What's the scoop on recycling plastics?

[Muse]

I'm uninformed. In Berkeley, CA they have you put recyclables in one bin and let them sort them out. But they don't seem to do much of a job of informing the citizens. Or maybe I neglected to read the literature they sent me (probably). Anyway, it used to be that they only wanted you to put some plastics in there and put the other stuff in your general refuse container (which I assume is bulldozed into landfill). I see a triangle with arrows on the bottom of some plastic containers. Does that mean it's recyclable or does it mean it's made from recycled materials? Some stuff has letters on it, but I don't know what they mean. The triangles have numbers on them, such as "2"... What does this mean?

 

[imported_goku]

Know exactly what your talking about, yea they've changed it. I remember at one point we would put our things in crates then it went into separated garbage cans and now its just one bin. I guess they sort it out when they get it, its a pain to have those "half ones" because sometimes you've got more paper one day than cans...

 

[jadinolf]

I would suggest you contact your trash collection outfit for information because what they call recyclable will vary. My company issues a brochure telling what is acceptable and what is not.

As far as plastic is concerned, ours will only take narrow necked bottles with a 1 or a 2 in the triangle.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: jadinolf
I would suggest you contact your trash collection outfit for information because what they call recyclable will vary. My company issues a brochure telling what is acceptable and what is not.

As far as plastic is concerned, ours will only take narrow necked bottles with a 1 or a 2 in the triangle.

I figure there must be some online guide to what those symbols represent. Anyone know of any?

 

[godmare]

http://www.greenfeet.com/recycle-by-numbers.html

 

[Coquito]

pictures at the bottom

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: godmare
http://www.greenfeet.com/recycle-by-numbers.html

That's good. So, I've been putting plastic bags into the landfill. Should I put them in my recycling container in hopes that something better will come from them?

Edit: Looks like the answer is that those bags will end up in the landfill either way. There's a link at the site to precycling. It cites my town (Berkeley, CA) and it's program to educate residents on the issues. They try to educate and change attitudes of "consumers." There are strategies you can adopt to reduce pollution problems.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: godmare
http://www.greenfeet.com/recycle-by-numbers.html

That's good. So, I've been putting plastic bags into the landfill. Should I put them in my recycling container in hopes that something better will come from them?

Edit: Looks like the answer is that those bags will end up in the landfill either way. There's a link at the site to precycling. It cites my town (Berkeley, CA) and it's program to educate residents on the issues. They try to educate and change attitudes of "consumers." There are strategies you can adopt to reduce pollution problems.

That's odd... Because I don't consider many of the things that wind up in the landfill to be "pollution." I only consider it pollution when it's somewhere it's not intended to be.
Got something that won't break down and is going to last for 10's of 1000's of years? GOOD, stick it in the landfill. Heck, line the whole bottom of the landfill with the stuff and use it to seal off the landfill.

Furthermore, (I state this half jokingly, half seriously) - why recycle? Doesn't it make sense that our technology will increase in the future - thus our ability to recycle materials in the future will be better than our technology to recycle now? If so, then landfills my become the mines of the future! Reclaim former landfills by mining them and removing the recyclable materials that takes up a huge portion of them. (And, while the contents aren't changing, as technology increases, the proportion that becomes recyclable increases.) But, by recycling now, the proportion would be relatively low in the future, possibly not making it economically viable. But, if the landfills were filled with tons of aluminum and other recyclable scrap material, then they may be very profitable to mine in the future (50 or 100 years from now)

 

[Kelemvor]

It's different in different places. User to live somewhere wher eyou could only put certain numbers in there. Place I live now you can put anything in there as long as it has the number in the triangle symbol. Doesn't matter what the number is.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

more efficient use of energy to just throw it away

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
more efficient use of energy to just throw it away

I won't argue with that. It may be true, at least in certain respects. Some times it's not smart to be too fastidious about things.

DrPizza's remarks, although probably not intended to be comical almost come off as Mark Twain style satire . Maybe they were presented as such (I guess so: "I state this half jokingly, half seriously"). I imagine it will never be profitable to mine landfills. What gets tossed away is gone. I do wonder about the pollution aspect of throwing some things in landfill. For one thing, there are some things that are forbidden to be thrown in landfill such as NiCad batteries, other toxins. I do worry about the negative repercusions of buying trivial things, taking them home in plastic bags and throwing those bags in the landfill willy nilly. Who said it (Ben Franklin?): "Waste not, want not."

 

[godmare]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: godmare
http://www.greenfeet.com/recycle-by-numbers.html

That's good. So, I've been putting plastic bags into the landfill. Should I put them in my recycling container in hopes that something better will come from them?

Edit: Looks like the answer is that those bags will end up in the landfill either way. There's a link at the site to precycling. It cites my town (Berkeley, CA) and it's program to educate residents on the issues. They try to educate and change attitudes of "consumers." There are strategies you can adopt to reduce pollution problems.

That's odd... Because I don't consider many of the things that wind up in the landfill to be "pollution." I only consider it pollution when it's somewhere it's not intended to be.
Got something that won't break down and is going to last for 10's of 1000's of years? GOOD, stick it in the landfill. Heck, line the whole bottom of the landfill with the stuff and use it to seal off the landfill.

Furthermore, (I state this half jokingly, half seriously) - why recycle? Doesn't it make sense that our technology will increase in the future - thus our ability to recycle materials in the future will be better than our technology to recycle now? If so, then landfills my become the mines of the future! Reclaim former landfills by mining them and removing the recyclable materials that takes up a huge portion of them. (And, while the contents aren't changing, as technology increases, the proportion that becomes recyclable increases.) But, by recycling now, the proportion would be relatively low in the future, possibly not making it economically viable. But, if the landfills were filled with tons of aluminum and other recyclable scrap material, then they may be very profitable to mine in the future (50 or 100 years from now)

Except nothing improves without research and development, including recycling. Mining land fills in the future is an interesting idea, but the technology behind recycling will still need that 50-100 years of advancement.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: godmare
http://www.greenfeet.com/recycle-by-numbers.html

That's good. So, I've been putting plastic bags into the landfill. Should I put them in my recycling container in hopes that something better will come from them?

Edit: Looks like the answer is that those bags will end up in the landfill either way. There's a link at the site to precycling. It cites my town (Berkeley, CA) and it's program to educate residents on the issues. They try to educate and change attitudes of "consumers." There are strategies you can adopt to reduce pollution problems.

That's odd... Because I don't consider many of the things that wind up in the landfill to be "pollution." I only consider it pollution when it's somewhere it's not intended to be.
Got something that won't break down and is going to last for 10's of 1000's of years? GOOD, stick it in the landfill. Heck, line the whole bottom of the landfill with the stuff and use it to seal off the landfill.

Furthermore, (I state this half jokingly, half seriously) - why recycle? Doesn't it make sense that our technology will increase in the future - thus our ability to recycle materials in the future will be better than our technology to recycle now? If so, then landfills my become the mines of the future! Reclaim former landfills by mining them and removing the recyclable materials that takes up a huge portion of them. (And, while the contents aren't changing, as technology increases, the proportion that becomes recyclable increases.) But, by recycling now, the proportion would be relatively low in the future, possibly not making it economically viable. But, if the landfills were filled with tons of aluminum and other recyclable scrap material, then they may be very profitable to mine in the future (50 or 100 years from now)

Did you see that wonderful future in your "what if machine"?

Why do you think that digging cans out of a huge landfill will EVER be easier than recycling what is basically pure aluminum?

http://www.anchoragerecycling.com/alumfact.htm

# In 1994, Americans recycled 64.7 billion aluminum cans, two billion more than in 1993.
# Every minute of every day, an average of 123,097 aluminum cans are recycled. Today, the national average of aluminum can recycling is two out of every three cans.
# Tossing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring out half of that can's volume of gasoline.
# Making new aluminum cans from used cans takes 95 percent less energy and 20 recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.
# Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for almost four hours or run your television for three hours.

 

[godmare]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
more efficient use of energy to just throw it away

I won't argue with that. It may be true, at least in certain respects. Some times it's not smart to be too fastidious about things.

DrPizza's remarks, although probably not intended to be comical almost come off as Mark Twain style satire . Maybe they were presented as such (I guess so: "I state this half jokingly, half seriously"). I imagine it will never be profitable to mine landfills. What gets tossed away is gone. I do wonder about the pollution aspect of throwing some things in landfill. For one thing, there are some things that are forbidden to be thrown in landfill such as NiCad batteries, other toxins. I do worry about the negative repercusions of buying trivial things, taking them home in plastic bags and throwing those bags in the landfill willy nilly. Who said it (Ben Franklin?): "Waste not, want not."

If we have the technology to recycle things now, then we should be doing that- even if it is more environmentally costly from an energy standpoint. The reason for this is that we eventually (hopefully) will have better, non-petroleum sources of energy, on top of nuclear power already in use, and we will need the years of recycling 'practice' and mindset to continue to be effective with a less environmentally damageful energy source.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Recycling is never more energy intensive than making something from raw materials. The problem is that subsidies hide the true costs of raw material extraction and refining and the benefit of recycling.

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: jadinolf
I would suggest you contact your trash collection outfit for information because what they call recyclable will vary. My company issues a brochure telling what is acceptable and what is not.

As far as plastic is concerned, ours will only take narrow necked bottles with a 1 or a 2 in the triangle.

I figure there must be some online guide to what those symbols represent. Anyone know of any?

I think that the numbers mean HDPE high density polyethylene (different grades) but as usual I could be wrong.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: jadinolf

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: jadinolf
I would suggest you contact your trash collection outfit for information because what they call recyclable will vary. My company issues a brochure telling what is acceptable and what is not.

As far as plastic is concerned, ours will only take narrow necked bottles with a 1 or a 2 in the triangle.

I figure there must be some online guide to what those symbols represent. Anyone know of any?

I think that the numbers mean HDPE high density polyethylene (different grades) but as usual I could be wrong.

No you're right. See the previously linked http://www.greenfeet.com/recycle-by-numbers.html for the more or less full rundown.

 

[PandaBear]

I think there are some reasons that recycles are now consolidated in one bin:

1) Saving labor cost, the garbage man can now take one load from to the curb, without worrying about multiple load/unload from driveway to truck.
2) Easier garbage truck load management. If you have too much alum cans but not enough plastic bottles, or the other way around, you won't need to call another truck to come pick it p.
3) Makes life easier for residents and encourage recycles, thus easier to meet quotas mandates by government
4) You still need to hire people to sort through recycles in the plants just in case someone misplace stuffs, might as well do all the sorting in the plants, and move the plants to somewhere cheap

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: godmare
http://www.greenfeet.com/recycle-by-numbers.html

That's good. So, I've been putting plastic bags into the landfill. Should I put them in my recycling container in hopes that something better will come from them?

Edit: Looks like the answer is that those bags will end up in the landfill either way. There's a link at the site to precycling. It cites my town (Berkeley, CA) and it's program to educate residents on the issues. They try to educate and change attitudes of "consumers." There are strategies you can adopt to reduce pollution problems.

That's odd... Because I don't consider many of the things that wind up in the landfill to be "pollution." I only consider it pollution when it's somewhere it's not intended to be.
Got something that won't break down and is going to last for 10's of 1000's of years? GOOD, stick it in the landfill. Heck, line the whole bottom of the landfill with the stuff and use it to seal off the landfill.

Furthermore, (I state this half jokingly, half seriously) - why recycle? Doesn't it make sense that our technology will increase in the future - thus our ability to recycle materials in the future will be better than our technology to recycle now? If so, then landfills my become the mines of the future! Reclaim former landfills by mining them and removing the recyclable materials that takes up a huge portion of them. (And, while the contents aren't changing, as technology increases, the proportion that becomes recyclable increases.) But, by recycling now, the proportion would be relatively low in the future, possibly not making it economically viable. But, if the landfills were filled with tons of aluminum and other recyclable scrap material, then they may be very profitable to mine in the future (50 or 100 years from now)

Did you see that wonderful future in your "what if machine"?

Why do you think that digging cans out of a huge landfill will EVER be easier than recycling what is basically pure aluminum?

http://www.anchoragerecycling.com/alumfact.htm

# In 1994, Americans recycled 64.7 billion aluminum cans, two billion more than in 1993.
# Every minute of every day, an average of 123,097 aluminum cans are recycled. Today, the national average of aluminum can recycling is two out of every three cans.
# Tossing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring out half of that can's volume of gasoline.
# Making new aluminum cans from used cans takes 95 percent less energy and 20 recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.
# Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for almost four hours or run your television for three hours.

1. Remember, I said "half jokingly"

2. Aluminum isn't the only thing that's recycled. However, aluminum is often used as an example because production of aluminum is one of the more energy intensive processes for common goods.

3. your 3rd fact and 5th fact conflict with each other... half a can (assuming the normal 12 fluid ounce sized can) worth of gas is more than 4 times as much energy as a 100 watt light bulb uses in 4 hours. Not your fault; everyone wants to sensationalize their data, so they grab as many eye-catching "facts" as they can. Unfortunately, both cannot be facts at the same time.

Also, someone mentioned "Recycling is never more energy intensive than making something from raw materials. The problem is that subsidies hide the true costs of raw material extraction and refining and the benefit of recycling." Is that person ignoring subsidies to recycling though? Nonetheless, I disagree with that statement, particularly because of the word "never." I'm nearly certain it takes more energy to recycle many types of plastics than it takes to start from "scratch." Especially if one considers many of the raw materials to be by-products of the petroleum industry.

 

[habib89]

most things i just throw into the recycling bin.. trash is like food stuffs, and... well things that can't be recycled... all plastic, all paper, and all cans go into the recycling bin.. they can sort it out themselves.. and as for the bags, you can bring them all back to your local safeway and they'll recycle them..

 

[0roo0roo]

there was an interesting episode on recycling on bullsh*t only some reclycling like aluminum is actually worth it in terms of cost and energy saved.