OT: Looks like reality has caught up to recycling....

[trader_4]

This has been in the news here in the NYC area. Towns are finding there are no takers for most of the recyclables. This article shows how China apparently realized that taking all kinds of recyclables was bad for the environment and just said no more. So, now we're turning some of the rest of Southeast Asia into an environmental mess and apparently they aren't taking enough, so we're still screwed.

We've talked about this here before, but this is pretty bad and huge setback for the proponents of recycling. Here, we're sending separate trucks out each week to pick up the single stream recycling. And it looks like most of it is going into the landfill anyway. Maybe it's time to call it quits? But I doubt the tree huggers driving it will accept reality.

[hubops]

A recent radio discussion, here, stated that one of the biggest issues is <plastic ish > food packaging - it's getting worse - for recycling. .. it should be going the other way. Glass & tin & paper are still OK. & certain plastics. I think aluminum is still valuable. John T.

[invalid unparseable]

The problem is legislation dictating technology. Most political leaders do not have a technical education (I have read 65 in congress) and seem to lack good economic knowledge.

The only thing that makes sense is doing the recycling in the dump itself. It has to be done anyway as recycle does not come in clean and has to be segregated.

[Rod Speed]

That doesn’t make any sense either if no one wants what is recycled.

No point in segregating if no one wants what is segregated and it ends up dumped to landfill or in the ocean with all the rest when no one wants it.

And no point in sending it to china or se asia either.

[trader_4]

If you read the story, the problem is more fundamental than that. China was the biggest buyer of cardboard, paper and plastic. They no longer want it because they've come to the conclusion that it's created environmental problems for them and it;s not worth it. Other SE Asian countries are taking some of it, but there are the same environmental problems. The recycling people have you believe we're doing something great and it looks like mostly we're shoving environmental problems onto third world countries. And even that doesn't look like it will continue much longer. China will only take stuff that is very pure, impossible with our single stream and maybe with any method. If you look at what the single stream is at the municipal facility here, it's a mess. Cans still have food, the food is sloshed around with the paper, it's a mess. Maybe it should just go in the dump? Which sounds like where a lot of it is actually going now.

[gfretwell]

We have a waste to energy plant here that is supposed to meet the most stringent environmental muster. Maybe trash sorting at the consumer level should just between metals and stuff that we will burn. They can either sort out the glass or just bury it with the rest of the slag. Mixed glass is pretty useless as scrap too, particularly if you have to ship it very far. The root problem is most Americans are not willing to sort their trash at all.

[Rod Speed]

Then you need to get out more, as always.

Nope, just high costs of doing that.

[gfretwell]

Just based on the economics of our waste to energy plant I think it is about twice as expensive as the Natural gas plant in spite of the fuel being free. Gas just comes in on a pipeline and there is no ash to deal with. There is also far less maintenance on the stack scrubbers.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Well, that attitude is going to piss off a lot of Hollywood celebrities that want to save the world while living in their 20,000 sq. ft. homes.

[Rod Speed]

Nothing strange about the basic physics.

Yes, and plenty are doing just that.

[Rod Speed]

They can, the problem is the cost of going that route.

[Rod Speed]

Because coal fired plants get to sell the power they produce.

[trader_4]

That's part of it, but then at least here little has been done to educate people about what gets recycled, what to put in, what not. I can't figure out if egg containers made of plastic get recycled or not, for example. And then single stream is efficient and easy, one can, one truck. But then paper, plastic, cans, all get mixed together and contaminate each other, especially when they are not cleaned. Which raises another issue that i haven't seen addressed. How much hot water and cold water is wasted by people washing this stuff before putting it at the curb? Only to then be contaminated with all the crap from the other people who don't? That wasted water and energy might make the whole thing worthless. Like what's the value of a tin can if people are running a half gallon of hot water to clean it?

[trader_4]

Or course there is. If just 40% gets recycled, that still is a lot and towns here were getting PAID for that, while if it goes into the landfill, we PAY.

[trader_4]

If so, you'd think there would be great demand for it, but I've never seen it used in concrete mix here. I have no idea what they do with the glass. I know on TV a couple months ago there was a story about the trouble finding buyers for recyclables now. One town on Long Island had a pilot program to recycle glass to be used for landscaping. I had a hard time figuring out what they would do with it for that and they didn't explain it. That program, people are supposed to take the labels off and have it completely cleaned, then they have to drop it off at designated spots. Real convenient, eh? You'd think you could use crushed glass for septic field beds and the like. But even that has issues, unlike washed gravel, glass is sharp and anywhere it winds up, if you excavate later, it's going to be more nasty than if it was stones.

[trader_4]

High cost is a problem, asshole. Did you read the article?

[trader_4]

Actually coal plants have huge problems with that, which is why few, if any, new ones are being built. It costs a lot of money to clean the exhaust stream, deal with the ash, etc. And nat gas is economically more viable. From what I've seen, it's mostly Trump crowing about clean coal. To make it really clean, ie to compete with solar, wind, etc, you have to sequester the co2, and then the costs go way up.

[trader_4]

And so do waste to energy plants, fool.

You really need to get out more.

[hubops]

" We " demolished our coal-burning power plants, years ago - ... and replaced them with gas-burning ... duh. John T.

[hubops]

Like most commodities .. ups & downs :-; and China, as always, looms large ..

John T.