How the Plastics Industry Used Recycling to Fend Off Bans

Wag · Mar 31, 2020

For decades, Americans have been sorting their trash believing that most plastic could be recycled. But the truth is, the vast majority of all plastic produced can't be or won't be recycled. In 40 years, less than 10% of plastic has ever been recycled.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/8225...ys-from-the-fight-over-the-future-of-plastics

I knew that recycling some plastic was expensive but I had no idea to what extent. Recycling is so ingrained in the American culture now. The Frontline show looks interesting, I'll definitely watch.

Surface of Me · Mar 31, 2020

Two magicians once told me all recycling is pointless. I've known this for years. 😎

Pandora012 · Mar 31, 2020

As soon as i saw this thread, i knew someone else saw the new frontline trailer.

thekonamicode · Mar 31, 2020

Reduce and Reuse are far more important that Recycle, with REDUCE being the most important. My wife and I used to by a giant case of bottled water from Costco every week. We pitcher filter out own water now, we don't use straws, no plastic bags at the grocer, no plastic bags for meat from the butcher.

It's virtually impossible to cut out plastics 100%.

CrocM · Mar 31, 2020

This does not apply to plastic bottles, milk cartons, or the high density plastic like detergent bottles. Please keep recycling those! (if you buy plastic bottles that is, which you shouldn't if you can avoid it).

But all those little scraps of plastic you're throwing in the recycle you might as well put in the trash.

Basically, think about whether its something that is mass produced and uniform. Those are the best things to recycle because there's a huge market for them. If it's some random unique packaging, that is very difficult to recycle.

Bedameister · Mar 31, 2020

I wish more drinks would come in glass bottles. I mostly buy reusable plastic bottles but I'd prefer actually glass

Ether_Snake · Mar 31, 2020

CrocM said:
This does not apply to plastic bottles, milk cartons, or the high density plastic like detergent bottles. Please keep recycling those! (if you buy plastic bottles that is, which you shouldn't if you can avoid it).

But all those little scraps of plastic you're throwing in the recycle you might as well put in the trash.

Basically, think about whether its something that is mass produced and uniform. Those are the best things to recycle because there's a huge market for them. If it's some random unique packaging, that is very difficult to recycle.

So, a fuckload of stuff should still be recycled.

water_wendi · Mar 31, 2020

Thermal depolymerization.

CrocM · Mar 31, 2020

Bedameister said:
I wish more drinks would come in glass bottles. I mostly buy reusable plastic bottles but I'd prefer actually glass

Unless you're reusing those glass bottles, that is arguably worse. Glass breaks easily in trucks/bins, and when it does it often contaminates other recyclables in the same container with little shards of glass.

Ether_Snake said:
So, a fuckload of stuff should still be recycled.

Absolutely. The primary issues is that our recycling should be more subsidized, and there should be strict federal regulation on packaging. Good luck with either of those things in this administration.

Wag · Mar 31, 2020

Ether_Snake said:
So, a fuckload of stuff should still be recycled.

Relatively speaking, yes, but still less than 10% of what's collected now.

Dalek · Mar 31, 2020

I remember back in 1999 I really got into recycling - my roommate and I were separating everything. Bottles go in this bag, plastic goes in this bag, trash goes in this bag. We would diligently walk our trash to the big bins every day and I felt good about myself.

Then I saw the Garbage Truck come and empty all the containers into the same truck.

Edit: This was in Wilmington, DE coincidentally - funny it turns up in that video.

bangai-o · Mar 31, 2020

Wag said:
I knew that recycling some plastic was expensive but I had no idea to what extent. Recycling is so ingrained in the American culture now. The Frontline show looks interesting, I'll definitely watch.

What? Uh, no. Barely any of us recycle.

Ether_Snake · Mar 31, 2020

I believe AI-sorting machines will fix everything.

xxracerxx · Mar 31, 2020

Wag said:
Recycling is so ingrained in the American culture now.

I wish.

CrocM · Mar 31, 2020

Ether_Snake said:
I believe AI-sorting machines will fix everything.

Not everything. A huge proportion of stuff is contaminated before it every reaches the sorting facilities. Mainly because in the US we throw everything into the same damn bin, even mixing things like paper with glass (disaster).

Border · Mar 31, 2020

I am surprised that anti-recycling sentiment never took hold in the US. Penn & Teller's Bullshit did like 1 episode on it but not much beyond that. If we have people that don't believe in vaccines and people that think the earth is flat, why is there no community of people willing to speak out against recycling?

I've long suspected that recycling was kinda bullshit (or more accurately, that the resources used up by recycling programs were greater and more ecologically damaging than just responsibly disposing of trash). It was always just a hunch though. Gasing up a fleet of trucks to collect cheap and worthless plastics always seemed like a poor idea.

I heard the story about this documentary on NPR on my way home today and yeah......it turns out that less than 10% of plastics actually get recycled, and that for 30 years everyone in the plastics industry has known that plastic recycling was completely non-viable.

jelly · Mar 31, 2020

You need to cut plastic out before it even reaches homes etc. and government regulation on the fewest possible plastics that mean you could have a better chance at recycling if it's even viable. They should also make companies responsible for recycling particularly drinks companies. Fat chance of that but it's the only way you get things moving in the right direction. Basically fuck plastic as much as possible so you don't have to deal with it in such massive quantities. Packaging is bloody ridiculous.

MikeHattsu · Mar 31, 2020

There's this piece from fortune a few weeks ago too:

Plastic that travels 8,000 miles: the global crisis in recycling

With the world drowning in plastic, the need for recycling is more acute than ever. But the industry that handles all that waste is on the verge of collapse.

www.google.com

And tons of articles from TheGuardian

'Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish?

You sort your recycling, leave it to be collected – and then what? From councils burning the lot to foreign landfill sites overflowing with British rubbish, Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports on a global waste crisis

www.theguardian.com

Americans' plastic recycling is dumped in landfills, investigation shows

Consumers’ efforts to be eco-friendly go to waste as many communities find themselves with nowhere to send their refuse

www.theguardian.com

Report reveals ‘massive plastic pollution footprint’ of drinks firms

Report says plastic from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Unilever products could cover 83 football pitches every day

www.theguardian.com

Wag · Mar 31, 2020

xxracerxx said:
I wish.

All the towns I've lived in in the Boston area all have recycling programs for the last 30+ yrs I've lived here.

water_wendi · Mar 31, 2020

Every landfill needs to have a thermal depolymerization plant mining the decades of trash that was dumped into it.

xxracerxx · Mar 31, 2020

Wag said:
All the towns I've lived in in the Boston area all have recycling programs for the last 30+ yrs I've lived here.

Just because it is available doesn't mean it is ingrained in people to recycle.

Cuburger · Mar 31, 2020

I remember reading an article like last year or something about how China stopped buying our low grade plastics and how that was the only way we "recycled" them since so little of them are actually recycled.

Having grown up with plastics all my life, it is weird to think how they were thought of as a wonder material, and in many ways they are, but the abundance of plastic we use and the lack of way to deal with plastic waste is setting ourselves up to have the world buried in plastic waste.

I'm still shocked that recycling plastics is largely a scam.

hank_tree · Mar 31, 2020

My gf is a teacher and she was telling me that anything in the recycling bins in school goes straight into the normal trash cos the kids always contaminate the recycling bin by not cleaning stuff correctly etc.

LakeEarth · Mar 31, 2020

Remember recycling metals and glass is still very useful. Keep recycling those.

Bedameister · Mar 31, 2020

CrocM said:
Unless you're reusing those glass bottles, that is arguably worse. Glass breaks easily in trucks/bins, and when it does it often contaminates other recyclables in the same container with little shards of glass.

Glass bottles are sent back to the company and refilled there over here.

Soundscream · Mar 31, 2020

Jason Mamoa was talking about this when he launched his aluminum can water brand.

Sesha · Mar 31, 2020

I believe it. None of my family members dispose of plastic properly, and in every recycling bin I see at uni and elsewhere, everything is improperly disposed or contaminated in some way. I actively try to reduce my own consumption of plastic, but I'm unfortunately far from good at it.

Akainu · Mar 31, 2020

I knew this through a adam ruins episode.

big_z · Mar 31, 2020

The companies contracted to handle recycling typically end up selling it off or finding somewhere to dump it, typically overseas. But It's not just plastic it's recycling in general that has failed. The organics bin is the only one that is successful.

If your city has specific public garbage cans for trash and recyclables check what color the bag is in the recycle side next time. If its not blue i guarantee everything is going into the landfill.

whiskeystrike · Mar 31, 2020

when I was in El Paso the same truck would pick up both recycling and trash at the same time...

Aranjah · Mar 31, 2020

What about plastic grocery bags, because I have, like, 2 cubic feet of them I keep meaning to take in.

reKon · Mar 31, 2020

for most plastic bottles (especially water) you just need to throw away the cap, but the other plastic is recyclable right?

CrocM · Mar 31, 2020

big_z said:
The companies contracted to handle recycling typically end up selling it off or finding somewhere to dump it, typically overseas. But It's not just plastic it's recycling in general that has failed. The organics bin is the only one that is successful.

If your city has specific public garbage cans for trash and recyclables check what color the bag is in the recycle side next time. If its not blue i guarantee everything is going into the landfill.

Not true, aluminum recycling is great. Always recycle aluminum.

LegendofJoe · Mar 31, 2020

I've started to just go without anything I can't find in a truly recyclable or compostable container. I stopped buying yogurt for example, which was tough because I love it.

big_z · Mar 31, 2020

CrocM said:
Not true, aluminum recycling is great. Always recycle aluminum.

It is true. Taking your cans to recycle depot those will get recycled. Putting your cans in a public recycle bin those are likely trashed.

Ether_Snake · Mar 31, 2020

CrocM said:
Not everything. A huge proportion of stuff is contaminated before it every reaches the sorting facilities. Mainly because in the US we throw everything into the same damn bin, even mixing things like paper with glass (disaster).

Same where I live in Canada. In the 90s you were supposed to separate stuff, then they changed it to mix everything.

Gentlemen · Mar 31, 2020

Surface of Me said:
Two magicians once told me all recycling is pointless. I've known this for years. 😎

You weren't listening to those magicians since they also told you recycling metals is worthwhile.

big_z · Mar 31, 2020

Ether_Snake said:
Same where I live in Canada. In the 90s you were supposed to separate stuff, then they changed it to mix everything.

The idea was there would be depots to sort the stuff for you. But these depots never came to fruition in numbers as it was quickly realized that the amount of man power and cost was too high. Even with cities dumping public recycle bin contents in landfills the residential recycle waste is too much to handle. It's also unsafe for workers for a variety of reasons.

Municipalities in my area revised recycling rules last year. Now only about 30% of what used to be deemed recyclable can be recycled. Anything that contacts food or is multilayered/coated is a no go. So yogurt, ice cream, soup, slurpee or fast food cups and containers etc are now deemed trash only. Doesn't matter how clean the item is or if it says recycle on the product it's garbage.

davepoobond · Mar 31, 2020

Recycling is a scam. I think we should be burning waste for energy, they do it in Sweden or wherever.

CrocM · Mar 31, 2020

davepoobond said:
Recycling is a scam. I think we should be burning waste for energy, they do it in Sweden or wherever.

I'm sorry but this is just complete ignorance. Do you think Sweden doesn't recycle?

You're right about waste-to-energy, however. But that's only for specific kinds of waste.

davepoobond · Mar 31, 2020

CrocM said:
I'm sorry but this is just complete ignorance. Do you think Sweden doesn't recycle?

You're right about waste-to-energy, however. But that's only for specific kinds of waste.

Of course I know they recycle. They are not mutually exclusive.

From the news piece I watched it seemed to be anything that went into the waste bins.

The Hidden Truth Behind Sweden's Waste Disposal Infrastructure

To Burn or Not to Burn: In Sweden, waste incineration plants convert excess and non-recycled rubbish into energy. The Swedish government classifies this proc...

www.youtube.com

Ether_Snake · Mar 31, 2020

We got to come with some chemical that can dissolve it all into some goop that can then be used to 3d print stuff.

CrocM · Mar 31, 2020

davepoobond said:
Of course I know they recycle. They are not mutually exclusive.

From the news piece I watched it seemed to be anything that went into the waste bins.

The Hidden Truth Behind Sweden's Waste Disposal Infrastructure

To Burn or Not to Burn: In Sweden, waste incineration plants convert excess and non-recycled rubbish into energy. The Swedish government classifies this proc...

www.youtube.com

OK you can understand my confusion because you said "recycling is a scam".

Old Man Spike · Mar 31, 2020

Link to watch:

Youtube | PBS.org

How the Plastics Industry Used Recycling to Fend Off Bans

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account

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