Are we totally sure that China actually recycled the waste we sent them?
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There’s no crisis. Everything can be solved by spending a little money. Unfortunately a lot of people think recycling should earn a profit.
There’s no crisis. Everything can be solved by spending a little money. Unfortunately a lot of people think recycling should earn a profit.
Everything that is made should have recycling designed in. Not just a theoretical plan, but a plan that has already been implemented in the recycling centers.
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Reduce, Reduce, Reduce. Stop buying as much single-use plastic items. Obviously, it's impossible to stop buying anything plastic, as it's in everything we own but buying less STUFF is a great way to reduce the use of plastics. Americans already buy too much STUFF, just look at the thousands of thrift stores nationwide, many of them filled with barely worn clothing and lightly used items. The main theme of this article should be on reducing not building roads out of plastic bags.
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This is so much more of a productive focus than endless politics. Three cheers for more progress on sustainability.
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Life began in the oceans, crawled on land, then flew. But modern mankind has built & thrived in yet another realm. Ours is the uniquely human realm of trash.
Sure, in the occasional moment of self awareness we'll seize on some particular like a pipeline or featherweight shopping bags. But this perspective is as through a plastic straw, missing the larger reality of ubiquitous waste that is our comfortable lives. Lives civilized, organized, technology enabled, an original sin from which we cannot wishfully retrace our steps.
We the people of the landfill & CO2 have to redeem ourselves in situ.
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Tax cuts for corporations - the majority of them hardly pay any at all - who provably take back plastic and paper waste, recycle it and use it in their manufacturing processes.
Wouldn't that work?
Talk about making a virtue out of a necessity! No one is going to take our waste anyway so now we make it illegal to export.
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I do give cans and plastic bottles to recycler, while hoping the stuff is actually of benefit and does not go
Into land fill.
Congratulation to the Aussies indeed, especially
if the pictures and stories are ... actually not mere
Public relations fluff,
I hereby apologize for being cynical.
China no longer takes plastics plus whatever.
Thanks, Aussies, and please understand that I
genuinely honor y’all.
Those mini recycling factories are an innovation
that all the world needs desperately, at least as
I perceive complexity.
It seems sometimes to me that recycling is
futility because catch 22 could be f’in reality.
I’ve read that recycling newspapers utilizes
enormous water, and such makes me more
pessimistic than oughtabe allowed.
Meaning tragic-comedic a la ultimately absurdity, which is depressing as hades, sorry, good people.
"the waste-to-energy technique reduces the use of fossil fuels and cuts potential greenhouse gas emissions from decomposing waste." How does burning decomposing waste cut greenhouse gas emissions? I get that the burned waste can't oxidize further and therefore it has less "potential greenhouse gas emissions" but that is only because all the emissions have happened upon burning.
Is there a glib and all accepting vibe to this article? None of the solid waste problem we have is new. The solutions are quite obvious in that we didn't have these problems before inventing these materials that are causing the problems. Tax disposable items directly in proportion to their environmental destructiveness. Increase the tax as awareness and solutions develop. Stop using products that cannot be reused, like uranium.
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@Jiro SF when organic material (food waste, paper, even some clothing) decomposes naturally it emits a lot of methane, which is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. Burning the stuff only makes CO2 (as far as GHG are concerned), so the heating effect on the atmosphere is a bit less. Furthermore, burning trash displaces some fossil fuels that would be used for the same purpose; their extraction, refining and transportation create additional GHG that local organic waste doesn't. This is far from a perfect solution but it's not a bad intermediate step while we wait for truly zero-carbon solutions.
I agree completely that we need do de-incentivize the use of disposable packaging, single use containers, etc. Where I live, in Hawaii, plastic bags have been banned and you can see the effect. We also have a bottle bill and the result is far fewer beverage containers on roadsides, etc.
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In addition, household waste has no sulfur or mercury, so if it replaces coal, the exhaust has none of these other pollutants.
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It seems they can employ carbon capture methods at these waste to energy plants. That technology is still expensive though, last time I checked.
Unfortunately, the problem of recycling waste materials can't be solved exclusively through the market. An effective solution requires state regulation and taxation on some level, and that regulation must of necessity violate the shibboleths of neoliberal, free-market dogma. As such, globally effective recycling will consistently be opposed by the capitalist class as interfering in its ability to use and dispose of private property in any way it chooses. Only if capitalists can privatize recycling and make a high rate of profit in the process, with a minimum of taxation and regulation, will they be amenable to it. Minus that, they have and will continue to oppose all such efforts. This sets up a zero-sum class conflict that will need to be resolved in favor of state regulation if recycling is to be effective and our relationship to the biosphere made sustainable.
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Everyone is walking around with "to go" packaging because we have made it so convenient and cheap. The cost is externalized. Cities spend billions to collect and dispose of packaging that fast food enterprises create and market. The distributors take all the profit but externalize to society and the environment much of the cost.
This must stop.
We cannot continue to bury our silly selves under mountains of plastic waste. We can't keep dumping it into the seas.
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@Will. To Will and all other thoughtful comments regarding the first and most important of the RRR mantra: Reduce! Which means reduce using anything new, including packaging.
Actually there are now 4 Rs: REFUSE, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—in that order—which means refuse is most important for our future on this planet. Refuse packaging of any kind which can be done if we are thoughtful. Refuse bags at grocery & other outlets. Bring your own old nylon, cotton, or other fabric which will be good for years & years as one commenter pointed out. IF, and only if needed, get something new, but reduce your buying habits in every way possible. Reuse everything you have if it’s all possible, including REPAIRING things that otherwise would be thrown away or taken to resale places. Recycle comes as the last resort of those who have not done enough to radially reduce their carbon footprint.
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For any of these ideas, we need to look closely at the whole loop. Most the discussion here for "recycling" is actually "downcycling." It is not turning a coffee cup into another coffee cup, but rather into another useful product--but the reusability of the material is somewhat lessened. That second useful product will also need to be disposed of.
The use of trash in asphalts is interesting, but what happens to the plastics as the road deteriorates? Are we then just creating more microplastics? Is the road just a long, thin dump leaching into waterways?
Waste-to-energy plants produce toxic air pollution that has rendered some nearby farms unusable. Can the pollutants be scrubbed out of the exhaust?
I'm not placing a value judgment good or bad on any of these efforts. They're all a mixed bag. However, I do hope that we as a society can rigorously evaluate these proposals and come up with some solutions that we can definitively say are good for the environment.
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I had the same thought about the plastic roads. The inventions are good, but I wonder if there's been any studies on possible impacts 20 years from now.
2
I am encouraged to see efforts to create innovative ways to recycle and re-invent using waste materials. However, aren’t we missing addressing the real problem? We can no longer survive in a throw away world. I would like to see the attention, resources and investment in rethinking how we can live our lives without the to-go cup, paper bags, packaging....etc. this may be the only way to save the ocean and our planet.
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It wasn’t that long ago that beer distributors dropped off cases of beer and took back the empties to be washed and refilled. Drastically less energy used than dispatching trucks to pickup bottles that get sorted and then melted down for low grade re use.
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@Jim Flanagan In Germany the bottles are washed and reused.
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What did we do as shoppers years ago before plastic? I know there was paper for meat, paper bags and both light weight wood and cardboard boxes. Glass bottles are much heavier to ship and breaking a glass shampoo bottle in the shower isn’t good. We need to rethink packaging. Surely technology can come up with ideas. In the meantime part of the cost should be treatment of the packaging.
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@penney albany I'm old enough to remember that in the city, produce, "dry goods," even meats (a different store for each) were weighed and then wrapped in paper, if needed, at point of purchase, and my mom and aunts would bring their own bags, usually "knit" from cording or twine of some kind. Then again it was a block of ice that kept our food preserved (I remember the ice man coming once a week to place it at the bottom of our "ice box"), and every Sunday, drying racks were set up in the bedrooms for homemade pasta. Hmmm. Well, the cording and twine bags are still a good idea!
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I am fortunate to live in a town whose "household solid waste" goes to a facility that generates electricity with most of it.
It recycles what metals it can and, at the end of the process, about 15% of everything it takes in goes to a landfill. That 15% is ash left after combustion and stuff that just will not burn such as glass.
The plant has invested in technology that grinds industrial-grade carpeting so that it can now be burned. It used to all go to a landfill.
The plant happily takes plastics made from petroleum products because of the high heat value.
The facility regularly wins praise from the EPA for the clean air that exits its stacks.
The plant is 30 years old but the corporation that owns it is constantly modernizing it.
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Sounds great. What is the name of your town?
2
Copenhagen also converts all the the waste of Norway into electricity. The high tech modern building that does so is very environmentally “clean”.
Also, the tall, curved building is an Olympic caliber ski run: As soon as the outdoor temperature drops enough, artificial snow si pumped onto the roof of the building, and people come to ski. Many citizens live 10 minutes away from this same ski run where the Danish Olympic ski team does some of their training.
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Recycling was never going to save the world.
People need to reduce what they use. Stop accepting paper cups - carry a resale mug for pity sake! Don't give me the excuse about how hard that is when you travel. It's a minor thing after you acquire the habit. Here's a stupid health code: If I offer my reusable mug for a coffee on the PA Turnpike, the clerk isn't allowed to refill it directly. She must fill a disposable cup and then dump the coffee into my mug because of health laws. Really?
Reusable grocery bags have been available for 30 years. People who whine about how dirty they are are making excuses for not making the effort to reduce plastic usage. Wash the darn bags occasionally, OK?
Relax the health laws that caused bulk bins to disappear from stores. I used to (30 years ago) fill up a reusable container with dried beans, flour, cornmeal, etc. Now I have to purchase the products encased in excessive packaging.
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@B Dawson. All good points. If you want to fix this issue a good start is making the store take back all the packaging we are forced to buy with their products. They then have to give it back to the company they got it from who is forbidden to dump it. A solution would come quickly after it was piled up in the CEOs office. Incidentally I've have the same rugged nylon reusable bags for decades. I routinely wash them (when needed) and carry them in the car. It's not that much trouble and they've never torn on the way from the car to the house. I never get coffee except in my thermo mug. None of this is going to in itself is going to save us or the planet, but every day needs to a small step.
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@B Dawson Instead of the thin plastic bags -- or paper bags, for that matter (trees!!!!) -- at the supermarket's produce aisle, I've started using a cotton bag that looks like it's made from an open fishing net. It's very sturdy and washable. All I have to do at the cash register is reach in and lay the produce on top of the bag so the items can be scanned. Easy. And best of all, no plastic!
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If all plastic container were made of completely clear, uncolored plastic with an easily removable paper label. Recycling would be much easier and less expensive. I don't need a purple bottle for shampoo. Clear would work just fine. This would only require new regulations with a phase-in period to allow producers to adjust. Just one suggestion.
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@memosyne Dyes are by no means the only plastic variable, there are hundreds of types of plastic with a wide range of properties. A typical Tide container has nearly a dozen different types of plastic. Making everything clear wouldn't do anything.
2
Terrific. Why aren't our "leaders" leading on this? Every plastic bag should cost 1$ For example. If we're going to make a mess with packaging we should have to clean it up. It is estimated the oceans will be more plastic than fish in 30 years. Why? Because the environment subsidizes throwing things away. As an analogy, if you want to cure tail pipe emissions, pipe them into the passenger compartment of the car. Every thing we use should have a worked out pathway to be: reused, recycled or conserved in some way before its allowed to be sold. Throwing our trash over our shoulder and forgetting about it was never a good idea but responsibly and sustainably using our resources has to be part of any future economy.
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I know my idea sounds crazy, but we are melting the glaciers and destroying habitat for arctic creatures including polar bears. Mosty plastic waste floats - local marinas have bigdock platforms made of what appears to be recycled plastic. Can't someone make blocks of plastic for the arctic, designed for the use and comfort of arctic creatures? Then, when we get smarter and better at proper recycling, and the glaciers start coming back, we could mine our fake icebergs for materials.
1