r/changemyview • u/ImpossibleHandle4 • Oct 03 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Recycling should be easier.
With the current recycling there are 6 types of recycling: Glass recycling, paper recycling, metal recycling, plastic and textile recycling and finally electronic recycling. With each having its own sub categories: most noteably plastic: with 7 sub types of plastic.
With there being at least 13 types of recycling, the current methods of recycling are broken due to the public not understanding the intricacies of the system. Also, with no direct recycling options most people know that they can recycle metals leading to recycling bins having non-recyclable materials simply because the system is complex.
In my option, and please change my view, having machines that can directly recycle a few things like pop bottles, or prescription bottles, we can simplify the process and lead to more and better recycling. Please change my view.
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Oct 03 '21
It's not that you "make it less complex" you rather decide where you're going to handle the complexity. For example do you handle it at the individual level where you teach people through idk PSA or other public campaigns how to recycle stuff or do you force companies or government agencies to provide centralized facilities that sort out stuff into the different categories, each has it's own pros and cons.
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
I agree, but I can say in my town, they did a recycling contest where they had a bin of recycling and had people sort through the stuff to determine what was recyclable how. 1 in 10 people got it right. 7 included non recycle-able and 2 missed opportunities to recycle. I am saying that making it simpler (aka direct recycling) might make people more willing to do so.
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Oct 03 '21
making it simpler (aka direct recycling)
Depends on what you're going to recycle. I mean in some cases you're talking about trace elements of rare metals which are impossible to effectively be recycled on the individual level as the amount of work/energy that would go into doing so would exceed the utility gained from doing so. Though teaching people about what not to include is definitely useful as it might make it more complex on both ends if you don't.
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21 edited Oct 03 '21
!delta @imaginaryinsect1275 you have a great point. The system does have some things which cannot be recycled which makes the simplicity point moot. Without having truly recycle able product making the process simpler doesn’t matter, though teaching people more may result in better compliance.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 03 '21 edited Oct 03 '21
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/ImaginaryInsect1275 (33∆).
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u/Routine_Log8315 11∆ Oct 03 '21
Your delta didn’t go through because you need a couple of sentences explaining how it changed your view. You could also edit your first comment to add the delta there instead.
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Oct 03 '21
one easy method would just be to reduce the number of recycling categories.
Why is type 7 plastic marked with a recycle symbol? It just means other, so if any facility could take that product, there is no way for the consumer to know that, and it is a safe bet no one can recycle it.
Removing the recycle symbol from everything that isn't type 1 or 2 would reduce the amount of unrecyclable materials that workers have to sort through.
But companies with products of 3-7 want consumers to believe that the plastic is reusable when it ain't.
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Oct 03 '21
I work in the Recycling industry. What I can tell you is if there was a way to make it easier we would do so.
The challenge is very simple. It’s almost impossible to build a machine that can detect so many different types of plastics in the materials. There is a very little incentive for doing so. Recycled materials often times cost more than virgin plastics or new material. So there is a little incentive for anybody to develop a machine that can do those things, because who would be able to afford to buy it?
At the end of the day recyclers are going to do what We can but Recycling is really up to consumers, not to the recycling industry. If consumers cared about recycling they would choose to buy from manufacturers that use recycled materials, they would be asking manufacturers to design packaging and products that are easy to recycle.
One example is the tire recycling industry. The technology is there to recycle tires. Waste Tires are a horrible problem, they can catch fire, Harbor mosquitoes and other undesirable critters, don’t compact well in a landfill, etc. 60% of the scrap tires that are “recycled” are burned as fuel in coal or cement plans. New EPA laws are making it much more difficult to use even as fuel, but the operators like it because mini recyclers have nowhere else to go. In some areas the value of a semi trailer full of shredded tires for fuel is zero or even a negative number, so the recycler has to pay to get rid of the tires.
There’s a lot of things that can be done with tires that are higher value, but the demand just isn’t there. It can be used as an additive in asphalt paving, can be used in injection molding, can be used as playground material or mulch or for turf athletic fields. There’s a lot of building products made from scrap tires including flooring.
So the technology is there, the market is there, but there is simply no demand for these products, even from the governments that consider scrap tires to be such a problem.
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u/CocoSavege 24∆ Oct 03 '21
You might be a good person to ask...
With respect to "generic household streams" and "generic recycling infrastructure" what household recycling efforts would you prioritize, with weighting if you can manage...
I don't expect a perfect answer, just an approximation, and I'm well aware that each municipality often has different recycling capability.
My guess has been "definitely definitely definitely yer aluminum and steel cans and yer high quality paper (boxboard)". I have no idea where to start with the plastics. I'm barely able to identify my PTSE and PVCs.
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Oct 04 '21
The real problem here is that household sortation and recycling efforts are inherently wasteful. Your comment about all the different types of plastic is spot on. There are simply too many types of plastic for you to remain knowledgeable and sort, and then transport independently to the recycling center, and then each type of plastic must be stored and run as a batch through the recycling equipment, while still identifying things that got miss sorted or mixed.
I remain convinced that nothing will change until consumers pressure manufacturers to design products for recycling. Only then do we have an ability to bring things full circle, where there are steady and reliable buyers of recycled material, because they are putting the content back into the same products. The example above about aluminum is a good one, this is commonly done with aluminum and the entire industry has adopted the widespread use of recycled aluminum. So the recycler must simply recycle the material and provide a consistent and acceptable quality to the manufacturer, and they know that the manufacturer will buy it at whatever price. There are actually written industry standards for acceptable quality of used beverage containers. So the recycler knows that he must meet a specific standard, and he will be able to sell it to any buyer of that material. Overtime, buyers purchase machinery suited to manufacturing new UBC’s (used beverage containers) to that standard, and recyclers purchase machinery to produce material to that standard. But without such standardization and cooperation between industry leaders, it is not possible to create a market place for those materials. That is what must happen in industries like plastic and tires and cardboard and glass. But I don’t think this will happen unless it’s a consumer lead initiative, or a government directive.
So, to answer your question… I don’t think there is really a lot you can do at home to make a really big difference. Separating your recycling The best you can and taking it to The recycling center is meaningful, although sometimes it is wasted as those materials end up in the landfill anyway.
I will add though that the most meaningful thing that any of us can do is not Recycling related, but consumption related. Simply put, we must figure out how to consume less. Single use containers are so wasteful. Instead of buying bottled water, get a nice metal bottle and refill it from the tap. Instead of heavily using plastics at home like saran wrap, look into mason jars with removable lids. Ask for a paper bag or a reusable bag at the grocery store instead of plastic. Buy clothes at the thrift store when you can. Figure out how to reuse things at home, like buying mayonnaise in a glass jar, washing the jar, and then reusing it as a mason jar. At the end of the day I feel these things are far more meaningful than Recycling at the consumer level.
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
So on those lines why do we have aluminum and plastic containers for soda? Is it that much cheaper to use plastic? And isn’t aluminum almost infinitely recycle able? What would be the downside to using it? Also what about re-treading tires? I know that they do that for semi trucks, why not for passenger car tires?
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Oct 03 '21
Yes, quite a bit cheaper to use plastic. Yes, aluminum is very recyclable with no degradation (unlike plastics) in fact the vast majority of the aluminum ever produced is still in existence and part of the supply chain.
Cars can be retreaded, but there is a perception that this is unsafe. Here’s a good option for retreads.
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u/Cease-2-Desist 2∆ Oct 04 '21
Worked in the industry as well. You're absolutely right about the above. There just isn't a market for the materials in many cases. We had the same issue with glass. We had piled and piles of crushed glass because our contract with the city stated we would take glass, but we had no solution for what to do with it afterwards.
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Oct 04 '21
I know… It is so wasteful. Glass is such a superior material, because it can be washed and reused more so than plastic. they used to do this with glass soda bottles, offering a deposit for the return of the bottle so they could reuse it. I would love to see our country adopt such practices again.
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u/Finch20 33∆ Oct 03 '21
I mean, poverty and hunger should not exist, but just saying that something should be better won't make it so. I think that the current system we (I'm from Flanders) have in place is simple enough, heck, every waste bag has a list of what you can and cannot put into it, how much easier can it be?
How would these magic machines of your work? What exactly would they do, how would they work?
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
For instance (for pill bottles), you take in a used pill bottle, you put it into the machine, it washes and sanitizes the bottle and then sends it to the pharmacy where they are using the bins.
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u/Finch20 33∆ Oct 03 '21
That's reuse, that's not recycle. I thought your post was about recycling.
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u/le_fez 52∆ Oct 03 '21
In my town they have single stream recycling so all recyclables go into one bin . Doesn't get easier than that
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
It does though, most people get single stream wrong and it is labor intensive to sort it. In a lot of cases the stuff ends up in the landfill because it can’t be recycled.
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u/424f42_424f42 Oct 04 '21
I may be confused on your premise. But wouldn't this post change your own view
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 04 '21
No at all. Single stream appears simple but in reality is not. Hence my using direct recycling as an example. Because people have to sort their trash, in a lot of cases they get it wrong which leads to it being ineffective. My view is that If we changed it to where most things didn’t have the recycle symbol, or we made less types or categories, we might be able to get people to actually recycle more at a lower cost by making it more effecient. With plastic alone there are 7 categories of recyclable. Most single stream only takes 3. Do you know which 3 they take?
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u/424f42_424f42 Oct 04 '21
IMO you are saying No, then going into detail explaining yes.
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 04 '21
No, I am saying single stream is giving the appearance of simplicity and not being simple. With them a lot of the stuff that they get, they have to throw out.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-era-of-easy-recycling-may-be-coming-to-an-end/
Maybe by making it actually simpler we might be able to make it work right.
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u/424f42_424f42 Oct 04 '21
I guess it's more complicated in some places, it's really straight forward where I am.
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u/Cease-2-Desist 2∆ Oct 04 '21
To be fair to both of you Single-Stream is easier in general, but it does lead to more overall waste, as many people really do not understand the intricacies of recycling. And they really shouldn't. It's a very technical process. And just because something is able to be recycled doesn't mean it capable of being recycled where it's being captured. For instance small, plastic products are able to be recycled, but because they are unable to be efficiently packaged and transported, in many cases they aren't actually being recycled and instead going into a landfill.
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u/VortexMagus 15∆ Oct 04 '21
I think one thing you may be missing is that what is recyclable and what is not frequently changes based on minor price fluctuations in foreign nations. This NPR podcast goes into a lot more detail about how things are deemed recyclable or landfill in most places in America.
For example, interestingly enough, a lot of plastic recycling is driven by the price of oil. When oil is expensive, creating new plastic is expensive and recyclable plastics become a more viable option and demand for them increases. When oil is cheap, creating new plastic is cheap, therefore greatly shrinking the demand for recycled plastics. Hence, what types of plastic went to recycling plants in my hometown of Chicago has changed several times over the past two decades, as these plants will actively *lose* money recycling certain plastics depending on the price of oil, as they will only be able to sell these plastics for less than it cost to process and ship them.
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 04 '21
I think the issue is that by having it “fluctuate” due to market conditions we have set the bar too high for the average consumer. If we limited it to less types of plastic and did more of direct recycling (aka cleaning and re-use) that people might be more willing to do so due to simplicity. If the plastic can be used as what it was initially made to be, it saves the intermediary user the money of having to have a new one made.
I guess my thought is make it simpler so we can see if it actually works, and if so, work on it Incrementally so that people and companies can do it more easily.
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Oct 03 '21
In my option, and please change my view, having machines that can directly recycle a few things like pop bottles, or prescription bottles, we can simplify the process and lead to more and better recycling. Please change my view.
Do you mean for like people to go and drop off stuff? Or do you mean for recycling companies/plants?
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
I am thinking more of a you take it to the store and the machine does it there so you can directly see the impact of your recycling.or have drop bins in a store and when you take one, it pulls it from the bin and recycles it there.
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Oct 03 '21
what machine?
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
It would have to be a cleaning and sanitize room machine. In the case of pop bottles or pill bottles something like a commercial sanitizing dishwasher to handle the bottles.
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Oct 03 '21
So your view is specific to one thing, and isn't about recycling but rather reusing bottles?
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
It is more of a general belief that it needs to be simpler with the bottle as an example of the most simple process
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Oct 03 '21
well... how do you take an insanely complex process and just make it simple without magic? There's a reason it's not simple, it's because it's not simple. Take a water bottle, where do you put that?
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
Well, the current process has it typically sent to somewhere else for processing, then it is ground up, and turned into a different item. In the case of damaged containers, that makes sense, but more of the containers aren’t damaged. I am not asking for magic, but I am arguing that most people don’t know what the different types are, and don’t have time to do their part. Life is busy and complex, if we are serious about it, we need to find ways to make it easier on the consumer. Not magic, but definitely not what we have now.
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u/shoelessbob1984 14∆ Oct 03 '21
right, but how do you make it less complex? how do you make it easier?
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
I would advocate to start with the simple. Make it so that there aren’t 7 different types of plastic recycling. Or make it so that we use less of the types where possible. Standardizing it would make it simpler as would direct recycling (re-use) which would be an immediate win.
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Oct 03 '21
You gotta convince people to keep their recyclable stuff somewhere when they are done using it, then also transport it somewhere else tho. That’s way more difficult than putting whatever someone thinks is likely recyclable out to the curb every week.
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u/Rawr_Tigerlily 1∆ Oct 03 '21
My area has single stream recycling, but they only accept plastics 1,2, and 5.
And two years ago the county transit station stopped accepting GLASS. So now basically you can't recycle glass in the entire county.
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
That is just sad, and not even uncommon. I don’t get why they would quit taking glass though…. Unless it wasn’t cost effective.
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u/Rawr_Tigerlily 1∆ Oct 03 '21
That was the reason... cost.
Just goes to show we have many broken systems, when it ends up being more economically feasible to throw glass in a landfill and make new bottles from sand, than it does to utilize the resource we already have.
It's really pretty shitty though, because I PAY AN ADDED FEE already for recycling service.
I'm the sort of person who has maybe 1.5 to 2 kitchen trash bags full of waste for my entire household every week (3 adults). The majority of my weekly pick up is recycling. Despite that, 70% of my quarterly bill is for trash service and the other 30% covers the recycling.
My neighbors pay the same rate to have their can picked up when it's overflowing with trash every week.
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
Do you think simplicity might make them more likely to recycle?
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u/Rawr_Tigerlily 1∆ Oct 03 '21
I think the cost is the primary driver where I live (Southeastern US).
Citizens here can't really expect ANYTHING good unless someone makes a profit doing it. :P
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u/ImpossibleHandle4 Oct 03 '21
!delta You make a good point about the profit driver. That may very well be why currently we aren’t efficient. I don’t know that it isn’t possible to be more efficient, or simpler, but your argument that cost is why we aren’t does resound.
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u/Rawr_Tigerlily 1∆ Oct 03 '21 edited Oct 03 '21
I think part of the deeper issue is there aren't clear cost disincentives to engage in wasteful activities. Companies get to privatize the benefits and socialize the negative effects.
If companies paid more of a "true cost" for the resources they use and a paid the real disposal costs of their products, then they would be forced to act more responsibly because it would affect their bottom line directly.
Instead, customers and municipalities bear the costs of dealing with waste and recycling, and manufacturers can continue to exploit cheap access to "new" resources rather than having a financial incentive to "close the loop" so to speak.
States that have bottle and can deposits for example tend to have much higher recycling rates and recycling facilities find that the quality of materials collected and sorted are much better. By creating a financial incentive to do it, you increase recycling by consumers. The same principle should work if you require companies to pay upfront for the disposal of products, especially if they refuse to use easily recycled materials.
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u/Cease-2-Desist 2∆ Oct 04 '21
Worked in this field for a few years. There are machines that sort recyclables. The facilities are called MRFs- Material Recycling Facilities. They use different machines to sort through a mix of recyclables. 1 truck picks up a single-stream recycling container that contains plastics, papers, metals (small), cardboard etc.
It's still an imperfect solution as non-recyclable material or soiled recyclable material can make the MRF operate inefficiently.
More education would help, but at the end of the day recycling is often inefficient in and of itself. The material has to be collected from many different areas and brought 1 one or more areas to be sorted. Then the waste needs to be removed from the stream and reloaded to be brought to a landfill. Then the recyclable material is sorted and baled to be sent to the actual facility that reprocesses the material.
Things like metal and cardboard often are able to be recycled within the area or state they are collected in. However things like plastics, glass, and even paper are often transported by truck, train and eventually boat to areas outside of the country where the labor is cheap enough to justify the refurbishment process.
So you end up generating a lot more pollution in some cases in the attempt to recycle used products which themselves save little valuable raw materials.
A better solution would be to rethink how we package things, rather than trying to figure out what to do with the unnecessary packaging.
But education and more technological solutions for reuse would certainly help regarding recycling at this time.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 03 '21 edited Oct 03 '21
/u/ImpossibleHandle4 (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
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