Does anyone still recycle?

a lot, i know that.

 

Do the stores charge you 10 cents for a plastic grocery bags? They do here. First they say they banned all plastic bags, made a really big deal out of it. But then they allow you to buy one for a dime. And then they say DON'T put them in the recycling bin, we don't want them! So in the landfill they all go. Makes no sense. Stupid politicians.

 

we have state laws, and we have local. when the state drops the ball, some towns pick it up. but usually the more wealthy areas.
currently, plastic grocery bags are banned in only a few towns, but all supermarkets have recycling bins for them. i have no idea where they actually go.

a few years back, someone tried to claim that making plastic used less energy than paper, and broke down faster in the landfill. i'm not smart enough to know if it is true or not.

some towns are now banning plastic straws, and forbidding the sale of plastic water bottles.

 

A lot of our restaurants won't provide a straw unless you request one. That's fine. We don't no stinkin straw! Less plastic the better.

The most disturbing photo I saw, was a picture of plastic found in the deepest depths of the ocean. How can it sink so far down? And Plastic bits found inside fish now? As if Mercury wasn't bad enough! Mankind should be ashamed of themselves. What a terrible mess we've created.

I recycle everything. Every little bit of paper, metal, plastic, rubber. Even all the daily mail. Just hope it all gets to the right facility. My old Navy buddies described how they would weight down big bags of waste, garbage, trash, old broken metal parts, spent artillary shells, oil barrels.... Everything. Over the rails!

 

I wonder then why municipalities would go through the extra effort/cost for a recycling center. Just tell people to pile their trash out for the haulers. In fact, haulers offer separate recycling pickup at no extra charge. Are these large groups/businesses out of touch? Certainly, no company/municipality would embrace a program that is more costly.

 

My area they raised the price for recycling, not much extra 3 bucks a month. Otherwise all seems the same.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Actually 1.50 a month, 3 every bill.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Even before the recent recycle material market collapse, recycling program seems to have never worked that well. Only about 10% of plastic packaging worldwide—as well as in the U.S.—ends up getting remade into a new product, according to a 2016 World Economic Forum report.

 

My plastic bags get used to carry lunch then given to Saint Vinneys or the 2nd chance store for a second life.
Paper sacks actually end up junked more often because they work great at fitting my cans for actual garbage.


Recycling isn’t much better than landfill in certain circumstances, best policy is exactly what the slogan says.
1. Reduce (most important)
2. Reuse (critical but rarely done)
Lastly
3. Recycle


Using less and reusing things isn’t real popular though as it requires a small amount of work.

Also turning plastic into diesel fuel is
1. 99% Efficient (more efficient than recycling)
2. Clean - only co2 &methane result
To do it at home costs about $0.25 a gallon

Too bad we are so backward on stuff that doesn’t have a lobby.

 

Too tired and too sick to read through this whole thread....

But OREGON -- which was one of the first regions to really get into recycling way back when has pretty much admitted it has turned into a bust. A couple of Oregon refuse haulers have totally stopped picking up recycle carts.

Other areas, the carts are picked up, but now there is a $3 surcharge per month to pick up recycle carts, 'cause the companies are having to warehouse the stuff -- no market, plus the carts are heavily contaminated with stuff that should not be in the carts.

Generally, when I have taken the time and effort to peer into streetside carts of "recycables," I have seen about 30 percent contamination.

Meaning that people, though well meaning, do not take the time to know what should go in their cart.

Even at my place, where I THOUGHT we all knew the rules, I spend a few minutes out at the carts, taking out "recycables" and putting them in the trash, because they really do not meet the standards.

It's a nice idea, but people are generally lazy and most of them don't take the time to really sort. And some people just use the recycle cart as an auxillary garbage can, which really screws things up.

 

Direct from the local collection service? Nothing.

For making it and transporting it to the retail customer, note that modern thin plastic bags are much lighter than paper, and far more can be packed into the same box.

So while paper may be cheaper & more energy efficient per pound, plastic can still be better per bag.

Breakdown rate in the landfill is a separate issue. So is the litter issue of those blowing wild and never reaching the landfill. I doubt that plastic can win on those scores.

 

Friend told me the price for scrap copper has dropped because China no longer takes the material with solder on it.

Plastic isn't like metal or glass. Those could essentially be melted down and reshaped repeatedly without issue. Heating up plastic degrades it. A couple times through, and it is no longer the same material you started with. Then for things like food containers, only virgin plastic is allowed. Most recycled plastic is only good for things like composite deck timbers. Which aren't a large enough market to absorb all the plastic.

It would actually be easier to convert the used plastic into a syncrude; you wouldn't have to clean it first.

 

we're going to need more legislation to overcome the free market.

 

China mostly exiting global 'plastic' recycling made news last year



And reheated in media as a response in trade warring.

There were 'half-full' readings that this would help US primary polymer manufacturers

China to Stop Accepting Foreign Plastic Trash | Recycling News | IndustryWeek

But I think such material has made it to China's import tariff list.

==
One might suppose that these. like many other hydrocarbons, are well suited for bioenergy burning, but some of these burn with undesirable emissions.

 

My town does the recycle thing, but I'm fairly certain that they just dump the refuse into our local landfill.
I don't bother much with paper and cardboard because they're fairly benign landfill fill and I don't generate much of either.
Boxes get re-used when I send electronic circuits to back to our distro center, and our local fish wrapper gets sent to others to read.
I still own 5 acres out in the county and this generates a lot of branches, pine cones, and other non-compostable stuff that gets burned.....and sometimes I'll burn paper and cardboard that does not get re-used there.

US Navy ships these days process their ship generated refuse and compact it storing it locally.
Food and human waste goes overboard once the vessel is in open water. Oils are assiduously stored aboard.

Fun Fact:
In the canoe club, the vessel's skipper is financially responsible for fines and fees if somebody like the USCG tickets the ship for illegal dumping......and the puddle pirates would love NOTHING better than to do the paperwork!

Submarines....as always are a little different.
I've entertained readers in this forum before on the wonders of blowing sanitary tanks while the boat is submerged (Google: Golden Flapper +submarine for the fun details) but submarines also generate a considerable amount of other waste products and even though boats generally keep one torpedo tube MT for training (mostly) I've never ever heard of a boat using their tubes (signal ejector, missile or torpedo) for trash disposal......even when the trash disposal unit (TDU) in on the fritz.

Submarines grind their food waste and pump it overboard just as you would do with sewage, grey water and such. Solid waste (sans batteries and some other objectionables) are compacted and placed into rolled metal cans weighted to sink to the ocean floor. If the TDU breaks or other operational factors prevent its use then trash is kept in the boat.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, we used the TDU for food waste as well only without the compactor and the rolled tin "can" for obvious reasons. We put food waste into 'wet bags', also weighted....giving some of the bottom dwellers something interesting to nibble on.
I'm....."told" that putting a salad dressing bottle into one of these wet bags used to be a pretty good way to wake up a drowsy Sonar watch....

 

ETC, what exactly is the "solid waste" that is placed into metal cans, and weighted to sink to the ocean floor? Is today's Navy still doing that? And all the human waste pumped overboard?

Uh, waitress... Please cancel my order of fish!!