Recycling - Why do we even bother?

[boneman]

When you have the major Petros ramping up virgin production because that's their newest profit stream:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...recycle?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

Unreal.

 

[boneman]

The bit at the beginning of the article where scientists tried to find ants on the globe that did not have phalates in there system was shocking. I really thought there would be someplace that didn't have ****ing plastic.

 

[Ponty]

Shocking. A friend of mine does big digger work on landfill sites, currently working on one in Glasgow. Said it’s just full of everything you can possibly imagine. None of it recycled, just buried. We really are completely shafting this planet. It will bite back.

 

[boneman]

Shocking. A friend of mine does big digger work on landfill sites, currently working on one in Glasgow. Said it’s just full of everything you can possibly imagine. None of it recycled, just buried. We really are completely shafting this planet. It will bite back.

In short: we suck.

 

[narabdela]

I often wonder why we bother. Recycling seems to be more of a public relations exercise than a genuine attempt to improve the environment.

 

[peter bj]

A lot of stuff put in recycling bins cannot be recycled and some is expensive to do so and a lot just goes to landfill , a lot also goes for incineration to create " Green Energy " ie more pollution .
It does end up being pointless

 

[cubastreet]

What happens to all the recycled plastic?

So much gets sent to recyclers but so few products are made from recycled plastic, it's a low grade product and probably no cheaper than virgin plastic.

Some of it gets used but I suspect as lot of it gets burned or goes to landfill. Meanwhile the Joneses feel happy they're recycling and not polluting the planet.

 

[Ponty]

What happens to all the recycled plastic?

So much gets sent to recyclers but so few products are made from recycled plastic, it's a low grade product and probably no cheaper than virgin plastic.

Some of it gets used but I suspect as lot of it gets burned or goes to landfill. Meanwhile the Joneses feel happy they're recycling and not polluting the planet.

I sail around Greece a fair bit (when allowed). The rubbish (plastic) you see in the Ionian and Aegean is quite unbelievable. My chap on the landfill diggers tells me plastic is buried or burned, it’s just in with the rest of the rubbish.

 

[Paul L]

Plenty of headline grabbing documentaries advertised on race and gender issues and must be time for one on the Great Global Recycling Scandal but probably already done without me paying attention as a I rarely watch broadcast TV in the evenings.

 

[Heckyman]

My LA only has the capability to recycle 1 and 2, not even 5. But they don’t make that clear and most folks will put 5’s in the green bin...the packaging says “widely recycled”.

Agree that there’s a significant “PR” element in the recycling effort in many parts of the U.K.

 

[stevec67]

What happens to all the recycled plastic?

So much gets sent to recyclers but so few products are made from recycled plastic, it's a low grade product and probably no cheaper than virgin plastic.

Some of it gets used but I suspect as lot of it gets burned or goes to landfill. Meanwhile the Joneses feel happy they're recycling and not polluting the planet.

Quite a lot is recycled into synthetic fabric for clothing. Others are recycled into the middle layer of multi layered food packaging. The food contact plastics have to be virgin for obvious reasons. In cities waste is burned for energy, there is a massive site in Sheffield, visible from the M1, it's where the Twin Towers used to be.

Edit - I think from a browse of the net that that site is a biomass power station, the waste incinerator just be elsewhere.

 

[Vinny]

Anyone assuming that recycled plastics and paper/card are cheaper than new is under a misapprehension. New means that you get EXACTLY what you want, clean. Both only have a limited number of possible cycles in them, before they are degraded too much for further use.

About the only recycling that is financially attractive with the manufacturer, is glass, as cullet (broken glass) acts like a solvent or flux when mixed with virgin raw materials - glass furnaces can very seldom operate without some cullet. What really puzzles me, is why some (most?) people seem to think it essential to screw tops back onto empty bottles going for reclaim.... Once all the transportation etc. is added into the equation for cullet, I suspect that even that is not a great cost-saving, if any.

 

[stevec67]

Anyone assuming that recycled plastics and paper/card are cheaper than new is under a misapprehension. New means that you get EXACTLY what you want, clean. Both only have a limited number of possible cycles in them, before they are degraded too much for further use.

About the only recycling that is financially attractive with the manufacturer, is glass, as cullet (broken glass) acts like a solvent or flux when mixed with virgin raw materials - glass furnaces can very seldom operate without some cullet. What really puzzles me, is why some (most?) people seem to think it essential to screw tops back onto empty bottles going for reclaim.... Once all the transportation etc. is added into the equation for cullet, I suspect that even that is not a great cost-saving, if any.

You forgot to mention metals, cloth and paper/card which are viable, hence why they have a scrap value. I put metal caps on jars, they are recovered at the glassworks and weighed in for scrap.

 

[Vinny]

You forgot to mention metals, cloth and paper/card which are viable, hence why they have a scrap value. I put metal caps on jars, they are recovered at the glassworks and weighed in for scrap.

I did mention paper/card - they have very limited value as they cost a fortune to return to most original uses, so a lot gets reused as low grade packaging. Eventually fibre length reduces to too great an extent so that they can't be recycled for ever.

Textiles are much the same - not easily recycled to original use and many are used as wipes - industry has always used recycled textile wipes. Mixed fibres are a nightmare.
Metals that are used for consumer goods are mostly extremely easy to recycle, not least because they are very easy to sort mechanically, although tin plating must produce some hassles in re-use.

As for metals being reclaimed from cullet - why not just throw the top etc. in with metal cans in the first place? The same goes for plastic tops.

Going back to glass - those of us old enough, or living in one of a very few areas in the UK where they are still used, will remember returnable glass milk bottles. In simple cost terms, glass bottles have to survive something like 6 re-uses to be cheaper than plastic, and, apparently, not a huge proportion make it that far.

 

[Minio]

documentaries

must be time for one on the Great Global Recycling Scandal

There was a short one on Channel 4 in the evening fronted by Lucy Siegle, about a month ago. This chiefly centred on local councils use of incinerators for disposing of waste and the resultant pollution.
I was horrified by the amount of plastic and general household rubbish that is burnt in these.
By the use of some convenient arithmetic formulas it could be worked out they were of environmental benefit due to the diversion of material from land-fill.

The burning of plastic and the resulting toxic fumes gives me quite a headache just to think of it.

 

[stevec67]

I did mention paper/card - they have very limited value as they cost a fortune to return to most original uses, so a lot gets reused as low grade packaging. Eventually fibre length reduces to too great an extent so that they can't be recycled for ever.

Textiles are much the same - not easily recycled to original use and many are used as wipes - industry has always used recycled textile wipes. Mixed fibres are a nightmare.
Metals that are used for consumer goods are mostly extremely easy to recycle, not least because they are very easy to sort mechanically, although tin plating must produce some hassles in re-use.

As for metals being reclaimed from cullet - why not just throw the top etc. in with metal cans in the first place? The same goes for plastic tops.

Going back to glass - those of us old enough, or living in one of a very few areas in the UK where they are still used, will remember returnable glass milk bottles. In simple cost terms, glass bottles have to survive something like 6 re-uses to be cheaper than plastic, and, apparently, not a huge proportion make it that far.

Minimum trippage was 8 when I was in the dairy industry in the 90s. Oh, and you leave caps on jars to stop them leaking before you take them for recycling.

 

[stevec67]

There was a short one on Channel 4 in the evening fronted by Lucy Siegle, about a month ago. This chiefly centred on local councils use of incinerators for disposing of waste and the resultant pollution.
I was horrified by the amount of plastic and general household rubbish that is burnt in these.
By the use of some convenient arithmetic formulas it could be worked out they were of environmental benefit due to the diversion of material from land-fill.

The burning of plastic and the resulting toxic fumes gives me quite a headache just to think of it.

The exhaust gases are cleaned at the power stations, it's not just a big rubbish fire.

 

[Vinny]

and you leave caps on jars to stop them leaking before you take them for recycling.

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I only ever takes empties!!! If there was anything in them, plenty get broken in the bins and the bins drain though, so any contents would just make a god-awful mess on the ground around the bins.

 

[stevec67]

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I only ever takes empties!!! If there was anything in them, plenty get broken in the bins and the bins drain though, so any contents would just make a god-awful mess on the ground around the bins.

Obviously, so do I. However, even after rinsing, not all of them will be antiseptically clean, and none of them dry, so I replace the caps.

 

[Paul L]

There was a short one on Channel 4 in the evening fronted by Lucy Siegle, about a month ago. This chiefly centred on local councils use of incinerators for disposing of waste and the resultant pollution.
I was horrified by the amount of plastic and general household rubbish that is burnt in these.
By the use of some convenient arithmetic formulas it could be worked out they were of environmental benefit due to the diversion of material from land-fill.

The burning of plastic and the resulting toxic fumes gives me quite a headache just to think of it.

thanks Minio, I thought it would be covered by now. I’m led to believe that a ridiculous proportion of stuff intended for recycling only makes it to landfill because of something spoiling the load, we all assume it gets sorted more but allegedly it doesn’t necessarily work like that.