Recycling is largely BS - totally profit driven not enviornmentally driven

I recycle absolutely everything I can. We have to pay 💸💸💸 to drop off garbage, so everything that can be recycled brings that price down.

I rinse out well all plastics, cans, and bottles, because they will grow "growths" if they're not clean, and I only take everything in about once a month or so.

Living rural changes a lot of habits.

You're right though, it's mostly a farce. There's places that don't take glass and they'll suggest that you drive for four hours to get to a place that will take them, and I won't use up too much water getting labels off. It's just not worth it.

Also, there's so many things plastic can be made into once recycled, they should have figured that out years ago.

Tire rubber goes into some road making materials in Saskatchewan (I've heard), so that's a good thing.

Recycling was very popular in Oregon in the 70s and 80s....many people talking about creating cottage industries around recycled goods, and did just that. However, the city/county/state stepped in on behalf of the garbage companies and told the recycling businesses that they needed $20K to pay for special business licenses, etc. required to handle waste products...and the small recycle businesses were effectively killed. Since then, big business took over recycling in most cities, with co-mingled (everything in one bin)....since they started co-mingling, it's been widely believed it's all been going into our own landfill for years.

I've always said that prisoners should be put to work sorting trash at the landfill.

a reply to: Bluntone22

She owns the company.

Its simple economics and not rocket science. No profits = failed business or subsidized business and higher taxes. Does not matter if the taxes are levied on the producers or consumers, the consumers pay or the business fails.

Environmental activists, in fact activist in general tend to be illiterate about things like the costs or the general concept someone has to pay. There is no environment fairy that will pay the bills.

The only way it works is if the price for the products in the recyclable containers price is raised and its then covered by the consumers.

Of course its profit driven. No profits, no business, no jobs, no way to recycle. Its unrealistic and unreasonable to expect any business to run at a loss just because people want them to for whatever reason. The more profitable recycling is, the more good it will do.

People should stand behind anything that makes recycling viable if a better environment is the real goal. Problem is as I see it, to make it viable would mean the cost is covered by the manufacturer by charging the consumer more. Then those who complain about profits would complain about that. In the end, somebody pays.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Yep. Reusing existing materials doesn't save anything over creating new recyclable material. Doesn't help the environment at all.

Sigh.

Your posts just keep getting more and more amusing, thank you.

a reply to: hombero

Yeah let's look at plastics alone, which is basically what I was talking about, that and paper(s).

With plastics it takes about 20-50 bottles to make a kilo of plastic waste. How much water do you think is used just to rinse out or wash all that plastic? In places like the US south west where water is scarce, do you think this is an efficient use of water? Having to rinse out 20,000 - 50,000 bottles for 1 ton of plastic?

Then you have to factor in the time everyone spends washing these things out, then the sepereration, the individual collection, the transport (from curb, to sorting facility, then god only knows where else, then back to the consumer..). All that takes energy and from what I calculated, more than it takes to produce new material and that doesn't even factor in water use.

What about towns that want to limit people to 100 gallons a day PER HOUSEHOLD of water use (in drought areas)? Is that a good use of their water? Washing a plastic container?

If $2/ton is really the deciding factor in whether a ton of paper or cardboard gets recycled, then I would have to argue that the focus is not on the environmental impact, but on the bottom line of companies providing the service. I'm not saying that they don't need to make a profit, but I'm also not saying that they are entitled to continue making the profits they once made historically. If a company hits a 20-60% profit margin one year, then the next year they can only make 10% IF they pay the $2 extra per ton for paper, then that is still profit, not as much, but still profit. I don't think they need to continue making the same profit and forgo the real reason for the venture to simply maintain their bottom line - if that is the case, then the whole thing is a scam/sham.

Let me be a bit simple. I'm sure someone on here will come with the correct figures.
Tin? As far as I know there are no large tin mines in the US, so it has to be imported. That means paying the miners to extract the ore, the paying the company what they want and the transporting costs to the US. All before smelting.
Now, you wash your cans (mainly tin) and "give" them to the highway robbers, whoops I meant the recyclers. Now your couple of cans are neither here nor there. But after they have been around your neighbourhood they have a lorry full. All free because, well because your recycling.
Tin at the moment $9 a pound. You do the math as the lorry goes straight to the smelters with your free, whoops again, with their free tin.
Now who's the mug?

The garbage companies in my area expect me to PAY THEM for the privilege of recycling. It costs me ZERO to just throw it away with the regular trash.

I dont understand why we cant just burn the trash, use it as fuel for energy creation, and filter the emissions through a network of catalysts that separate the harmful compounds out of the emissions.

Surely those compounds would also have a use in industry.

Aren't sweden just burning their rubbish for electricity?

In the great land down under, we have been led to believe we are a world class recycler. That is a lie. Since the China crackdown, we can no longer export our recyclables.....and instead of creating an industry and jobs we are just dumping our potential recyclables into landfill.

And we all know why it's cheaper to send to China and get it processed.....because they pay their workers sweet FA, which tells me there isn't a lot of money in recycling.

This world is surely headed down an unstoppable path of destruction. Our inbalance with nature is too far gone with no return to balance in sight.

Too bad really when it is needed more than ever. This whole time seems like many were duped into thinking recycling will be the end all, meanwhile -for example-plastic molecules are now found everywhere, down to water we all consume, that can't be healthy. Especially when a majority of it contains BPAs. Those are stored in the bodie's fat cells and with a growing world wide obesity epidemic there goes higher rates of disease and cancer. On top of that the BPAs may be causing more fat cells to accumulate. That's just a small note on how plastic is affecting the world.

Locally we we told even if one bottle contained a trace of juice in it, the whole lot of bottles would be declined for being recycled. Can't hardly blame China, as they have their own to take care of when it comes to recycling, they can be picky about it. Why can't the US now continue recycling where where China left off, would bet on regulations and pollution factors such as what fills the air industrial Chinese cities.

Companies will have to change to biodegradable and move away from plastics, albeit a cheaper for of it because of that consumer demand, though it seems currently it won't happen for quite a while. I believe some of the biodegradable containers are made from corn/starch. As Hemp is now being legalized for growing and if it catches on, that may be a solution to curb the higher prices of biodegradable.


Not to dismiss the concern of other recyclables, here's an article:
"Scientists develop biodegradable batteries made out of paper"

The battery itself is a hybrid "biobattery" that uses a mixture of paper and engineered polymers. The polymers are the key to making the battery biodegradable, and mean it can break down in water without any special facilities or chemicals.

Source

I like this idea of biodegradable plastic bags, cups and bottles.

At least then we wouldn't have to worry about that.

Everything made should be bio-compatible and result in fertile and safe soil. It should be the law.

Perhaps they can put even more control into biodegradable plastics so that they behave like plastic until a given date at which point they become biodegradable, perhaps after 1-5 years.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

It was a socialist plan to put money into company's that paid them off,notice it started in California enviromentalist's are nothing but money mongers,say things with false intention,and they seem to capitalize on profit

a reply to: nOraKat

Almost all plastic is biodegradable. If it wasn't there would be tons of them along side the roads. The problem is two fold. One is that they bury plastic in landfills. Plastic needs exposure to UV light to biodegrade. The second is the Environmental wackos war on the oil industry. There is a ton of BS information out there.

originally posted by: Bluntone22

originally posted by: neo96
I miss the days where one could just burn their trash in a barrel and make less trips to the dump.

That's why I like living in the country.
Food gets thrown in the field.
Paper gets burned.
Plastic and metal get recycled.

No garbage collection bill...

I just moved to the country and the garbage is thrown around everywhere here, it's disgusting.

Our company has 6,000 people in 7-8 buildings. Special colored bins and bags for different things. 3rd Shif cleaning crew comes in and everything gets put in the same compactor and heads to the landfill when it's full. But we get awards anyway. Rock the boat and ask too many questions and YOUR FIRED!!!

originally posted by: Metallicus
The garbage companies in my area expect me to PAY THEM for the privilege of recycling. It costs me ZERO to just throw it away with the regular trash.

It's the opposite here. We can put out as much recycling we want but our garbage is limited. You have to pay $1/bag over the limit. We never go over with the garbage but we put out a #load of recycling. It's no biggie to recycle. We also compost.

I've long thought that if they made the plastic bottles out of plastic that can be used in 3D printers the problem would solve itself

a reply to: JIMC5499

Speaking of tons of BS information, neither lobbyist pushed side is always honest. I think the plastic lobby wants people to think that almost all plastic if biodegrade, IF meant with a water, light, air combo. A huge example of that would be the Great Pacific(Ocean) Garbage Patch. It's comprised of mostly plastic. Now imagine the layers, only the surface layers can break down from the combo to biodegrade-if it's the plastic that can broke down as such. With that, no, it doesn't have a full combo of elements to break all of it down. To conclude it's a lot more complex than lead on to be.