if this program did not exist. If that's the case - then yes scam. TL;DR not enough info

barbazoo 1y ago
The 2023 report is here: https://ar.return-it.ca/ar2023/pdf/Return-It_2023_Annual_Report.pdf https://ar.return-it.ca/ar2023/pdf/Return-It_2023_Annual_Rep... > Plastic > Plastic containers were sold and shipped to a recycler in Canada to their facilities in British Columbia and Alberta. The commodity is cleaned and pelletized to become FDA-approved new raw material for manufacturers of various plastic products including new containers, strapping material and fibres. > Recovery: 78.50% We should use less plastic! But it's not true that "it just ends up in the landfill" or "it just gets burned", at least not everywhere.
- NotAnOtter 1y ago
  That's nice but it doesn't really refute my extreme counter example. Maybe all that plastic is shipped off, the recycling plant collects a bunch of state/federal grants (e.g. CRV), and the plants in BC or Alberta convert all that plastic into just a couple of products. Not making a dent in the actual production of new container. The existence of plastic being used in new products doesn't help anyone - it's only beneficial if it helps reduce the production of new plastic
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    Ok, you're describing some kind of scam. I have no reason to believe yet that that's what's going on here. > The existence of plastic being used in new products doesn't help anyone - it's only beneficial if it helps reduce the production of new plastic I can't follow your logic. It's legal to produce plastic containers. This system here collects them and turns ~80% of it into a new product. You're saying this system shouldn't be in place because we're not changing anything about the amount of plastic we produce?
    - chneu 1y ago
      The goal is to remove plastics from the environment. They eventually break down. So recycling it into new products just makes it wind up in the environment later on. Less plastic is the goal. Not reusing it. Recycling plastic makes people use more plastic because they think it's being reused.