Is recycling beneficial to the environment or just a "feel good" activity?

mr_fegelien

I grew up in a third world country where recycling is non-existent. I first learned of it when coming to the States in the mid-noughties. It seems practiced a lot in the Western World.

I saw an article a few years back that most stuff recycled from U.S., Canadian, European households just goes to a landfill in China.

Given how expensive recycling facilities are and the unproven benefit to the environment, is there really a point? Should our governments stop funding it?

Eric Cartman

returnable glass bottles absolutely are a benefit. Recycling aluminium cans absolutely is a benefit and recycling paper/cardboard is a benefit.

Throwing plastic into your recycling bin is just separating it to be packed up and sent to third world countries or china where it ends up in somebody elses landfill or river, saving waste providers and the country money. If anything "recycling" plastic does more harm to poor people than recycling all the other things does good for us.

EmmetSpiceland

Eric Cartman wrote: »

returnable glass bottles absolutely are a benefit. Recycling aluminium cans absolutely is a benefit and recycling paper/cardboard is a benefit.

Throwing plastic into your recycling bin is just separating it to be packed up and sent to third world countries or china where it ends up in somebody elses landfill or river, saving waste providers and the country money. If anything "recycling" plastic does more harm to poor people than recycling all the other things does good for us.

The companies we have here are there to make money. Very little “green agenda”.

L1011

Eric Cartman wrote: »

returnable glass bottles absolutely are a benefit. Recycling aluminium cans absolutely is a benefit and recycling paper/cardboard is a benefit.

Throwing plastic into your recycling bin is just separating it to be packed up and sent to third world countries or china where it ends up in somebody elses landfill or river, saving waste providers and the country money. If anything "recycling" plastic does more harm to poor people than recycling all the other things does good for us.

There are actually recyclers of specific format plastics here, Shabra in Castleblayney for instance. Whereas we have to export all the glass cullet.

Quite a lot of it otherwise just keeps it clean and easier to seperate for burning in Ringsend or Platin.

Thelonious Monk

I think it's mostly a waste of time with plastic. The only way we can save the Earth is if we produce and consume less, which would mean changing our entire economic systems and ways of life and that's not happening any time soon.

Eric Cartman

L1011 wrote: »

There are actually recyclers of specific format plastics here, Shabra in Castleblayney for instance. Whereas we have to export all the glass cullet.

Quite a lot of it otherwise just keeps it clean and easier to seperate for burning in Ringsend or Platin.

really, I thought the returnable glass from pubs was just cleaned and refilled ? I know all the bring centre glass is exported but I think returnable glass crates Ala Germany may be the way to go for more recycling.

must look into shabra.

L1011

Eric Cartman wrote: »

really, I thought the returnable glass from pubs was just cleaned and refilled ? I know all the bring centre glass is exported but I think returnable glass crates Ala Germany may be the way to go for more recycling.

must look into shabra.

Certain pub glass is reused - look for the wear marks on the haunches of the bottle from being repeatedly run through bottling lines. Bulmers etc pint bottles are definitely

I would be absolutely delighted with Germany style crates. I buy enough from a local brewery as it is.

Pa ElGrande

Most if it cannot be "recycled" and rather than having to pay to ship it out to South East Asia where it is dumped in landfill or burned the obvious solution for "recycled plastic" is to convert it back to oil or other useful chemical compounds and that is probably the only direction open.

Recycling plastics back into oil

Chemical Recycling 101

There is a UK startup called Recycling Technologies if you have some spare cash to invest.



Brace yourself: EU faces “massive flood of plastic waste” after UN export restrictions

16 May 2019 --- Dr. Mikko Paunio of the University of Helsinki has warned that the UN’s decision to regulate waste plastic as hazardous and restrict exports will unleash a “surge of waste” on many EU countries. Paunio urges a rapid expansion of waste incineration capacity to stop the plastic waste problem turning into a public disaster.

Last Friday, a total of 187 countries voted to add hard-to-recycle plastic waste to the Basel Convention, a UN-led treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another. Exporters will now be required to obtain consent from recipient countries before shipping plastic waste that cannot be readily recycled. It is a strategy designed to curb the overwhelming buildup of plastic waste in Global South nations, particularly in Southeast Asia.

source

We may well have some more fires at the depots yet when there is no place to send it but the sky, converting it to oil or polymers seems the most viable solution.

JasonStatham

Yeah like we can recycle all we want but Asian countries are just going to flood the sea with plastic.

OH OH OH, I hear you saying.... racist. Well it's the goddamn truth and I don't give a damn. Haha.

Damien360

Recycling with a cash return (obviously you paid for that return already) for all cans, bottles, plastics would cut down a lot of dumping currently going on beside street bins. Domestic rubbish and cans are routinely left beside estate bins by lazy ****es. Was in Netherlands last year and there was a plastic bottle return (had to be kept pristine shape) in stores. Money back was the incentive to recycle. Aluminium cans got the same treatment. It did seem to be linked to the store you purchased from, as you couldn’t bring any bottle back as it scanned barcodes.

As for plastic recycling ending up in China, that was true for a long time until just a couple of years ago. A short film was shown in China of a child living amongst the rubbish in filthy water surrounded by the worlds plastic waste. It horrified the Chinese and they stopped taking the worlds plastic. To be honest, I don’t know where it ends up now. The publication ended with the story that it was returned to sender.

Thelonious Monk

JasonStatham wrote: »

Yeah like we can recycle all we want but Asian countries are just going to flood the sea with plastic.

OH OH OH, I hear you saying.... racist. Well it's the goddamn truth and I don't give a damn. Haha.

We are the ones dumping our dirty plastic problem on Asia by the boatload.

Thelonious Monk

Damien360 wrote: »

It horrified the Chinese and they stopped taking the worlds plastic. To be honest, I don’t know where it ends up now. The publication ended with the story that it was returned to sender.

We're still sending it out to Asia
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/plastic-for-recycling-from-europe-being-dumped-in-asian-waters-irish-study-1.4292873

Curious_Case

mr_fegelien wrote: »

I grew up in a third world country where recycling is non-existent. I first learned of it when coming to the States in the mid-noughties. It seems practiced a lot in the Western World.

I saw an article a few years back that most stuff recycled from U.S., Canadian, European households just goes to a landfill in China.

Given how expensive recycling facilities are and the unproven benefit to the environment, is there really a point? Should our governments stop funding it?

Great question!

I haven't read through the thread but I think recycling has many benefits.

The number of people employed in recycling centres would be required in the waste collection sector anyway if the same volume of recycled material was diverted towards waste disposal.

Obviously cheaper & cleaner to melt existing glass. Same for metals.
Not so sure about paper, I think it requires a lot of bleaching.
Better to have plastics collected & recycled rather than ending up in the oceans (especially true for bottle tops).
Hugely beneficial to have somewhere to bring motor & cooking oils too.
Recycling centres keep many hazardous materials out of landfill, batteries, paints, lightbulbs, etc.
Somewhere to bring printer drums & cartridges too !!

Pa ElGrande

Damien360 wrote: »

Recycling with a cash return (obviously you paid for that return already) for all cans, bottles, plastics would cut down a lot of dumping currently going on beside street bins.

You will have to pay them to take it, the market has collapsed.

Plastic waste piling up at recycling companies

Plastic Wars: Industry Spent Millions Selling Recycling — To Sell More Plastic

Markcheese

Plastic really has to be separated properly to be recycled , and even then the current systems aren't great ... There are new systems on the way that basically bring it back to its base ingredients ,

Should we be bulk landfilling clean plastics so they can be "mined " and reprocessed when the tech is up and going in 10 - 20 years time ?

Pa ElGrande

Markcheese wrote: »

Should we be bulk landfilling clean plastics so they can be "mined " and reprocessed when the tech is up and going in 10 - 20 years time ?

It becomes a Fire hazard.

Gradius

It's the equivalent of being persecuted for not picking up a bit of paper in your otherwise very tidy little garden.

Meanwhile your neighbour is dumping barrels of nuclear waste into their garden.

But the environment doesn't have borders, so it's more like the neighbour tipping nuclear waste into your garden as well as his. But only you get penalised for it.

Ireland doing anything while the likes of the USA, and especially China, just don't give a shoite is the pinnacle of pointless endeavour.

Sad, but entirely accurate. It's a tax by a different name.

El Tarangu

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I think it's mostly a waste of time with plastic. The only way we can save the Earth is if we produce and consume less, which would mean changing our entire economic systems and ways of life and that's not happening any time soon.

While you are right in a way, there are other things one can do as a consumer.

For example - I find SuperValu (hope it's ok to mention them by name) the literal worst supermarket for excess packaging - selling a small piece of ginger in a non-recyclable cellophane tray, wrapped in loads of clingfilm (I mean ginger - takes forever to go off, and you are always going to cut off the outer bit anyway...)

So, I do my shopping elsewhere now - if everyone made a small change like that, we could reduce the amount of waste plastic by a fair chunk anyway.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/18/atlantic-ocean-plastic-more-than-10-times-previous-estimates

Damn asians polluting our atlantic. They're finding plastic in human organs too.
I just dont even care any more we dont deserve this planet.

Markcheese

Pa ElGrande wrote: »

It becomes a Fire hazard.

Was that the "processing" facility or the land fill that went up , ? recycling facilities seem to go up in smoke frequently ,
If its baled tightly ,and then stored under soil without air it should be safe enough ,
But yeah if you had hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic sitting around waiting for some future magic date when it's viable to reprocess it ,it could be a risk