Recycle #7 material

[PandaBear]

Started seeing these new water bottle made from corn/soy fiber/oil/sugar and it should degrade faster in landfill and are composable.

Based on what I read it seems like they don't have the volume to be recycled yet, but they are recycle #7. My concern is that it will make people less conscious about reusing their containers and increase waste. But on the good side, I think it is nice that they can be degraded faster than the #1/#2 plastic. While #1/#2 can be recycled, the amount that can be used is a lot less than the amount produced due to how much it degrade every cycle and how much color is in the plastic. Last time I heard you can only use 25% recycle material, so at least 75% is still in the trash.

Would be nice if it can be burnt as fuel directly so it doesn't use up land fill space.

 

[simple_gifts]

Confused. Poking around #7 means not (1-6); doesn't this also include polycarbonate which might release BPA?

Isn't #7 plastic like group V oil (i.e. everything else)

Is recycle #7 the same as plastic #7?

Stop the madness and buy things in glass. 8)

Plastic is for shampoo bottles

 

[simple_gifts]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code

 

[mormit]

The recycling service our town uses takes them all. No sorting required though I like to at least keep the paper separate from the plastics/metals because I'm kind of compulsive I guess.

 

[labman]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts


Stop the madness and buy things in glass. 8)



That is the madness. Even if you don't believe global warming is a problem, glass is an environmental disaster due to its huge energy requirements. First it takes natural gas to produce it, then all the diesel to haul it around, starting with the sand it is made out of. Bottle plant to where it is filled, then through the distribution system, home to the consumer, then curbside recycle and back to the glass plant. Better ban glass and incinterate our trash in waste to energy plants.

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

That is the madness. Even if you don't believe global warming is a problem, glass is an environmental disaster due to its huge energy requirements. First it takes natural gas to produce it, then all the diesel to haul it around, starting with the sand it is made out of. Bottle plant to where it is filled, then through the distribution system, home to the consumer, then curbside recycle and back to the glass plant. Better ban glass and incinterate our trash in waste to energy plants.


There are appropriate uses for both glass and plastic. The "madness" I refer to is in areas where the safety is now being questioned.

 

[AcuraTech]

Nothing decomposes when its buried under 127 tons of rubble and gets no oxygen, sunlight, or water. Decomposable is a relative term. I imagine that even these new "green" plastic bottles would still be there 10 years later if I threw one in a random field somewhere. And this would be optimal conditions with lots of water, O2, and sunlight.

The reason they sell this stuff is to give people the warm and fuzzies about their bad consumption habits. The best bet is reusable containers.

If anyone ever saw the show on Discovery about what would happen if all humans disappeared tomorrow, most of the world would eventually get back to a wild state. But they explicitly said that one of the last remainders of human civilization would be plastic. Even the metal objects would corrode and degrade, but that Fisher Price toddler toy would be around basically forever.

 

[mormit]

I miss the days when I was a kid and you took your empty 1/2 gallon glass milk bottles back to the dairy. You turned them in and bought full ones with milk. I don't recall the return value was - this was the early 70s. No waste and certainly a more efficient system since the milk was getting shipped to the dairy in bulk tanks.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: labman
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Stop the madness and buy things in glass. 8)

That is the madness. Even if you don't believe global warming is a problem, glass is an environmental disaster due to its huge energy requirements. First it takes natural gas to produce it, then all the diesel to haul it around, starting with the sand it is made out of. Bottle plant to where it is filled, then through the distribution system, home to the consumer, then curbside recycle and back to the glass plant. Better ban glass and incinterate our trash in waste to energy plants.

Recycling glass is an energy waste, reusing glass bottles makes alot of sense though were the population is big enough. In Germany they reuse alot glass bottles for many different products.
Also up here we reuse beer bottles, somewhere between 95-98% are returned and can be reused around 16 times. Also if you think about it, a beverage truck might as well pick up as many empty bottles as it delivered instead of hauling air back to the bottling plant...

 

[labman]

Originally Posted By: AcuraTech
Nothing decomposes when its buried under 127 tons of rubble and gets no oxygen, sunlight, or water. Decomposable is a relative term. I imagine that even these new "green" plastic bottles would still be there 10 years later if I threw one in a random field somewhere. And this would be optimal conditions with lots of water, O2, and sunlight.

The reason they sell this stuff is to give people the warm and fuzzies about their bad consumption habits. The best bet is reusable containers.

If anyone ever saw the show on Discovery about what would happen if all humans disappeared tomorrow, most of the world would eventually get back to a wild state. But they explicitly said that one of the last remainders of human civilization would be plastic. Even the metal objects would corrode and degrade, but that Fisher Price toddler toy would be around basically forever.


Not true. Most plastics including the PE used in many toys falls apart when exposed to UV very long. There will still be plenty of stainless steel around when the last of the plastic is gone, and when the last of the metals are gone, ALL the glass and ceramics will still be here.

 

[tom slick]

Compostable plastics, such as PLA, will only biodegrade in a commercial compost facility. The conditions needs to be just right for it to degrade. You can't toss it on the ground or in your garden pile and expect to save the world.

Plastics degrade with exposed to UV but they don't magically go away.

Nothing degrades in the bottom of a landfill the way we manage them. They pull decade old papers out of landfills and they are still legible.

Glass does not degrade at all when recycled, unlike plastics. Recycled glass, called cullet, is a major component in making "new" glass. It is the least recycled waste but it one of the easiest to recycle.

The biggest problem is the current recycling system.

 

[PandaBear]

That's exactly my point, it is there to make a warm fuzzy feeling and people I saw at work just throw it in the trash claiming that it is bio-degradable (bull).

 

[tom slick]

Lockheed Martin's Sunnyvale campus is launching a major recycling/composing campaign with education on what goes in the recycle bin and what goes in the compost bin. Almost all of their cafeteria waste, including containers, utensils, and plates/bowls will go into the compost container and hauled to the compost facility.