[HN Gopher] Tackling plastic pollution: 'We can't recycle our wa...
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Tackling plastic pollution: 'We can't recycle our way out of this'
Author : belter
Score : 61 points
Date : 2023-05-30 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.france24.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.france24.com)
| nashashmi wrote:
| A simpler way is to just burn it for fuel. And use it to replace
| the oil to energy production currently in place.
| schainks wrote:
| Denmark has done this successfully. They now import garbage
| from the EU b/c they ran out of their own to burn.
| balaji1 wrote:
| What's the remains of burning plastics? Are there any toxic
| remnants?
| [deleted]
| aio2 wrote:
| Won't there be toxic remains?
| qball wrote:
| Not if you're running a flame hot enough to guarantee
| complete combustion; this is the difference between a proper
| waste incinerator and a burn barrel.
|
| Plastics are hydrocarbons; nothing special going on there.
| aio2 wrote:
| Oh, that makes sense. Thanks.
| jagaerglad wrote:
| there are many additives in plastics so often they're not
| only hydrocarbons. BPA, PCB, colors, etc
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Or maybe we could liquify and pump it back down to where the
| oil was.
|
| I suppose you're potentially using a lot of energy to do this,
| but its better than just releasing the pollution imho.
| nashashmi wrote:
| More energy consumption means more CO2 unless there is too
| much power generated from emissonless tech which won't be the
| case for a while.
|
| So might as well burn it.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Or we could at least drastically reduce use of plastics. We
| should start off with disposable plastic stuff.
| nashashmi wrote:
| That doesn't solve the current plastics.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroWaste/wiki/index/
| belter wrote:
| "There's a myth with plastic recycling that if the quality is
| good enough the plastics can be recycled back into plastic
| bottles," says Natalie Fee, the founder of City to Sea, a UK-
| based environmental charity.
|
| "But as it goes through the system, it becomes lower- and lower-
| grade plastic. It's down-cycled into things like drain pipes or
| sometimes fleece clothing. But those items can't be recycled
| afterwards."
|
| It is therefore difficult to make the case that recycled plastic
| is a sustainable material, said Graham Forbes, Global Plastics
| Campaign leader at Greenpeace USA, in a statement this week."
| notatoad wrote:
| >It's down-cycled into things like drain pipes or sometimes
| fleece clothing.
|
| essentially, it keeps getting recylced until it turns into
| microplastics and we eat it.
| balaji1 wrote:
| I hate plastics. But I hate things that say "made from x%
| recycled plastic" more and avoid those - just to vote with my
| wallet that it is not an acceptable solution.
| cubefox wrote:
| ... and we breathe it in.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35977640/
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| I have a neighbor who was looking at those plastic boards some
| people will use instead of wood for a patio. He goes to the
| factory for this big presentation with an audience and they start
| talking about the boards being made from recycled plastic. My
| neighbor wants to know how much recycled plastic was in each
| board...the guy gets evasive and the neighbor presses him, and
| come to find out it was the bare minimum legal requirement to
| label them as being made from recycled material. It was some
| stupidly low amount, like a single water bottle or plastic bag
| per batch.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Time to go back to bottles and paper. But, right now bottles, and
| paper are not recycled in any significant amount.
|
| We are starting to see the costs of "cheap" plastics, this will
| probably take more then was saved in costs + some to cleanup.
| Time to force these companies to start paying large amounts for
| the cleanup.
|
| As a very young child, I remember there were paper drives a few
| times a years were people would save their paper for these
| drives. The paper was then recycled. Bottles were also recycled
| also.
| thedataslinger wrote:
| There were never "cost" savings. Look up "negative
| externalization"; this has become (or, arguably, always has
| been) the modus operandi of capitalism.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I assume you mean GLASS bottles (since the plastic ones are
| part of the current problem), we recycle about 1/3 of those in
| the US[1], but in the EU the rate is more than twice that at
| present[2]. Paper is even better, depending on the form, for
| example 96% of all cardboard is recycled in the US (which I
| take it is driven primarily by businesses).
|
| 1: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-
| waste-...
|
| 2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1258851/glass-
| recycling-...
| dboreham wrote:
| Glass bottles can be re-used, not recycled. That's how milk
| was delivered when I was a kid. Milkman took the empty
| bottles.
| Alupis wrote:
| > Time to go back to bottles and paper.
|
| In the 90's, it was all about saving the rainforest and
| reducing paper usage. Which led to the rise of plastic bags and
| bottles.
|
| Turns out - doing what sounds and feels good is often
| completely unscientific. A la banning plastic straws...
| scrlk wrote:
| > A la banning plastic straws...
|
| ...and replacing them with paper straws containing PFAS:
|
| https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-
| pollutants/Biodeg...
| mikestew wrote:
| _As a very young child, I remember there were paper drives..._
|
| _Newspaper_ drives. Like, you let your newspapers that are
| printed on real wood pulp pile up, then the Boy Scouts come and
| pick that pile up. But two things:
|
| 1. Who the hell still gets a physical newspaper anymore? (Yes,
| we all know _you_ do, Captain Pedantic.)
|
| 2. Were I a physical paper subscriber, I would toss it in the
| recycling bin (a dearth of which were why we had "paper drives"
| back in the day) when I'm done.
|
| Bottles were recycled, yes, and Federal law requires that every
| time the topic comes up that we all be reminded that glass
| bottles weigh a fuckton, and the extra fossil fuels required to
| tote them around might make it a net loss on environment-
| saving. Though I'll admit I've not seen solid numbers (as in,
| perhaps a real study) one way or the other.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Mail spam not only produces more trash than newspapers, it
| also uses types of paper that are less recyclable.
| mikestew wrote:
| $4 in the U. S. makes most of it go away:
|
| https://www.dmachoice.org/static/about_dma.php
|
| After a few years, some new stuff slowly creeps back in,
| but for the most part what shows up in my mailbox is stuff
| I care about.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Or, you can get on the "Deceased Do Not Contact List" for
| free :)
|
| https://www.ims-dm.com/cgi/ddnc.php
| truculent wrote:
| Something I often wonder about this is how much are the
| assumptions about the fuel cost of transport based on the
| current economic mode?
|
| For example, if we outright banned plastic bottles, would
| that incentivise a more distributed network of recycling and
| bottling centres, bringing the transport costs back down?
|
| Likewise, I see similar statistics around plastic packaging
| reducing food spoilage during transport.
|
| To a know-nothing like me, it feels as though the real effect
| would be lessened by the economy finding a new equilibrium in
| response to a plastic ban, but I have no idea how much we
| might expect that effect to be, or what kind of timescale and
| capital investment it might require.
| foxyv wrote:
| There are zero waste alternatives that don't even need to
| recycle. You just wash containers when they are returned and
| then re-use them. I honestly would prefer that to all the
| junk in weird boxes and marketing that intentionally makes it
| harder to shop. I started buying spices in bulk lately and
| it's less than 1/10 the cost of packaged spices...
|
| https://ecocart.io/zero-waste-grocery-shopping/
| cubefox wrote:
| Few people remember it, but before plastic packaging there was
| cellophane. A transparent cellulose based wrap, essentially
| transparent paper, biodegradable. Early versions weren't moisture
| proof, but this was fixed later.
|
| I'm sure there are nowadays other, more modern, biodegradable
| alternatives to plastic packaging. Though apparently they are not
| as cheap as plastic.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Cheap to _produce_. The true cost is for the commons to absorb.
| (Quite literally, thanks microplastics in food!)
| cubefox wrote:
| Unfortunately!
|
| We could also replace most synthetic fibers with cotton, I
| assume.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Then the mindless obsession with "keeping plastics out of
| landfill" leads to the terrific sounding idea of putting waste
| plastic into roads.
|
| Where it is ground down by cars and trucks into microplastics and
| enters waterways, the soil, animals, food, the air and people.
|
| But hey, at least it's not in landfill, right?
|
| This is a path that India has pushed down very hard, with lots of
| plastic roads "reducing pollution".
|
| Many vested interests are astroturfing Twitter too, about how
| wonderful plastic roads are.
|
| You can look forward to microplastics in absolutely everything
| courtesy of the road outside your house.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| The road outside your house is probably the largest source of
| microplastics in your life already. Tires rubbing on them makes
| a staggering amount of microplastics! Production rates go up
| with weight, so these new BEV trucks and SUVs are an absolute
| horror show on that axis too.
| runsWphotons wrote:
| Apparently this is what they do with wind turbines in Europe.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| With what? I'm pretty sure they aren't making alloy
| aluminum/plastics. So what parts do you mean?
| runsWphotons wrote:
| When the turbine gets old they crush up the blades and put
| it in concrete for roads and bridges. They also make them
| into plastic pellets which get put into alloyed things like
| manhole covers, so you are wrong. Not sure why the
| downvotes and aggression.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Maybe referring to recycling blades[0], but that's not the
| same as taking random plastic waste and turning it into
| blades.
|
| 0: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/13/23594847/vestas-wind-
| ener...
| andersrs wrote:
| The plastics need to be stopped at the source. The plastic
| recycling logo is a meme created by some PR geniuses trick us
| into accepting pollution and passing the problem down to the
| public.
|
| No institution wants to tell you it's all a lie. My
| municipality pick up this trash under the name of 'recycling'
| meanwhile some naive people are busy washing out single use
| containers.
|
| Decades ago when plastic was more expensive society did it
| right. For example Milk and beer was sold in glass bottles
| you'd return. Jack up the price of these nasty materials and
| suddenly the easiest thing to do is actually 'recycle'.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| The problem with glass bottles is that they're heavy so
| transporting them results in far higher carbon emissions than
| making the plastic bottle.
| [deleted]
| gersg wrote:
| And you can't drop them, you can't crush them to make them
| take up less space in the rubbish... they are objectively
| worse in all regards I can think of
| dboreham wrote:
| Exactly: plastics recycling is a genius jedi mind trick from
| the oil industry.
|
| The penny dropped for me when taking the family plastics
| waste to our recycling drop off. There was a notice saying
| you couldn't put thermoformed pet items (Raspberry
| clamshells) because if that stuff was found in the 40'
| container the entire load has to be dumped in landfill.
| Thermoformed PET has the same number as molded PET (water
| bottles). I think "whaaaat are those symbols with numbers for
| then???" pulled out my phone, did some searching and
| discovered that the entire scheme is BS.
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(page generated 2023-05-30 23:01 UTC)