
Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve - danso
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-27/plastic-recycling-is-a-problem-consumers-can-t-solve
======
dougmwne
This is a classic externality problem. We can berate consumers all day long to
be more diligent in their recycling, but all that finger wagging is for show
meant to distract from the real source of the garbage, the manufacturers.

Just like the classic "blame the user" mentality, the users were given an
impossibly complex system with barely any incentive to get it right. Nothing
about the interface is intuitive or discoverable.

The creators of all this garbage do so because it's profitable. They can
create disposable and single use items, in thousands of variations, out of
materials that create hundreds of years of environmental impact, and none of
that consequence comes back to their bottom line. They'll happily point the
finger all day long at us stupid users and inept local governments and bad
China, as long as it all distracts from their culpability.

If we forced all producers of trash to account for its safe reuse, recycling
or disposal as part of the cost of doing business, this problem would
disappear quickly. Because here's the thing, the bill always comes due. If we
let them skip out on it, then we will be the ones who pay.

~~~
dpkonofa
This is such a big part of it and it's amazing that they get away with it.

Case in point: Blue Apron. Blue Apron positioned itself as one of the more
"recycle-friendly" food delivery services to try and fight the stigma against
every delivery having bags upon bags of individually wrapped goods by
providing recycling services. As a former Blue Apron customer, I loved that I
could separate stuff out (hard plastic, soft plastic, paper, etc.) and throw
away anything that touched raw meat and just send it back to them in the same
cardboard box I received it in.

Blue Apron then cancelled their recycling services and now just redirects
people to do it themselves because "recycling is hard". Now, the number of
people that will actually recycle will drop further and Blue Apron doesn't
have to change its operations one iota. I cancelled my subscription as soon as
they removed the recycling options because they wanted to put the blame on the
end user instead of themselves for producing all that waste in the first
place.

There is a solution here. Until it's financially incentivized for them to find
it, though, we'll be stuck here creating more and more waste.

~~~
bunderbunder
I wouldn't be surprised if "Pack the box back up and burn a bunch more jet
fuel sending it back to New York" turns out to be even worse than just sending
it all to the landfill.

Given that they require air mailing boxes full of (mostly, by weight) frozen
liquids all over the place on a weekly basis, I'm not convinced that these
meal kit services can ever be made sustainable. Compared to that cost,
worrying about recycling and whether their food suppliers are organic or not
seems like it's probably just bikeshedding.

It might be cool to see what a company like Imperfect Produce could come up
with in this space.

~~~
1stcity3rdcoast
We subscribed to Terra’s Kitchen after trying a few services including Blue
Apron and Freshly.

Terra’s Kitchen, in addition to using non-disposable, durable vessels and cold
packs that you return, also pre-chops and pre-preps many of the ingredients so
meal prep and cleanup is truly 20-30 mins, which is half the time (or less)
than Blue Apron.

Here are the vessels they use: [https://www.terraskitchen.com/how-it-
works/](https://www.terraskitchen.com/how-it-works/)

Highly recommend.

~~~
dpkonofa
I wonder if the added cost is worth it as far as freshness and quality are
concerned. I know I'm not the typical case, but I never got a bad shipment
from Blue Apron when I was using it. I really wish I could continue to use it
but I just can't justify the amount of waste that piles up over just going to
the store myself. I spend almost as much time unpacking and prepping
everything for recycling.

------
idbehold
Perhaps we should start doing something like what Taiwan did with their trash:
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/separation-
anxiety/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/separation-anxiety/)

> The trucks only accept trash bags officially sanctioned by the government of
> Taiwan which come in a distinctive blue color, complete with an official
> seal. The bags range in price and size, from 3 liters to 120 liters. The
> most popular bag is 25 liters (similar to a tiny bathroom wastebasket
> liner), which costs about $5 for a pack of 20. This effectively makes a pay-
> as-you-waste model, incentivizing citizens to recycle and compost as much as
> possible since those services are offered for free. The musical garbage
> trucks are tailed by a recycling truck, where workers help the residents
> sort their recyclables and compost into thirteen distinct bins. Should
> people fail to sort their materials properly, the government will fine them
> up to $200.

~~~
aeternus
Is careful sorting of trash/recycling really a good use of time?

Seems better to put that effort towards development of techniques to sort en-
masse. Likely controversial, but I think there is also an argument for simply
throwing hard-to-recycle items in a landfill. If consumption continues to
increase, it will likely become economically viable to eventually mine those
landfills for raw materials.

~~~
jdavis703
I'd say yes it is a good use of our time. I really want ours to be the
generation that stops punting problems out to the next generation. I'd be
happy if my friend's children don't need to grow up worrying about how to deal
with oceans filled with plastics, global warming induced fire storms and
flooded coastal cities.

~~~
DisruptiveDave
Isn't our generation the most overworked, least-amount-of-free-time one? How
does this extra job fit into that major issue?

~~~
Rovanion
By exercising other parts of your brain you let those used for work recover.

~~~
DisruptiveDave
I'm hoping this is sarcasm. If not, I don't need the government assigning me
work to "exercise other parts of my brain" thanks.

------
jcoffland
It's incredible that corporations are allowed to pump out massive quantities
of single use plastic and then we blame the consumer for not recycling it. The
idea that the solution is to change the habits of billions of people rather
than enforce some rules on a few thousand companies is just crazy.

~~~
astrodust
The entire packaging industry is ridiculous.

For example: Why do garbage bags come in boxes or bags when they could be
stored _inside a garbage bag_ that's folded up properly to contain them?

~~~
sirmarksalot
That seems like a very small efficiency gain. At one bag per week, a single,
recyclable cardboard box of 45 garbage bags will last you just under a year.
Each box folds down to about one legal-size manilla envelope. I'm personally
okay with wasting one manilla envelope per year.

~~~
astrodust
It's an example of how the product could be the packaging. You, personally,
use one box per year. Cleaning companies go through a _lot_ more.

Even if it's just one box per year, it's one box that doesn't need to exist,
the bag itself is more than adequate. That and the bag company has to buy
boxes for no reason other than a lack of awareness on their own part.

------
blang
I used to live in central New Jersey, where the people of Waste Management
would send out quarterly fliers telling people "When in doubt throw it out"[0]

I now live in Seattle, and when I tell people this campaign, they get
extremely preachy and judgmental. Then when I try to explain that no, it's
actually better for the environment, things really go no where. I should
probably just give up on that.

[0]
[http://www.hamiltonnj.com/filestorage/228309/252258/Calendar...](http://www.hamiltonnj.com/filestorage/228309/252258/Calendar_Middle_Insert_Section_2016_How_Do_I_Get_Rid_Of_Page_Full_Document.pdf)

~~~
stephengillie
> _I now live in Seattle, and when I tell people this campaign, they get
> extremely preachy and judgmental._

Seattle and the region have been leading recyclers for decades. Waste
Management sends a similar brochure to King County residents:
[http://wmnorthwest.com/kingcounty/calendars/guidelines.pdf](http://wmnorthwest.com/kingcounty/calendars/guidelines.pdf)

~~~
sushisource
Heh, first time I've seen this part:

• Two (2) feet apart with lids opening toward street • At least three (3) feet
from cars, trees and mailboxes, fences and utility boxes

Lol. Yeah. As if there's enough room on the street to do that with modern
townhouse designs.

------
vmarshall23
This has long driven me crazy. I have a version of this argument with my wife
every few weeks. I live in a city that has three bins: compost, landfill, and
recycling, and overall the city (SF) does a really good job apparently of
sorting trash.

But if you want a system that doesn't break down if someone throws a handful
of batteries in the compost bin, then someone or something somewhere still has
to sort the trash stream.

So, at best, you've used all the labor of everyone in SF to reduce the number
of people/things/processes downstream to sort the trash properly.

So, yes, the ball is ultimately in the manufacturer's court for a lot of this,
but home recycling is at best a terrible use of labor/time/money. Raise taxes
to hire more sorting capability, because if it requires 100 more trained
humans sorting somewhere downstream that's surely less than all-the-people-in-
SF-a-few-minutes-everyday to do a less-than-perfect job.

Also, I think a lot of these laws also do another disservice in that they make
people _feel_ like they're doing something to help the situation which keeps
them from _actually_ solving the problem.

Like the new plastic straws ban to keep plastic out of the ocean. If the
problem is "keep plastic out of the ocean", then solve "why does plastic get
in the ocean" problem. Banning plastic straws might be _part_ of the solution,
but what seems to happen so often is that we make one of these "feel-good"
laws that keeps a negligible amount of plastic out of the ocean, and I have to
drink out of a shitty straw, and people think that someone we've made
substantive progress to a real solution.

~~~
unit91
> I have a version of this argument with my wife every few weeks.

You make some good points here no doubt, but recycling is definitely _not_
worth arguing with your wife over. Be loving and overlook her (perceived)
faults.

~~~
folkrav
I'd argue that having (respectful) arguments is a pretty healthy thing for a
couple.

------
newswriter99
Let's look at some actual numbers without the hype.

"91% of potentially recyclable plastic ends up in landfills, or worse, in
oceans."

So right there, no ratio. How much goes into the landfill and how much into
the ocean? Because lets face it:

Landfill>Ocean

For comparison, 8m tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean annually according
to the cited 2015 UCSB study: [http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/014985/ocean-
plastic](http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/014985/ocean-plastic)

That's 8m tonnes globally. The US makes about 30m tonnes a year. What's the
US' share of plastic in the ocean?

[https://jambeck.engr.uga.edu/landplasticinput](https://jambeck.engr.uga.edu/landplasticinput)

About 340 tonnes a year. Yeah, that's a lot, but that's 0.00425% of the total.
We're in 20th place.

China drops 2.4m tonnes a year. About 30% of all the plastic waste that goes
into the ocean each year.

Article does nothing to point out the plastic waste just getting chucked into
rivers in India and Asia.

~~~
fraudsyndrome
How much of that 2.4m tonnes comes from other countries though? And the other
countries know that it's not getting recycled properly yet still send it over
to offload their guilt.

Also you can't just use raw numbers as the population numbers are completely
different. Waste generated per capita (excluding and import/export) would be a
more accurate metric.

~~~
newswriter99
None, at the moment, considering China just instituted a plastic waste import
ban.

But you're still implying that people are sending it to China in order to
alleviate themselves of guilt, without China's consent. That's crap. They were
conducting waste/recycling operations for business. If you agree to send
plastic waste to China, then it's on China NOT to chuck the plastic in a
river. Just because they're negligent doesn't make you liable.

------
ChuckMcM
I think the article makes some good points but it keeps jarring me with the
"impossible to recycle" statements.

There is "recycling" as implied by the author of the article which is that the
material is converted into feedstock to make the same material again, there is
"recycling" which can be defined by "is used again", and their is "recycling"
which is defined as "it didn't end up in a landfill or ocean." The nuance is
important.

For example, you can chemically break down plastic by exposing it to high heat
in an oxygen free environment (like a nitrogen)[1]. For many polymers this
will reduce it to essentially various long chain polymers, some water vapor,
and some left over carbon. You can incinerate plastic in a closed loop exhaust
system and extract net positive energy from it. You can mechanically decompose
it (think shreedding) and then either ultrasonically or thermally bond into
engineered materials (which are not yogurt cups but can provide structural
insulation for example)

I had thought at one time that using an engineered material approach you could
make things like picnic tables for Forest Service campgrounds (they would be
extremely durable, insect and weather immune, and difficult to burn) however
in discussions with people who could advocate for such a program I learned
that they often just re-used lumber they were clearing as part of the forest
management mission for such things so their materials were "free" to begin
with. Conceptually though I still like the idea.

[1]
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/app.1974.070...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/app.1974.070180314)

------
samatman
Startup I will never get around to:

A store which sells only bulk and fresh food, and durable containers: mesh
bags, Mason jars, glass bottles.

Every container, dispenser, and display has a scale, and unlocks with a
nearfield chip. Enter the store, tap phone or insert chip card, get a card.

Fill up your cart, stick the card back into the slot, get charged, done. One
customer service kiosk for buying back clean containers at 80% of retail cost.

~~~
gascan
Depending on where you live, it might already (mostly) exist, minus the NFC
part.

Grocery co-op in my area has a big back room of bulk goods, sells durable
containers too, run by hippies and has been around for decades.

The real hurdles with selling bulk & having customers reuse containers is
handling tare smoothly and getting customers to remember to bring their
containers.

~~~
searchhay
There was a zero-waste grocer in Austin, but they recently went out of
business. [http://austin.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-
bars/04-25-18-...](http://austin.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-
bars/04-25-18-ingredients-grocery-store-closing-zero-waste-east-austi/)

------
technofiend
Call me crazy but I'd love to see the next round of LEED certifications
require any food establishment with seating for dining required to serve with
reusable dinnerware and utensils, i.e. plates, forks, knives, spoons, cups and
glasses. The amount of plastic wasted by people like me who get lunch from a
food court, walk ten feet away to eat lunch and then toss single use items is
astounding.

Yet there's no other solution without restaurants moving back to reusable
items: health code won't allow them to take my container for food nor should
it.

~~~
fooblitzky
I'd love to see that too. I've seen a range of industrially-compostable
products, such that I feel it ought to be possible to eliminate the recycling
bin altogether (for plastics, I guess metals/glass/paper still work), and have
cities/states mandate the use of compostable packaging. They'd save a ton on
reducing landfill/plastics recycling, and also being able to sell the
resulting compost.

------
Reedx
It's way past time to start pricing in externalities. More of a push to
"reduce and reuse".

~~~
r00fus
Lets start with the supply chain. Don't just dump this on consumers. I want to
see less individually plastic wrapped/boxed fruit.

~~~
organsnyder
Consumers are at fault there, too. If people didn't buy it, companies wouldn't
produce it. Consumers need to be disincentivized from purchasing such wasteful
products.

~~~
r00fus
Consumers are limited because suppliers (in aggregate) often control the
market.

If all the stores supply wasteful products, what are your options. If you're a
store and you have limited options on what you can sell (because all the
suppliers have wasteful packaging) what are your options?

The problem (plastic junk) comes from the supply-side. It doesn't really help
consumers for the most part - heck I think most would prefer fruit that was
local (all else being equal).

~~~
Reedx
Granted, it should be attacked from all sides, but how much of that do
consumers actually need?

It's _possible_ (not easy, nor very practical let's say) to have almost zero
waste if you're really dedicated. This is 4 years worth of trash that fits in
a mason jar:
[https://youtu.be/BxKfpt70rLI?t=30s](https://youtu.be/BxKfpt70rLI?t=30s)

So making a pretty sizable reduction even as things are should be doable.

------
dboreham
The underlying problem is that manufacturers of things we buy have been
permitted to "externalize" part of their supply chain cost (onto the rest of
us).

So the fix would be to un-do that : if you sell something, you have to take
back all the waste and packaging.

Probably not going to happen, but this is the real problem.

~~~
c22
Or just charge manufacturers a "packaging tax" based on weight and composition
of any materials included with a product but not part of said product. You
could use the money to pay for better sorting of the waste stream.

------
0xcafecafe
Hence it is always important to remember: reduce, reuse and recycle, in that
order. You don't have to recycle if you can reuse.

~~~
protonimitate
While I agree with that order of operations so to speak, I'm not sure why the
responsibility is pushed onto consumers. It's hard to make a choice when it
comes down to plastic, plastic, or plastic.

What is being/can be done to get companies to stop using plastic in packaging?
I understand that it is necessary for a lot of modern conveniences, but surely
there is something that can be done to curb the production and use on the
manufacturing side.

~~~
gambiting
The problem is that companies use a stupidly ridiculous amount of plastic. The
other week I bought some dessert which had a non-recyclable box, then each
portion was in a non-recyclable plastic cup, held in place by a non-recyclable
plastic tray with a non-recyclable plastic lid on each cup. Absolutely insane.

~~~
narag
That's the place for regulation. Let's forbid the damned thing or at least tax
it heavily. Anything not reusable? Make them pay for externalities.

------
oldcynic
A remarkably accurate summary of the mess we've brought upon ourselves. It
very much is a game, or recycling theatre.

------
jaggederest
I'm always confused why we aren't pyrolyzing refuse and reusing the
hydrocarbons in them.

It's energetically and monetarily expensive, but both costs are more or less
paid for by the output products and input products, as far as I am aware. And
you get out fairly high quality fuels.

~~~
supertrope
Air pollution is worse than landfills. Incineration increases our exposure to
heavy metals and dioxins. Burning plastic is a fairly nasty process and can
only be done "cleanly" at very high temperatures.

Trash also contains stuff like batteries that explode when burned.

~~~
jaggederest
Not incineration. Pyrolysis, in an anoxic environment. It's the same process
by which syngas is produced, except that the results are longer chain carbons
and thus just have to be cracked and distilled rather than Fischer-Tropsch'd
into usable feedstocks. You use about 30% of the input mass of organics to
power the process (usually the lightest fraction that is equivalent to
syngas), and the result is about 10% waste material and 60% usable mass
fractions in the fuel-to-wax range, just like a normal oil refinery.

------
bayfullofrays
There is only one answer, ban all consumable plastics. Absolutely no reason to
use them when alternatives exist in every application of them.

------
Glyptodon
I think I could handle one bin for plastic, one bin for metal+glass, one bin
for paper. Anything more complicated I don't really trust myself do right
without a lot of vigilance.

And I've heard that things as typical as staples in the cardboard/paper stream
ruin everything cost-wise, which makes it all seem sort of lost-cause-ish.

~~~
DisruptiveDave
At one point in NYC we had to use four - FOUR - different bins. In a tiny ass
apartment. And still, there were so many damn edge cases that I gave up.
Sorry, but I have a full time job and plenty to do outside of work. Make the
recycling process easy on my end and I'll do it. Make it ridiculously
complicated and I won't.

Honest question - at what point do my tax dollars cap out and the onus gets
put back on me? Might be naive, but I always wanted to know the answer.

------
the_mitsuhiko
The 70% landfill rate for Europe is probably true but if you look at countries
individually it’s a completely different stories. The top 10 recycling
countries in the EU have leas than 5% landfilled plastics.

[https://www.plasticseurope.org/application/files/5715/1717/4...](https://www.plasticseurope.org/application/files/5715/1717/4180/Plastics_the_facts_2017_FINAL_for_website_one_page.pdf)

------
chiefalchemist
While the marketers will cry, if more packaging was more standardized then
reuse would be easier and ideally less expensive.

The standardization of shipping containers made the movement of goods more
effective and less expensive. It's time to do the same for packaging.

As a side note: perhaps less disposable is appropriate at times as well. Those
16.9 oz water bottles are purposely one-and-done. It's 2018. Certainly someone
can find a way to make them so they can be reused.

------
kohala
I have no affiliation with the company Renewlogy (formerly PK Clean) in Salt
Lake City, but they have a very interesting method for turning plastic into
diesel fuel that is in use today:

[https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900014582/utah-based-
ren...](https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900014582/utah-based-renewlogy-
offers-solution-to-plastic-waste-problem.html)

The Chinese ban on plastics is not having a major impact in Salt Lake City,
according to Sophia Nicholas, Salt Lake City sustainability department
communications manager.

Officials in both Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County say they are still
picking up plastics from recycling bins as usual. By contract, none of that is
ending up in landfills. Salt Lake City's contracts require the recycling
vendors to accept and recycle plastics No. 1 through No. 7.

“We know that there is a lot of a upheaval right now,” Nicholas said. “But the
markets are dynamic and they’re finding other alternatives for that type of
material.”

The city of Boise, Idaho, recently banned plastics No. 3 through No. 7 in its
recycling program and contracted with Renewlogy. Residents must separate those
plastics into separate bags that now come to Salt Lake City.

~~~
pitaa
Unfortunately that article reads like a press release from "Renewlogy" and
doesn't seem to have a complete basis in reality. In reality at present the
area is facing a $900,000 increase in recycling costs largely because china
isn't taking it anymore.

[https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2018/06/26/curbside-...](https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2018/06/26/curbside-
recycling-in-utah-and-elsewhere-is-at-risk-as-china-gets-more-picky-about-the-
waste-it-imports/)

------
VWrapper
-snip, self-censorship for safety-

~~~
ryandrake
This is a good point. I’m reminded of a thread from yesterday: [1]. There are
tons of places where nobody gives a single crap about waste disposal. The
sides of the roads are literal trash heaps. “The West” is not going to solve
this global problem by making everyone sort their trash into 10 different
bins. It needs to stop at the source: the companies producing all this waste
(mostly discarded packaging).

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17403526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17403526)

EDIT: updated for the sensitive

~~~
dgacmu
small nit - the sorting of trash is not the exclusive domain of women. "by
making people sort their trash". :-)

(I say this as the household Ph.D. trash sorter...)

Thanks for updating. --the sensitive.

------
djsumdog
I've always thought the single bin was stupid. Remember when you at least
separated paper, plastics and cans? It's way way easier, efficient and less
labor intensive for a consumer to do that very basic sorting than getting a
facility to do it.

It's like data entry people who copy paper forms to a machine. Why not have a
device the consumer can type their own data into? You'll get less mistakes and
save a lot of time.

Having four basic sort bins is a very low effort for the person throwing shit
out. It also reduces the amount of contaminates and makes life easier for
people who do have to sort through all that.

American bottle deposits also suck pretty bad compared to our EU counterparts.
At least in The Netherlands and Germany, every shop that sells glass has to
take that glass back. Many have machines that scan the barcodes on the bottle
and issue you a ticket you can use for purchases or cash.

The bottles actually get reused too. Old German beer bottles often have
physical have grooves on them from the plastic rollers in machines! They get
reused that much!

------
hw
As much as I hate plastics, I find that it is here to stay. As consumers, what
we can do is to reduce the plastics that we use. Re-use plastic bags. Re-use
takeout containers (always have a bunch of them in my car). Reduce purchases
of food items that are wrapped in plastic (they are mostly processed food
anyway). Buy produce that isn't shrink-wrapped. Don't use a straw for drinks.
Don't ask for plastic cutlery when getting takeout.

I do think that some sort of tax on plastic use would help deter and reduce,
but not completely eliminate plastic waste. Restaurants should be taxed on
every plastic takeout container they use. Manufacturers, food producers should
be taxed on plastic packaging. Blue Apron should be taxed for all the plastic
containers that they send out to customers.

Maybe Elon Musk would be the new China and ship the world's plastic waste to
space. It would cost quite a bit of fuel though so maybe it's not as
sustainable or eco-friendly.

~~~
undersuit
Someone pitch to Elon their bioreactor that converts plastic to rocket fuel.

I mean wouldn't that be cool?

------
wlesieutre
I have single stream recycling and the shit that people put into it is
ridiculous sometimes. Greasy pizza boxes are a popular one.

~~~
aaron_oxenrider
Our recycle company specifically told us to throw pizza boxes in the
recycling. I'm told there are some ways to still use it just not in making
paper again.

~~~
vkou
They can probably be composted.

~~~
yourapostasy
There could be concerns over potential toxins arising from the breakdown of
the inks and adhesives used in making the boxes entering the food stream?

------
rm_-rf_slash
I think the basic problem is that there is no feedback mechanism for
recycling. For example, I could judge an eaten-but-not-entirely-washed-out
plastic container of hummus to be clean enough for recycling, but I will never
know if it is ultimately recycled or thrown away once it leaves the green bin.

Machine learning could help consumers by leaps and bounds by being able to say
with a picture or two whether a given item is recyclable.

I don’t know how you would incentivize people to use such an app, but I
imagine options such as redeemable points or discounts (like paying less for
coffee in a reusable container at most coffee shops) or public shaming (like
when the power company tells you how much you spend on electricity versus your
neighbors) could help make recycling more efficient.

Aside from that, though, I’m not sure how to do much more on the consumer side
of things. As others have mentioned here, the choices are often plastic,
plastic, and plastic.

~~~
emodendroket
Well, in Japan the trash all has labels telling you what category it is and
they're much more fine-grained (you might have to peel off one part and throw
it away separately from the rest, for instance).

------
ggm
During wartime, A significant difference to waste stream happened inside
manufacturing, as a function of government directive. I believe its written up
in quite a few places, my source is 'the peoples war' by Angus Calder.

In principle, if manufacturing is _obligated_ to handle waste stream better,
the evidence is, it can.

------
yourapostasy
Fast Company published a good article [1] about the Precious Plastic effort
[2] to spread open source DIY machines that recycle plastic. I hope someone
helps them publish plans for a limonene-based styrofoam recycler as well, as
that is supposedly a fairly simple reaction. Then agree upon standardized
sizes, and manufacture bricks of plastic-encased styrofoam insulation, where
the plastic casing is designed to interlock into near-airtight joints. Then
pump out insulation for the housing of the co-op members helping, 4-5 feet
thick, and you start creating near PassivHaus-grade insulation.

Use other plastics to create a mechanically interlocking building envelope
perhaps, and thermal bridge isolation pieces, and you could drive ACH in the
way building down.

Other uses for recycled plastics that would help those who are short on
capital but long on sweat equity might include really large fan blades for
whole room ceiling fans, shelving, storage boxes, body weight equipment like
traveling rings, and playground equipment. All of these don't need to be
sophisticated, and confer allow the capital-constrained to avoid having to use
as much capital.

[1] [https://www.fastcompany.com/40486883/these-diy-machines-
let-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40486883/these-diy-machines-let-anyone-
recycle-plastic-into-new-products)

[2]
[https://preciousplastic.com/en/index.html](https://preciousplastic.com/en/index.html)

------
jmts
I was thinking about this issue recently. Surely part of this is a UI issue.
How do I know what is recyclable and what isn't? Do I need to prepare it in
some way before I put it in the bin?

Governments have control over regulating a great number of things. Why not
regulate packaging by requiring easy to identify recycling instructions?
Standardise the bin colours across a large area - ideally an entire country -
to make sure it is easy to provide 1-to-1 mappings between graphics and target
bins, then require manufacturers provide clear labeling of how to dispose of
the packaging. Surely the manufacturer knows without a doubt what it is making
things out of. They should also know therefore how to recycle it. If some
materials are more recyclable than others, regulate in favour of the more
recyclable materials. Single material packaging should be favoured over multi-
material packaging. Should it be rinsed before being added to a yellow bin?
Have standardised graphics to show those two things.

If governments provides some incentive/encouragement/regulation for businesses
to produce packaging that is not only recyclable, but also easily sorted by
consumers, surely that will solve a lot of contamination issues and promote
better practices by consumers.

------
dalbasal
It's quite typical that when somethung in the political realm fails, our
instinctive diagnosis is moral.

House prices rise? Its either corporate greed or NIMBYism. People got addicted
to medicines? Pharmaceutical companies are cynical. Welfare system is full of
mess? You just can't trust poor ___ people. King lost a war? Someone hasn't
been pious enough.

Pollution? Ecological degradation? Extinctions? No one cares any more. In the
past, we lived in harmony with nature. We took no more than we needed. We had
morals.

Bollocks. Morality is just the easy answer. These are practical problems, not
moral ones. What we need is more competence, not more righteousness.

Anyway, I find this striking:

" _91 percent of potentially recyclable plastic in the U.S. ended up in
landfills – or worse, in the oceans. (79% in Europe)_ "

There is a massive difference between landfill and ocean. There is a massive
difference between landfill 1 and landfill 2. Recycling has been idealised as
some sort of moral goal. Garbage has been vilified as a moral failing. The
practical impacts on the environment have a lot more to do with how much
garbage makes it to landfill, and what they do with it there.

Give me 0% recycling and 0% stray garbage and I think we'd have a big net win.

------
jccalhoun
I teach college and I see students throwing their empty recyclable bottles
into the trash nearly every day when the recycling bin is literally right next
to it.

------
politician
I suspect that separating a stream of trash is simpler if the stream is
younger and lower volume. Suppose we created a "Recycler" \-- a mandatory
household appliance like "Dishwasher" and "Dryer" and "Oven". This fantasy
device has a few holes on top for common use cases, it beeps at the user if
they screw up or when full, and it compacts the waste into small blocks. A
cross between a paper shredder and trash compactor.

Since it integrates with your household Nest devices, you can link the device
to the city waste department to receive sweet rebates on the electricity you
wasted to power it. Rebates that the city pays for with the money they receive
from taxes levied on manufacturers.

The entire scheme is far more wasteful than requiring manufacturers to pay for
disposal of their packaging, but since it pushes even more burden onto the
consumer I think it's a winner.

------
mrhappyunhappy
Is there a place where the world can provide ideas on how to solve complex
global issues? Something that that curated the best ideas, forms pros and cons
to approaches proposed and automatic weighs the risks? I guess what I imagine
is some sort of machine learning solution that takes in account the knowledge
of the internet and allows for weighing of various factors based on assigned
trust scores. It seems weird that we live in this information rich society, a
ton of ideas float around the web but they are never acted upon or formulated
in ways that harness public support. Am I just envisioning a utopian idea or
is this possible to build? There Must be a way to pull most prominent ideas
into one place for public scrutiny without creating additional noise.

------
maxerickson
Whenever you think about plastic consumption, remember that gasoline weighs
about 6 pounds a gallon.

Especially remember this if you drive to the grocery store and are precious
about plastic bags.

I mean, please do make sure they end up in a properly managed waste stream,
but maybe consider what to prioritize.

------
oomkiller
We should charge per unit of garbage generated (per liter or whatever), and
have tracking on how much of it was actually recyclable, which would cause
some percent of the price to be refunded (billed at a lower rate to encourage
recycling). Otherwise we will be constantly drowning in trash. It blows my
mind that we allow people to create as much trash as they want for a flat fee
when there's such a negative externality affected on our environment and
community, especially since it's a much less controversial and nebulous
problem than something like climate change. Billing the consumer for trash
affects the design of packaging and shipping of everything they consume.

------
intended
My comment is late but it’s against the prevailing mood of the top comment -

People are ignoring a very critical factor - “disposable culture” is the
brother of cheap and convenient goods.

This means that poor people can get cheap food in cheap packagaging with
better safety levels than otherwise.

This means - packets of Singl use detergent - affordable to people in poverty.

It means less paper use - which means less pollution in the creation process.

Mumbai has asked people to not use plastic - meat vendors are asking people to
bring tins to carry meat. Those need to be cleaned which means an increase in
water use.

This is a much bigger problem than it seems.

------
modzu
the last paragraph is key. even if we recycled 100% of the plastic it still
inevitably leads to pollution (all this talk about sorting is irrelevant!). we
need to be using better materials.

~~~
dahart
It's not helpful to throw up our arms and say nothing can be done just because
pollution wasn't eliminated 100%. It is helpful to compare magnitude. If we
can reduce pollution by 1% or 10% or 90%... any amount is better than no
reduction. If sorting helps 10%, and it takes almost no effort, then it's very
relevant.

I agree that better materials is a good idea. Same goes for many other
suggestions here, reducing demand, charging producers, new ways to reuse and
recycle. It all helps. So don't give up before you start just because it can't
be perfect. Nothing's perfect.

------
andrewstuart
The plastics problem must be addressed by standardised, washable, refundable
containers that manufacturers can package their products in and put a paper
label on.

The packaging industry is creating an infinite flow of garbage and recycling
is just the distraction that this industry creates to stop us being enraged at
the unstoppable flow of garbage that it creates.

The idea of single use plastic wrappers for food or any other product must
end.

Also the idea of destroyable/recyclable non-standard container sizes must end.

------
nowarninglabel
I'm working with a plastic recycler in Kenya that may be solving issues in a
novel way: [https://make-it-initiative.org/africa/cpt_startup/gjenge-
ent...](https://make-it-initiative.org/africa/cpt_startup/gjenge-enterprises/)

Contact me if you want an intro to them, they are seeking grant and equity
funding to grow their ability to recycle plastic bottles into building blocks

------
linkmotif
Until the issue is fixed, what’s wrong with landfills? What’s wrong with
something taking a long time to decompose? My understanding is landfills done
right are ok.

------
quipquopro
How is plastic waste ending up in landfills even a problem? If we don’t have
the technology to efficiently recycle plastic waste now, we will in 50 years.
Future landfill miners will praise us for our foresight. I’m having a hard
time understanding the concern given the bigger environmental problems out
there. Habitat loss, pollution, and climate change are less visible but more
pressing problems.

------
cube4eva
The solution is charging people directly for trash pickup which creates more
of an individual incentive to focus on product packaging. Also, you could
offer incentives for collecting and (cleanly) burning plastic for energy
(given its mostly petroleum based). Recycling programs today are a joke and
often can’t breakeven

~~~
undersuit
Increasing the burden on the consumers is just going to make individuals more
opposed to whatever you're making them do. People already burn and dump trash
on their own with the relatively light taxation we levy on them to process
their garbage.

------
kardos
I wonder how bad are the economics of going back to glass for product
packaging, eg, like milk bottles. We still do it for beer so it mustn't be
atrocious. Could we make inroads that way? I'm envisioning there'd be order
1-2 dozen standard bottle sizes to make recycling easy (cheap) to automate.

------
jefurii
Caltech used to have a great recycling facility with dumpsters for the various
kinds of plastic. It was open to the community and always in use. It required
more time and attention to get it right but it certainly wasn't onerous. But
then they bulldozed the facility to build more student housing.

------
spullara
Thought experiment. Does it actually make any sense to recycle things now that
are going to last 100s or 1000s of years? Shouldn't we just landfill them and
later, when we need them, and the technology is orders of magnitude better
just go dig it up and recycle it then? Why recycle now?

------
baxtr
Let’s not forget that this is also a cultural issue. When I compare living in
Europe with living in the States for example I had to say that Americans use a
lot more single use plastic than Europeans. Avoidance is possible. Maybe not
to the same extent, but it definitely can play a role

------
olivermarks
I've often wondered about some kind of in home melting device for plastics,
like a big pressure cooker. So much plastic recycling is actually empty
containers. Heating and compressing would greatly reduce the footprint and
might make reuse easier too? Would this be viable?

------
kevin_b_er
This is the result of corporate greed combined with the tragedy of the
commons. Corporate greed makes the waste, consumers act primary in self-
interest and select for short-term cheapness, and politicians don't want to
reign or regulate that greed or consumer selfishness.

------
Cub3
I still don't understand why we don't have a general tax on using certain
materials that are hard to recycle or cause waste, if you taxed plastic per
gram and made it more expensive to use than cardboard or aluminium we would
see a major switch.

------
davesque
Doesn't better garbage sorting seem within reach of current machine learning
tech and robotics?

------
cube4eva
The solution is charging people directly for trash pickup which creates more
of an individual incentive to focus on consumer packaging. Also, you could
offer incentives for collecting and (cleanly) burning plastic for energy
(given its mostly petroleum based)

------
intrasight
Why not levy a very substantial tax on this damaging product - like with do
for cigarettes? Regulate with economic incentives seems usually to be the
right solution. Also, if the US could just get to European levels, that would
cut US waste by almost half.

------
chiefalchemist
I'd like to add. At this point, when possibe buy food in glass. For example,
apple sauce.

------
nukemandan
What does this mean? REDUCING and REUSING plastic use is critical. Solutions
to the recycling problem are poor at best and innovation takes time. Don't
just put it in the better looking bin and expect that someone will "figure it
out".

------
JudasGoat
If we can't robotically seperate the different types of plastic presently,
could we tag new plastics with something machine readable? Bar codes seem
impracticle for some uses. So just invent a micro tag, I guess.

------
a2tech
I get a ton of crap at work and other places for mentioning that consumer
recycling is a giant farce and is nothing more than a distraction for the
consumer so they can feel like they’re ‘doing somethkng’ while nothing that
matters actually changes.

------
CodeSheikh
Here's an idea, why not collect all the soda bottles and place them in front
of respective corporate head quarters? I am sure Coca Cola will get a kick out
of it and they might do something about creating a recycling program.

------
Debugreality
In one state in Australia they used to have a pay per container returned so
for example 5c per bottle.

If this buyback was paid for by the manufacturer it could incentivize
recycling, create jobs and help pay for recycling and sorting.

------
jimjimjim
unpopular opinion:

Add a sales tax on everything that has plastic in it.

If not using plastic increases the price then the majority of people just will
not choose the more expensive option.

Sure motivated people will see the benefit, but most people will see shrink-
wrapped item at $5.99 vs 'better' item at $6.50 and will just pick the cheaper
one.

The app store pricing is an example of this. "$5 for a game is outrageous, i'm
going to play this terrible one for $1 instead." well actually they are going
to pick the free game with advertising, tracking, and all kinds of
darkpatterns instead. but the idea is the same

------
learc83
What do modern plastic free food containers look like? Are they any good at
keeping insects out? My mom tells me stories of how often candy bars had
larvae in them back when they were just wrapped in paper.

------
sumang
One of the ways to solve this issue is to incentive or give rewards to
customers who give back their plastic waste. In Germany and Scandinavia, its
been in place for years.

------
woogiewonka
I'm always impressed with how Japan handles recycling, despite being a heavy
plastic user and producer. Last figure I read was 70% of all plastic recycled.

------
lkbm
> While there ought to be a fine for the carcasses and Christmas lights...

Maybe, but I can tell you that passers-by put non-recyclable materials in my
bins every chance they get.

------
toss1
I try to reuse some significant parts of our packaging stream, such as 1Kg
yogurt containers, bringing them to the shop to use for mixing epoxy instead
of buying mix cups.

Since I thought of recycling as having a high reuse rate (so having the hope
that each bit of plastic might get used more than 2x), I used to think that
this was a poor substitute and felt a bit bad about it.

Since reading a number of articles like this, I feel much better about it,
since this material is at least getting 200% of the original use, which seems
considerably greater than the actual recycling re-use rates.

So, reuse > recycling, yay!

------
sjg007
I preferred the 3 separate ones.. cans, plastic, paper. Made it easy to keep
the food/water/residue crap off the paper.

------
doggydogs94
I have seen lots of gripes here about corporate America in these comments, but
very little in the way of realistic solutions.

------
destitude
Real solution is to move the cost up the chain such that there is a "plastic
tax" like there is a carbon tax.

------
gm-conspiracy
You could pay per item, so people would not recycle items that they won't get
paid for...

------
woogiewonka
Why not ban manufacturing certain plastics that end up in consumers' hands?

------
dredmorbius
Annie Leonard has a great piece on the history of the "individual
accountability" trash movement. TL;DR: it's an accountability avoidance
maneuver by the drinks, beverages, and fast-food industries, principally.

[http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/AlterNet-
SOW13-AL-102...](http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/AlterNet-
SOW13-AL-102013.pdf)

(Mostly the same material here:
[https://www.salon.com/2014/06/18/big_plastics_pr_disaster_wh...](https://www.salon.com/2014/06/18/big_plastics_pr_disaster_why_it_cant_lie_its_way_around_microbeads_partner/))

Her book and project, The Story of Stuff, are highly recommended.

[https://storyofstuff.org/about/annie-
leonard/](https://storyofstuff.org/about/annie-leonard/)

------
ape4
Maybe because they are "consumers"

------
arendtio
TLDR:

> 91 percent of potentially recyclable plastic in the U.S. ended up in
> landfills – or worse, in the oceans.

> Yes, trash has become complicated

> Even if consumer participation in recycling were 100 percent, we wouldn’t be
> close to recycling 100 percent of the material [...]

> [...] nearly all current “recyclable” plastics [...] get a second life as a
> handbag or lawn chair [...]. They’re not really recycled so much as
> “downcycled.”

------
njarboe
Comment from a similar recent thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17359807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17359807))

Modern dumps are sealed very well and can hold huge amounts. At $50 a ton we
will never run out of space. Put everything in the dump. Plastic, green waste,
garbage, paper, electronics, etc. Sort out pure metals like steel and
aluminum. Do methane recovery on the pile and burn it for power. This will
sequester a lot of carbon and at some point these dumps are likely to be mined
as ore bodies. People can compost at their home if they like, but moving all
this green waste around is costly and causes many plant diseases to spread
much more quickly. Not to mention how horrible it is to get a load of chipped
wood to put on your yard that has poison oak mixed in. We don't really need
this little ritual of recycling to cleanse us of our consumerism sins. If we
are really trying to help the environment, reduce, repair, and reuse is much
more effective. Buy high quality stuff that lasts a long time.

Edit: Another bonus is that you and your neighbors only have to be woken up
early once a week by the one garbage truck that comes by instead of three
times with the current separate garbage, recycling, green waste trucks.

~~~
dang
Please don't recycle comments from previous threads.

It's a fine comment, but HN threads are supposed to be conversations and we're
trying to avoid repetition.

~~~
jcoffland
I think that's an example of reuse, which is better than recycling.

~~~
dang
Ah yes. I was carried away by the title.

------
Pica_soO
Its always just cooperations, solving their tax-worthy public problems by
dividing and conquering it as challenge for the individual.

------
colechristensen
I'm not sure I want to live in a world where people are allowed to vote and
drive cars and own guns who can't figure out which bin their garbage belongs
inside.

I have never lived in a place where the instructions weren't provided and
clear.

Here are some instructions from Sweden. There are 10 categories. I think there
could be more.

[https://www.affarsverken.se/Documents/Renhallning/Sorterings...](https://www.affarsverken.se/Documents/Renhallning/Sorteringsguiden/Sorteringsguide_engelsk.pdf)

~~~
jdavis703
I've worked at many tech companies (arguably dealing with the smarter side of
humanity), and have had to re-educate many people including software engineers
on what's garbage, recycling or trash. The problem isn't that people are too
dumb to recycle, it's that they don't care.

~~~
vmarshall23
So someone _still_ has to sort it. Raise taxes. Hire sorters. Save time and
money by having software engineers spend more time learning software
engineering, not whether a corn-based plastic spoon should go in compost or
recycling.

