6 ms·

Largest U.S. recycling project to extend landfill life for Virginia residents

36 points by mooreds 11mo ago

InMice 11mo ago
The recycling fantasy and forever increasing plastic production go hand in hand together.
- Simulacra 11mo ago
  This. I support recycling, but it is an absolute wasted endeavor so long as we continue to produce and dump plastic. No amount of recycling can hold a candle to the damage being done by the inability to recycle plastic, the insane production of new plastic, and the disposable of all of that plastic. Until we learn to do something with the plastic, recycling is just a pipe dream to make people feel better.
skywhopper 11mo ago
This is a marketing press release about two industries that are not particularly trustworthy in their claims. I would not out any stock in any assertion made within.
comrade1234 11mo ago
They're very strict about sorting your own recycling, organic waste, and household waste here in Zurich. So strict that people are fined for not doing it properly. And also there are newspaper articles with the format of reporting on someone receiving a fine and how thankful they are now that they know the proper way to recycle (obviously planted - I had to write an article like this in junior high because I used the school phone to call 911 to ask the time). What I always wonder about though is just how much work it saves in the end for us to do it instead of at a central location. I mean, even with these strict rules they still need to sort the stuff that people didn't sort properly in the first place. So why not sort it all? (Except for the biowaste because that could contaminate the recycling)
- InMice 11mo ago
  It is a free for all in USA, sometimes the trash truck comes down and grabs both recycling bins and trash bins and just dumps all into the same truck. No one cares, customer or trash service company. Many facilities dont sort if sorting becomes too much work they just toss what was picked up as reycling into the trash. Walk inside any warehouse type facility in America and they throw anything and everything into the trash that has lost its utility for the business. Working inside an order fulfillment warehouse opened my eyes to how much waste is created just to pack and ship everyones cheap single use junk. Bottle deposits haven't been adjusted for inflation in decades, no one even talks about it. States that dont have deposit laws people just litter aluminim cans everywhere. When there are bottle deposit laws they have exceptions like no deposit required for aluminum can if its contents are not carbonated. Why should that matter? Most people toss their food waste into the trash, effectively no one bothers with the effort to return nutrients back into the earth. Why do that when we can just pointlessly haul it away in a fuel burning truck and seal it away with toxic everyday garbage. The people who actually care about re-use and or reducing waste are tiny vocal minority compared to everyone else. When I walk into a grocery story filled with 100+ shoppers I am always the only person using reusable, non-plastic bags. I also laugh when if you don't use plastic bags, they slap plastic stickers on your items thanking you for not using plastic bags LOL. I know other countries are worse with pollution but gosh. Sounds nice in Zurich if there's actually people that care.
- OneDeuxTriSeiGo 11mo ago
  There's a lot of things that really jam up recycling. One of them is plastic grocery bags. They just cause a lot of problems in the mechanisation of recycling so it's very non-trivial to work around them. Oils and biowaste of course are of course another issue. Especially for corrugated fiberboard (brandname: cardboard) and the like. And then also it's hard for machines or lineworkers to easily differentiate plastics without sufficient market or regulatory pressure. If consumers are already generally sorting by broad category then they take most of the legwork out (leaving the facility to check their work) and those consumers also apply market pressure on manufacturers to make it obvious how their product is expected to be recycled. And of course also there's just a general component of everyone doing a little at a time to keep things organised from the start making the entire process an order of magnitude easier and more efficient for everyone downstream.
josefritzishere 11mo ago
Using expensive and wasteful AI to pretend plastic recycling is meaningful... this is marketing nonsense.
everdrive 11mo ago
Plastic recycling is worse than useless: due to the filtration needs it's one of the larger contributors towards microplastics in the water supply. This is on top of all the other factors: any recycle-able plastics go in for another 1-2 rounds at most, and given the pace of plastic usage it means the recycling did not accomplish anything. Further, most plastic cannot be recycled, some 3rd party countries just dump it into the ocean, others just ship it to a landfill.
- wongarsu 11mo ago
  I'd be more rational to give up on most plastic recycling and just burn it industrially, like in waste power plants or to generate process heat. You get decent heat output, it burns fairly cleanly, and any toxins can be filtered. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than burning 'fresh' oil or gas for the same purpose while doing this whole plastic-recycling charade
  - antisthenes 11mo ago
    AFAIK, that's what Japan does for most of its plastic.
- slipheen 11mo ago
  I agree that a lot of plastic recycling is greenwashing from the manufacturing industry. I've seen the statistics, and we need to take dramatic steps in order to reduce the amount of single use plastics – but don't you think that it's better that we try? I hear you about micro plastics, and I think that it's important to try to do better to fix this. But given the limitations of our imperfect world, do you really think that we would be net-net better off without even making an attempt to recycle it?
  - everdrive 11mo ago
    >But given the limitations of our imperfect world, do you really think that we would be net-net better off without even making an attempt to recycle it? This really depends on the specifics of how much we can move the needle. For instance, there's zero chance we're fully getting rid of plastics. Even in a world where we had perfect political will, you'd need them at a minimum for medical tools. With regard to microplastic pollution, I think I'd need more information on the major causes. For instance, I've heard that car tires are one of the biggest causes on land, whereas fishing nets are one of the biggest causes in the ocean. To the extent that this is correct, recycling is not going to impact those problems one way or another. If for instance I were to learn that microplastic pollution from recycling was so minimal it can barely be measured, I would be open to changing my position. (my understanding that plastic recycling is a significant cause of microplastic pollution.) I've rambled a bit here, but ultimately the question needs to be answered whether plastic recycling is doing more harm than good. If it's doing more harm then it makes no sense to "at least try," as "success" would put us in a worse position.
irishcoffee 11mo ago
Ah, the myth of recycling. I wonder what the next recycling movement will be? Discarded EV batteries? Dead solar panels? How does this next iteration play out?
- pjc50 11mo ago
  Both of those are extremely recyclable and have more manageable separation problems. There's not much of a solar recycling industry because the panels generally have longer lifetimes than the minimum advertised - they last until weather damage. (the thin film ones are a separate category, some of which contain more poisonous materials, but fortunately they were never really economic)
- howmayiannoyyou 11mo ago
  There are hauling and processing fees that make this profitable. Its not a linear problem or opportunity.
  - irishcoffee 11mo ago
    Right. It has nothing to do with recycling and everything to do with dumping shit into the waters around India. Solid plan.
infecto 11mo ago
Recycling is such a sham. I wish we as a nation (US) would come to terms that most products are not economical to recycle. It could actually move the needle on consumption when you know that’s it’s going to be thrown away. About the only thing worth recycling in the US is metal. The rest including glass are just junk. Most folks don’t realize that glass they throw in their recycling is often going to the landfill because they live too far away from a glass manufacturer for it to be economical to use. I don’t say this as someone who is suggesting we not think about consumption but rather it’s a fake feeling that it’s going somewhere other than the landfill. I would be curious in other countries how economical it really is to recycle.my favorite is Japan where some areas will incinerate certain qualities of plastic for energy. I think that is a useful way to reuse it.
- reactordev 11mo ago
  I learned this a decade ago when I learned that a lot of recycling lots were bought by China and other countries who are no longer buying our recyclables. Probably for the reasons you mentioned. Metals are about the only thing worth recycling. Everything else, the transportation costs out weigh the economics. That said, there are smaller plastic filament recyclers that are making their way onto the market that I’m super keen on. Being able to take plastics, shred them up, put them in this extruder and make a new filament spool for printing is awesome.
  - InMice 11mo ago
    Is that form of plastic reuse really all that great? Perhaps new plastic doesn't need to get produced. But it's still plastic and it's still going to just shed microplastics everywhere and eventually end up in a landfill.
- howmayiannoyyou 11mo ago
  No. Its a mixed bag. Metals, eWaste, Batteries ... all profitable to recycle. Paper & cardboard ... depends on market price. Plastics ... depends on oil prices, market price and type of plastic. Tires ... usually profitable, usually involves a hauling fee. AMP's robotic solution is going to face immense competition from general edge models, probably very soon. The mechanical piece is simple engineering. All the magic is (was) recognition.
armedpacifist 11mo ago
Just adding to the conversation: I can strongly recommend the documentary The Story Of Plastic to get an insight on recycling in general. Reduce, reuse, recycle. I used to be big on trying to reduce my plastic usage, but I gave up on it because the more I got aware of how f*'d up it all is, the more guilty and depressed I started to feel. It felt like fighting a hydra. I've witnessed it myself: a lot of the waste that gets recycled by the consumer gets thrown on the same pile and goes in the same incinerator. It's not economically feasable to properly recycle plastics. It's all bs greenwashing. I just stopped caring at some point and became a little more pessimistic about humanity. Sad really.
ZeroGravitas 11mo ago
It would to interesting to compare the "virtuous" reasons offered in these comments for hating recycling with USA vs EU (or other high Vs low recycling areas, like countries or states). Does the USA or Missisippi have the lower recycling rate because they are uniquely immune to the corporate oil lobby that scammed Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium? Is it because they instead reduce their consumption and reuse their empty containers unlike the lazy Belgians who are too addicted to feeling virtuous? Has the EU plastic use risen more than in America, because of recycling?
james_marks 11mo ago
I've always assumed we'll end up re-processing landfills when it hits an economic tipping point: better tech emerges, raw sources are exhausted, etc. There's a story in Junkyard Planet of this exact thing making someone wealthy when a product that was treated as waste became valuable to the steel industry, and they knew where to find it in the dump.
- InMice 11mo ago
  I wonder this too, eventually robots will pick apart the landfills once there is technology to deal with it. Tons of metal goes into landfills that could go to scrap yards, etc Altho when they cap off landfills they become a ski resort or a subvision.
theturtle 11mo ago
[dead]

36 points by mooreds 11mo ago

InMice 11mo ago

The recycling fantasy and forever increasing plastic production go hand in hand together.

Simulacra 11mo ago
This. I support recycling, but it is an absolute wasted endeavor so long as we continue to produce and dump plastic. No amount of recycling can hold a candle to the damage being done by the inability to recycle plastic, the insane production of new plastic, and the disposable of all of that plastic. Until we learn to do something with the plastic, recycling is just a pipe dream to make people feel better.

skywhopper 11mo ago

This is a marketing press release about two industries that are not particularly trustworthy in their claims. I would not out any stock in any assertion made within.

comrade1234 11mo ago

They're very strict about sorting your own recycling, organic waste, and household waste here in Zurich. So strict that people are fined for not doing it properly. And also there are newspaper articles with the format of reporting on someone receiving a fine and how thankful they are now that they know the proper way to recycle (obviously planted - I had to write an article like this in junior high because I used the school phone to call 911 to ask the time). What I always wonder about though is just how much work it saves in the end for us to do it instead of at a central location. I mean, even with these strict rules they still need to sort the stuff that people didn't sort properly in the first place. So why not sort it all? (Except for the biowaste because that could contaminate the recycling)

InMice 11mo ago
It is a free for all in USA, sometimes the trash truck comes down and grabs both recycling bins and trash bins and just dumps all into the same truck. No one cares, customer or trash service company. Many facilities dont sort if sorting becomes too much work they just toss what was picked up as reycling into the trash. Walk inside any warehouse type facility in America and they throw anything and everything into the trash that has lost its utility for the business. Working inside an order fulfillment warehouse opened my eyes to how much waste is created just to pack and ship everyones cheap single use junk. Bottle deposits haven't been adjusted for inflation in decades, no one even talks about it. States that dont have deposit laws people just litter aluminim cans everywhere. When there are bottle deposit laws they have exceptions like no deposit required for aluminum can if its contents are not carbonated. Why should that matter? Most people toss their food waste into the trash, effectively no one bothers with the effort to return nutrients back into the earth. Why do that when we can just pointlessly haul it away in a fuel burning truck and seal it away with toxic everyday garbage. The people who actually care about re-use and or reducing waste are tiny vocal minority compared to everyone else. When I walk into a grocery story filled with 100+ shoppers I am always the only person using reusable, non-plastic bags. I also laugh when if you don't use plastic bags, they slap plastic stickers on your items thanking you for not using plastic bags LOL. I know other countries are worse with pollution but gosh. Sounds nice in Zurich if there's actually people that care.
OneDeuxTriSeiGo 11mo ago
There's a lot of things that really jam up recycling. One of them is plastic grocery bags. They just cause a lot of problems in the mechanisation of recycling so it's very non-trivial to work around them. Oils and biowaste of course are of course another issue. Especially for corrugated fiberboard (brandname: cardboard) and the like. And then also it's hard for machines or lineworkers to easily differentiate plastics without sufficient market or regulatory pressure. If consumers are already generally sorting by broad category then they take most of the legwork out (leaving the facility to check their work) and those consumers also apply market pressure on manufacturers to make it obvious how their product is expected to be recycled. And of course also there's just a general component of everyone doing a little at a time to keep things organised from the start making the entire process an order of magnitude easier and more efficient for everyone downstream.

josefritzishere 11mo ago

Using expensive and wasteful AI to pretend plastic recycling is meaningful... this is marketing nonsense.

everdrive 11mo ago

Plastic recycling is worse than useless: due to the filtration needs it's one of the larger contributors towards microplastics in the water supply. This is on top of all the other factors: any recycle-able plastics go in for another 1-2 rounds at most, and given the pace of plastic usage it means the recycling did not accomplish anything. Further, most plastic cannot be recycled, some 3rd party countries just dump it into the ocean, others just ship it to a landfill.

wongarsu 11mo ago
I'd be more rational to give up on most plastic recycling and just burn it industrially, like in waste power plants or to generate process heat. You get decent heat output, it burns fairly cleanly, and any toxins can be filtered. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than burning 'fresh' oil or gas for the same purpose while doing this whole plastic-recycling charade
- antisthenes 11mo ago
  AFAIK, that's what Japan does for most of its plastic.
slipheen 11mo ago
I agree that a lot of plastic recycling is greenwashing from the manufacturing industry. I've seen the statistics, and we need to take dramatic steps in order to reduce the amount of single use plastics – but don't you think that it's better that we try? I hear you about micro plastics, and I think that it's important to try to do better to fix this. But given the limitations of our imperfect world, do you really think that we would be net-net better off without even making an attempt to recycle it?
- everdrive 11mo ago
  >But given the limitations of our imperfect world, do you really think that we would be net-net better off without even making an attempt to recycle it? This really depends on the specifics of how much we can move the needle. For instance, there's zero chance we're fully getting rid of plastics. Even in a world where we had perfect political will, you'd need them at a minimum for medical tools. With regard to microplastic pollution, I think I'd need more information on the major causes. For instance, I've heard that car tires are one of the biggest causes on land, whereas fishing nets are one of the biggest causes in the ocean. To the extent that this is correct, recycling is not going to impact those problems one way or another. If for instance I were to learn that microplastic pollution from recycling was so minimal it can barely be measured, I would be open to changing my position. (my understanding that plastic recycling is a significant cause of microplastic pollution.) I've rambled a bit here, but ultimately the question needs to be answered whether plastic recycling is doing more harm than good. If it's doing more harm then it makes no sense to "at least try," as "success" would put us in a worse position.

irishcoffee 11mo ago

Ah, the myth of recycling. I wonder what the next recycling movement will be? Discarded EV batteries? Dead solar panels? How does this next iteration play out?

pjc50 11mo ago
Both of those are extremely recyclable and have more manageable separation problems. There's not much of a solar recycling industry because the panels generally have longer lifetimes than the minimum advertised - they last until weather damage. (the thin film ones are a separate category, some of which contain more poisonous materials, but fortunately they were never really economic)
howmayiannoyyou 11mo ago
There are hauling and processing fees that make this profitable. Its not a linear problem or opportunity.
- irishcoffee 11mo ago
  Right. It has nothing to do with recycling and everything to do with dumping shit into the waters around India. Solid plan.

infecto 11mo ago

Recycling is such a sham. I wish we as a nation (US) would come to terms that most products are not economical to recycle. It could actually move the needle on consumption when you know that’s it’s going to be thrown away. About the only thing worth recycling in the US is metal. The rest including glass are just junk. Most folks don’t realize that glass they throw in their recycling is often going to the landfill because they live too far away from a glass manufacturer for it to be economical to use. I don’t say this as someone who is suggesting we not think about consumption but rather it’s a fake feeling that it’s going somewhere other than the landfill. I would be curious in other countries how economical it really is to recycle.my favorite is Japan where some areas will incinerate certain qualities of plastic for energy. I think that is a useful way to reuse it.

reactordev 11mo ago
I learned this a decade ago when I learned that a lot of recycling lots were bought by China and other countries who are no longer buying our recyclables. Probably for the reasons you mentioned. Metals are about the only thing worth recycling. Everything else, the transportation costs out weigh the economics. That said, there are smaller plastic filament recyclers that are making their way onto the market that I’m super keen on. Being able to take plastics, shred them up, put them in this extruder and make a new filament spool for printing is awesome.
- InMice 11mo ago
  Is that form of plastic reuse really all that great? Perhaps new plastic doesn't need to get produced. But it's still plastic and it's still going to just shed microplastics everywhere and eventually end up in a landfill.
howmayiannoyyou 11mo ago
No. Its a mixed bag. Metals, eWaste, Batteries ... all profitable to recycle. Paper & cardboard ... depends on market price. Plastics ... depends on oil prices, market price and type of plastic. Tires ... usually profitable, usually involves a hauling fee. AMP's robotic solution is going to face immense competition from general edge models, probably very soon. The mechanical piece is simple engineering. All the magic is (was) recognition.

armedpacifist 11mo ago

Just adding to the conversation: I can strongly recommend the documentary The Story Of Plastic to get an insight on recycling in general. Reduce, reuse, recycle. I used to be big on trying to reduce my plastic usage, but I gave up on it because the more I got aware of how f*'d up it all is, the more guilty and depressed I started to feel. It felt like fighting a hydra. I've witnessed it myself: a lot of the waste that gets recycled by the consumer gets thrown on the same pile and goes in the same incinerator. It's not economically feasable to properly recycle plastics. It's all bs greenwashing. I just stopped caring at some point and became a little more pessimistic about humanity. Sad really.

ZeroGravitas 11mo ago

It would to interesting to compare the "virtuous" reasons offered in these comments for hating recycling with USA vs EU (or other high Vs low recycling areas, like countries or states). Does the USA or Missisippi have the lower recycling rate because they are uniquely immune to the corporate oil lobby that scammed Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium? Is it because they instead reduce their consumption and reuse their empty containers unlike the lazy Belgians who are too addicted to feeling virtuous? Has the EU plastic use risen more than in America, because of recycling?

james_marks 11mo ago

I've always assumed we'll end up re-processing landfills when it hits an economic tipping point: better tech emerges, raw sources are exhausted, etc. There's a story in Junkyard Planet of this exact thing making someone wealthy when a product that was treated as waste became valuable to the steel industry, and they knew where to find it in the dump.

InMice 11mo ago
I wonder this too, eventually robots will pick apart the landfills once there is technology to deal with it. Tons of metal goes into landfills that could go to scrap yards, etc Altho when they cap off landfills they become a ski resort or a subvision.

theturtle 11mo ago

[dead]