OT. Plastic Recycling

[Dean Hoffman]

Roughly 5% of plastic produced in 2021 was recycled. Recycling peaked in 2014 at 10%.

[Scott Lurndal]

Yup. Time to wean off single-use plastics completely. Use less CH4.

Straws, picnic/fast food utensils, juice bottles, sauce jars, amazon mailers, water bottles all can be replaced with paper, glass or cornstarch-based compostable plastics.

Remember when potato chips were sold in two waxpaper bags in a cardboard box?

[Dean Hoffman]

No. I do remember the little cardboard/wax milk cartons we got with school lunches.

[hubops]

.. nope. :-)

John T.

[Frank]

None of these containers get recycled either and are just as polluting to make and dispose of. Probably more so which is why plastics were used.

[Scott Lurndal]

I'll see your cans, and raise two boxes:

[Scott Lurndal]

Could you be a bit more ignorant, please?

Paper is compostable, which is the definition of recycling. Paper in the landfill composts just fine.

Glass recycles perfectly well, and is an efficient feedstock to the glassmaking industry. The fact that only 1/3 is currently recycled is because of people like you who discard them rather than place them in the recycle bin.

[rbowman]

With the pull tab to insert the straw? I sometimes get those for a half pint of heavy cream. Either I was better at opening them when I was six or they're gluing the flaps better.

I get the 10# boxes of Quaker Oats at CostCo and they still have two bags inside but they're plastic of some sort.

[rbowman]

Save the trees... I've got a sneaky suspicion plastic was cheaper is the real reason.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Paper is compostable if you compost it. Paper just put into landfills lasts in perfect shape for years. Calling a material biodegradeable does not mean it will degrade. There has been a few studies of this.

Garbage Project & The Archaeology of Us Encyclopedia Britannica

BIODEGRADATION IN LANDFILLS. Another set of findings from the Garbage Project’s digs underscores, especially for the public, the need to recycle and compost materials to keep them out of refuse.

Many people have assumed that organic materials, such as newspapers, simply biodegrade in landfills. The recovery of 2,425 datable, readable newspapers from landfill excavations dramatically changed that view, especially since the relative proportion of newspapers varied little between materials deposited anywhere from five to forty years before exhumation and in environments which received anywhere between 11 and 80 inches of rain a year.

[rbowman]

It took them long enough to figure that out. Given the number of different plastic formulations and the use of laminates for some applications, you don't throw it all into the same stew pot.

When I worked at Sweetheart they were making foam plates, MacDonald's clamshells and so forth. Bad output could be reground and fed back in but it was all styrene and never left the plant.

MacDonald's was very bitchy about the color of the clamshells which was sort of a beige. Part of the color came from the regrind. When the lines were running really good and there was no regrind you had to mess around to make sure the clams weren't lily white.

Now there was an ecological disaster -- Freon 12 by the railcar for the blowing agent and tons of crystal styrene.

[rbowman]

It will give the archaeologists in the year 2525 something to ponder.

[Frank]

Yes it is cheaper because it is less energy and resources intensive to make.

[Scott Lurndal]

"They" have known this for over two decades now.

[Scott Lurndal]

Indeed. And paper is recyclable if you recycle it.

Landfills will be mined for resources at some point in the future (or wait long enough and they'll become oil :-).