Why aren’t we recycling more?

[53' Stude]

So, most of you folks know I’m a scrapper. When I visit relatives in New York, I see bottle recycling, can recycling etc is big. Why don’t other states do this or do more?

As a kid growing up late 80’s I remember steel coffee cans, some scrap was high $$$

What happened that this has went away?

 

[PandaBear]

1) Recovered materials are dirty, so the output is not high quality. This is why we don't accept black plastic or dirty bottles, and we don't have more than 25% blend of "post consumer" stuff in use.

2) It is cheaper to use virgin raw materials than cleaning and moving dirty stuff around to make new ones.

3) A lot of containers and papers today are hybrid materials, not easy or cheap to recycle, or end up with low quality feed stocks.

4) It is probably easier to use them as fuel in the long run than making it back to the same material it comes from. Imagine burning trash for heat or fuel being easier and replace just as much raw fuel.

 

[53' Stude]

1) Recovered materials are dirty, so the output is not high quality. This is why we don't accept black plastic or dirty bottles, and we don't have more than 25% blend of "post consumer" stuff in use.

2) It is cheaper to use virgin raw materials than cleaning and moving dirty stuff around to make new ones.

3) A lot of containers and papers today are hybrid materials, not easy or cheap to recycle, or end up with low quality feed stocks.

4) It is probably easier to use them as fuel in the long run than making it back to the same material it comes from. Imagine burning trash for heat or fuel being easier and replace just as much raw fuel.

Sir, thank you for the education. My brain is still lost at how much waste oil we generate and maybe 30% is used in new lubricants. Maybe I’m just dumb. How does it make sense to use raw materials or new crude to make stuff?

 

[Passport1]

It is being recycled only in ways most never know. Don't fret about it, the earth abides.

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The world-renowned Mount Trashmore Park encompasses 165-acres and is comprised of two man-made mountains, two lakes, two playgrounds, a skatepark, and multi-use paths. The main mountain is called Mount Trashmore because it was created by compacting layers of solid waste and clean soil...

www.visitvirginiabeach.com

 

[samven]

I am sure it is a money thing. Our recycle center use to take almost everything if you separated it, now they have signs that say no more plastic 1-7, no glass kitchenware, no ceramics, no waxed paper, no windowpanes, no treated or painted wood, ect, ect. The only bins still open are for colored glass, newspaper, corrugated cardboard and cans. After making the 18 mile trip to the center I ended up taking half of my recyclables back home. And the only things they took were things that WOULD have decomposed in a landfill. The very things we dont want in a landfill are the things they wont take anymore. It makes you wonder why you go to the extra trouble.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Aluminum and steel are the most recycled materials. There easier and it makes more financial sense. I think like 70%.

About 50% of rubber tires are recycled - they have found uses for the rubber, in roads and other products.

Something like 10% of plastics are recycled. They are not very recyclable no matter what they tell you, and since there based on oil its just easier to simply produce more oil and make it new. Shipping used plastic around would likely use more energy to move than it would to save.

I don't know about oil. I thought what couldn't be re-used as a lubricant was burnt for fuel somehow - like in cogen plants or something. Need to look into that.

 

[MrHorspwer]

For recycling rates, it's easiest to think of how hard is it to obtain virgin materials.

Metals are difficult. You literally have to mine them.
Glass requires significant manufacturing to create.
Plastic comes from oil and ~90 million barrels get sucked out of the ground every day.
Paper is from trees. I can get that raw material in my backyard.

From that, metals are almost always recycled, glass is sometimes to mostly recycled, and plastic and paper are rarely recycled.

Great pod about the giant plastic industry marketing scam that made recycling plastic a thing (but not actually):
Waste Land

More pods on the topic:
A Mob Boss, A Garbage Boat and Why We Recycle
So, Should We Recycle?

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

1) Recovered materials are dirty, so the output is not high quality. This is why we don't accept black plastic or dirty bottles, and we don't have more than 25% blend of "post consumer" stuff in use.

2) It is cheaper to use virgin raw materials than cleaning and moving dirty stuff around to make new ones.

3) A lot of containers and papers today are hybrid materials, not easy or cheap to recycle, or end up with low quality feed stocks.

4) It is probably easier to use them as fuel in the long run than making it back to the same material it comes from. Imagine burning trash for heat or fuel being easier and replace just as much raw fuel.

Glass is infinitely recyclable, and there are numerous methods for separating COPS contamination from the glass. In most of the country (especially states with bottle bills), cullet is much cheaper than the raw materials. Plus, cullet uses 2-3% less energy per 10% cullet to re-melt into “new” glass; when you’re talking roughly 4.4M BTU/ton to melt raw materials, cullet saves a significant amount of energy. There are exactly ZERO reasons to ever send a glass container into a landfill.

Also, just for another reference, flint (clear) glass requires low-iron sand so there is no amber-brown tint to the final product. Most of our flint-bound sand comes from mines in Wyoming; most times by rail and sometimes by semi. Cullet is locally sourced to the plants and supports the local economy as well.

 

[ecotourist]

Unless your community is serious about recycling, I don't think you're making much progress anyway.

Edmonton, Alberta realized it had no good options for a future landfill site and had to get serious about reducing materials going to the landfill. At one point they were a showcase of what to do and how to do it.

I'm pretty skeptical about the merits of recycling plastic. It could work but it doesn't. No-one wants anyone's old plastic bags. I don't know if it's true but it's been suggested that the whole idea of recycling plastic was a false flag concept cooked up by the petroleum industry so consumers wouldn't feel bad about using and throwing away so much plastic.

Rather than just recycling I think there should be more focus on reducing. There was almost no plastic in use when I was a kid. Why do we need so much packaging anyway?

And why can't things be updated and repaired? I'm a big fan of keeping old stuff going. I wish I could do more of it.

 

[PandaBear]

Sir, thank you for the education. My brain is still lost at how much waste oil we generate and maybe 30% is used in new lubricants. Maybe I’m just dumb. How does it make sense to use raw materials or new crude to make stuff?

You can burn dirty oil instead of diesel, or at least doesn't need to be too clean if you are burning them anyways. However if you are making engine oil you need the base oil feed stock to be "clean". I think you can see where this is going and why it is easier to just burn trash / recyclable plastic than making them back into what they were (another container).

 

[PandaBear]

Glass is infinitely recyclable, and there are numerous methods for separating COPS contamination from the glass. In most of the country (especially states with bottle bills), cullet is much cheaper than the raw materials. Plus, cullet uses 2-3% less energy per 10% cullet to re-melt into “new” glass; when you’re talking roughly 4.4M BTU/ton to melt raw materials, cullet saves a significant amount of energy. There are exactly ZERO reasons to ever send a glass container into a landfill.

Also, just for another reference, flint (clear) glass requires low-iron sand so there is no amber-brown tint to the final product. Most of our flint-bound sand comes from mines in Wyoming; most times by rail and sometimes by semi. Cullet is locally sourced to the plants and supports the local economy as well.

My understanding is it is mixed up of color so the brown glass and green glass (or whatever fashionable now) are so mixed up they cannot make it to recycling back to raw materials for anything valuable. You can manually sort them out either by the trash producer (ask your wife to sort that out in the US is like asking for trouble in your marriage), or hired labors (or the community service sentences to people breaking the laws). So, the labor to get this going is just more expensive than automation produced new glasses.

Can it be done? Sure, but it is more expensive, so it didn't get done.

 

[Hall]

About 50% of rubber tires are recycled - they have found uses for the rubber, in roads and other products.

Tires are one thing that seem to be very much recycled but maybe not after all. Just saw on wikipedia that 52% of tires are burned for fuel. Turns out they can't be recycled back into .... tires though !

 

[PandaBear]

Rather than just recycling I think there should be more focus on reducing. There was almost no plastic in use when I was a kid. Why do we need so much packaging anyway?

And why can't things be updated and repaired? I'm a big fan of keeping old stuff going. I wish I could do more of it.

I think it has to do with more automation. When I was a kid my nanny would bring some old containers to a local mom and pop general store to fill up with cooking oil, dish soap, etc. Then those mom and pop general stores are replaced with supermarket and now with online order and shipping. It is not just containers going from reusable glass (with deposits) to plastic, but also now buying a new item with free shipping from Amazon/Target/Walmart online shipped to your door is cheaper and easier than sending your used item from your home to your friend a few cities away when shipping cost is factored in.

For example: I want to get a used instant pot inner pot so I can cook multiple stuff for one meal, it is only $2 difference between new from Amazon or used from eBay / Amazon warehouse deal, and the used from other places are at least 10 days later or without free return if things go wrong.

I also want to send my used clothes from California to Texas for my brother in law's kid, but it is cheaper to buy new ones for them than sending them after factoring in how long they can use them before they will wear a hole in it.

 

[Rmay635703]

Something like 10% of plastics are recycled. They are not very recyclable no matter what they tell you, and since they’re based on oil it’s just easier to simply produce more oil and make it new. Shipping used plastic around would likely use more energy to move than it would to save.
L

Unfortunate we don’t do it
but plastic’s #2,4,5,6 and some 7’s can be easily made into diesel fuel at a cost lower than from petroleum with less pollution.

The plastics need not be clean

 

[bullwinkle]

The used oil ends up in the same cracking tower that crude does, with all the components being distilled out, and asphalt left at the bottom (along with any metals that couldn't be filtered out). Unless it is sold as bunker fuel...

 

[SC Maintenance]

Yep, were a throw away society to be sure. Everything from plastic grocery bags to cars. Your car needs a transmission? Scrap it, get a new car. "not worth fixing" they say.

I am pretty sure most people have no clue how to fix anything. I can't remember how many soles of chinese shoes I glued back on with shoe glue. Most people won't even bother with that.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Yep, were a throw away society to be sure. Everything from plastic grocery bags to cars. Your car needs a transmission? Scrap it, get a new car. "not worth fixing" they say.

I am pretty sure most people have no clue how to fix anything. I can't remember how many soles of chinese shoes I glued back on with shoe glue. Most people won't even bother with that.

I've already re-glued the soles on my work shoes twice now

 

[CR94]

Over-packaging causes much waste of material. Small cheap items that used to be sold loose or in paper boxes now have to be in armored in heavy-duty blister packs that must cost as much to make as the contents. We can blame shoplifters for that waste.

... There are exactly ZERO reasons to ever send a glass container into a landfill. ...

Even if it's green, brown, or blue? For recycling here, we have to separate glass by color, but steel and aluminum cans don't have to be separated. There's a separate "scrap metal" bin.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

My understanding is it is mixed up of color so the brown glass and green glass (or whatever fashionable now) are so mixed up they cannot make it to recycling back to raw materials for anything valuable. You can manually sort them out either by the trash producer (ask your wife to sort that out in the US is like asking for trouble in your marriage), or hired labors (or the community service sentences to people breaking the laws). So, the labor to get this going is just more expensive than automation produced new glasses.

Can it be done? Sure, but it is more expensive, so it didn't get done.

That’s a non-industry person telling you that. In addition to there being 100% fully automated solutions that can sort flint from colors, remove stones and organics, it is also possible for even flint glass to be mixed with roughly 3% colored cullet with no detriment to the final product. Take a look at KRS Recycling in Buffalo, NY. They used to have a video of their sorting capabilities; might be on YT now. The only labor required is the collection and delivery to the sorting facility; no manual sorting of the recycling bin itself is required at all. In all honesty the reason why glass isn’t 100% recycled is that people (especially local politicians that control recycling policies) are LAZY. Glass is the only food packaging that meets GRAS requirements, and with a good plastisol seal on the lid, it will ensure the product tastes the same either the day it was bottled or years from now.

There are plenty of topics on this site where I’m a hobbyist; glass containers are not just something I peruse on the internet, they’re my career. I work in a plant that makes 5 million bottles & jars per day (around 1,050 TONS of glass), and our company makes over 10 billion containers per year. The average household has at least 7 of our products. I care about glass recycling because it supports 4,000+ jobs just in our company, where one has the opportunity to make $100k+ a year with only a high-school education.

I repeat, there is never a valid excuse to send a glass container into a landfill.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

Even if it's green, brown, or blue? For recycling here, we have to separate glass by color, but steel and aluminum cans don't have to be separated. There's a separate "scrap metal" bin.

Yep, see my reply right above

Separating glass by color at the curbside is just another excuse to give consumers another excuse to not recycle something that’s infinitely recyclable with no degradation in quality, unlike every other packaging.

Most plastics can’t be recycled into the same packaging, they end up as park benches or other things.

Most papers can only be recycled once or twice before the fibers become so destroyed that they cannot meet strength requirements.

Every aluminum can you buy actually has a plastic “sleeve” inside of it to keep the product from touching the aluminum.