View Full Version : Recyclable Plastic Is A Lie!
GeorgeParker
1-27-21, 3:48pm
A program on National Public Radio recently referenced and recapped the 4-part PBS Frontline documentary, Plastic Wars: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/
The bottom line is that all five points made in that documentary are still true:
Virtually all plastic products and plastic containers have a recycle symbol on them.
That symbol is there because the plastics industry wanted to improve their image by fooling everyone into thinking plastic is recyclable.
The only plastic that really get recycled is milk jugs and soft drink bottles.
All the other plastic ends up in a landfill because recycling those other types of plastic is so difficult and expensive that it's a lot cheaper to make new plastic instead of recycling the old plastic.
Putting those non-recyclable plastics in your recycle bin hurts the recycling process because the recycling companies have to spend money sorting them out from the recyclable milk jugs and soft drink bottles and disposing of them.
So for the most part everything you see and hear about recycling plastic is a plastics industry propaganda lie.
If there are any local programs where you know for a fact that other types of plastic actually get recycled with a lower environmental impact than making new plastic. Feel free to contradict both me and Frontline.
ApatheticNoMore
1-27-21, 4:38pm
On one hand it makes life easier as one doesn't have to try to clean and recycle plastic anymore.
Although I have done pretty much NO recycling of anything the whole pandemic. It's freeing. Usually the only way I can recycle is take recyclables over to my mom's house, but I stopped that over worry of fomite transmission, which turns out kind of not to be a thing. So I guess I'll try to recycle non-plastic again. But woohoo never washing out another plastic container ever.
The biggest scam ever is California CRV, they charge us a tax on bottles/cans to recycle stuff, so it's a tax, but left recycling places in private hands and they all were unprofitable and closed down, so we're still paying taxes, that are allegedly refundable, with no way to ever get one's money back.
Recycling of many materials appears to be a scam.
https://zerowastechef.com/2019/11/13/recycling-scam/
On the island here, our waste flow is very visible, and an object of community interest. All garbage and recycleable materials have to be removed from the island at some considerable expense, and the organization that does that is pretty transparent about their costs/issues.
I comfort myself in thinking that landfills will some generations from now be wonderful sources of concentrated resources, and mined by whoever survives us. I don't waste any of my precious life energy engaging in hairshirt environmentalism.
It keeps coming back to what one brings into one's life or home and the frequency of doing so. Choose wisely from the start and continually. I do a lot of composting of plant matter and strive to bring in as little landfill materials as is possible.
early morning
1-27-21, 6:30pm
Just this week, I got a note from our trash people that they are now taking more plastics, including cottage cheese type tubs, along with the soda and milk jugs. We recycle at lot, but most of it's cardboard and paper, which I'd work on composting over trashing, if it comes to that! We already use cardboard on parts of the barn "floor", where it just disintegrates. I shred paper for mulch, too. It's not pretty but it works. I try to NOT buy things I can't reuse or recycle. Plastic bags go to a grocery that accepts them, even though we don't shop there. I hate trash!!
Recycling of many materials appears to be a scam.
https://zerowastechef.com/2019/11/13/recycling-scam/
On the island here, our waste flow is very visible, and an object of community interest. All garbage and recycleable materials have to be removed from the island at some considerable expense, and the organization that does that is pretty transparent about their costs/issues.
I comfort myself in thinking that landfills will some generations from now be wonderful sources of concentrated resources, and mined by whoever survives us. I don't waste any of my precious life energy engaging in hairshirt environmentalism.
I am beyond recycling at this stage of life, having done it for decades--and I'm suspicious of how much (if any) good I've done over all. So, though I'll continue to half-heartedly bundle stuff up, I have the same thoughts you do. Landfills will be the midden heaps of the future, and will give archaeologists much to contemplate.
I am beyond recycling at this stage of life, having done it for decades--and I'm suspicious of how much (if any) good I've done over all. So, though I'll continue to half-heartedly bundle stuff up, I have the same thoughts you do. Landfills will be the midden heaps of the future, and will give archaeologists much to contemplate.
The 21st century "pit bing" (https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/pit_bing)
My local recycling center requires everything to be pre-sorted and only takes #1, #2 and #5 plastics. I'd like to think that pre-sorted indicates there is some recycling value, but that's an assumption I'll continue to separate and save plastics. I have my doubts about single stream recycling and suspect only limited amounts of their total volume gets recycled.
Where I am soda bottles have a deposit and if you put them in your recycling bin someone will come by and take them out long before the trash truck shows up.
Where I am soda bottles have a deposit and if you put them in your recycling bin someone will come by and take them out long before the trash truck shows up.
We have 3 choices up here: 1) take bottles and cans to the local transfer station; 2) bring bottles and cans to the redemption center. 3) Bring bottles and cans down to Burlington and put them all in front of my son's apartment and within a half hour they are all gone.
When I can I always take Option 3.
ApatheticNoMore
1-27-21, 9:01pm
People have even stopped taking bottles from the trash as much as it's gotten so hard to redeem them. Used to be largely homeless and very poor redeeming stuff as recycling places kept closing and lines increasing for the remaining places until it got to the point you would have to be quite poor to be willing spend hours for a few $. But then all those recycling places closed too ..
So yea if you drive 20 miles out somewhere and get there in the exact right timeframe (and they will close before the time they say and tell you "we have already taken too many bottles") you might be able to recycle. Or you might have drove out somewhere for nothing, come back another day.
Teacher Terry
1-28-21, 12:09am
I have been recycling forever. When I lived in my first condo I kept it in my second bedroom and drove it somewhere and then sorted it. I will only have one bedroom now and don’t intend to bother. So for the first time in 35 years I will be throwing it away.
I grew up in Michigan that’s had 10 cent deposits on plastic, glass, and aluminum beverage containers since sometime in the 70s, I think. Actually it’s the single serve containers. I can’t remember if things like 2 liters have the deposit.
I wish everywhere would do it. Really reduced the amount of trash.
happystuff
1-28-21, 11:13am
I often imagine how the whole consumption/packaging/trash issues would change if everyone had to keep and personally deal with all of their own trash. Imagine if the landfill was actually your own back yard. I know my own purchasing, reusing and composting habits would definitely change.
I often imagine how the whole consumption/packaging/trash issues would change if everyone had to keep and personally deal with all of their own trash. Imagine if the landfill was actually your own back yard. I know my own purchasing, reusing and composting habits would definitely change.
I like that, happy. Because it actually is your own back yard--all the earth, so if we could just spread this kind of awareness, that would be great.
I confess I am currently wearing socks made of recycled plastic, so I know it does get used to some extent.
catherine
1-28-21, 12:04pm
What fascinates me is how plastics have really not been around very long--not even mainstream until the mid-20th century, really. But look what's happened in 100 years... the despoiling of so many natural resources.
It is too late to put the genie back in the bottle. How do you go back to a synthetic-less world?? So the goal starts with the refusing reducing, reusing, and repurposing of plastics where we can. Those practices are completely asynchronous with a capitalist society, however. New toys WILL be made and and people WILL purchase them. How do we step out of being part of the problem, when we recycle our bottles, but jump to upgrade our iPhones? When we use our Chinese take-out containers for left-overs, but buy boxes of ziplock bags when fabric covers will do. When we go to the recycling centers with our paper and bottles and cans, but the local manufacturing plant is busy extracting fossil fuels in order to provide hospitals with latex gloves, kids with Hot Wheels and building blocks, and restaurants with take-out packets?
Bans on straws and bottles seems like a drop in the bucket. I think our efforts have to be centered on harm mitigation. Corraling plastics out of the Pacific and developing technologies for truly biodegradable materials.
I just bought ground coffee that was provided in a cardboard tube. It was a good idea, and cute, too. Thinking differently will help, but it will take the people to care.
SteveinMN
1-28-21, 12:51pm
How do we step out of being part of the problem, when we recycle our bottles, but jump to upgrade our iPhones? When we use our Chinese take-out containers for left-overs, but buy boxes of ziplock bags when fabric covers will do. When we go to the recycling centers with our paper and bottles and cans, but the local manufacturing plant is busy extracting fossil fuels in order to provide hospitals with latex gloves, kids with Hot Wheels and building blocks, and restaurants with take-out packets?
The whole thing is crazy-making, and the pandemic isn't helping.
DW and I have been getting takeout from local independent restaurants at least once a week to try to keep those folks afloat. The food comes in disposable containers because they can't/don't hand us some ceramic plates and say "bring 'em back, please!" Some of the containers are "recyclable"; some are black plastic, which is verboten here regardless of the plastics number stamped on it but don't it make the food look nice? Some of the containers are "commercial composting only" which tells me that if I put it in our compost bin, I'll fish out most of that container in a year or so. Commercial composting has been discussed in my city for years now; the closest they've come is a few bins at the sites where we can dump our leaves and brush (but where we also can get free compost and mulch).
So our desire to create a low-carbon footprint would have us pass on getting takeout. But that hurts restaurants we'd like to visit in person when the pandemic subsides and particularly hurts people who are much lower on the economic pole than we are and who may not readily find someplace else to work when the restaurant "closed for remodeling". We can try to choose only restaurants that offer truly recyclable packaging (and, while we're at it, local food that doesn't have thousands of road and air miles on it before we even see it), but that adds a few more layers to the logistics and doesn't help the tiny place just trying to get by.
It's just really hard to try to honor so many priorities. Meanwhile, too many people are just dropping their used disposable masks on the street or in the parking lot and filling their trash containers to overflowing. So we get our takeout ... and toss it in our trash if we have to.
The genie is out of the bottle. For every little step that can be taken, like banning straws, tons of pretty much everything are wasted in factories assembling goods and transporting them to points of sale. imho we have to start becoming more efficient from the top down, but unless that pays those who need to become more efficient, it's not going to happen.
GeorgeParker
1-28-21, 1:09pm
Capitalism functions by selling stuff at a profit.
Selling stuff requires convincing people to buy it.
Most stuff being sold isn't something that people really need.
Therefore companies have to convince people that they need things that aren't really a basic necessity.
If you interfere with this cycle by telling people they don't really need all that stuff, you'll wreck the economy and put a lot of people out of work.
And people who lose their job can't afford to buy unnecessary stuff.
So everybody please keep quiet about it and pretend we don't see that man behind the curtain pulling levers and pushing buttons.
I saw a woman just lose it at the grocery store last weekend when she was told she couldn’t have her groceries packed in her reusable bags. She was told she could pack groceries herself out at her car and she threw a fit at this suggestion. I live in a pretty affluent suburb, and entitled twits are all over the place.
Mariano’s, a Chicago area chain owned by Kroger, has the really nice paper bags with handles, like you also can get at TJs or WF. Wish the other stores offered them. My senior friend I shop for prefers paper bags for her trash. I’ll pass all I have along to her.
The food banks in my area aren’t taking plastic bags due to covid. They only want paper.
GeorgeParker
1-28-21, 1:17pm
I live in a pretty affluent suburb, and entitled twits are all over the place.If someone tries to do the right civic-minded thing to help the environment and is upset when told she can't do it and is further annoyed by the ridiculous suggestion that she repack her purchases at her car (which defeats the whole purpose of having re-usable bags), I'd call that a normal reasonable response. The twit in this case is not her.
Are your stores not refusing to pack in reusable bags due to covid? They are here.
happystuff
1-28-21, 1:40pm
My grocery store still allows you to bring in your reusable grocery bags, however the employees are not allow to pack groceries into those. I have no problem with that as I prefer to pack my own groceries anyway. I know how things fit into my bags. :)
The whole thing is crazy-making, and the pandemic isn't helping.
DW and I have been getting takeout from local independent restaurants at least once a week to try to keep those folks afloat. The food comes in disposable containers because they can't/don't hand us some ceramic plates and say "bring 'em back, please!" Some of the containers are "recyclable"; some are black plastic, which is verboten here regardless of the plastics number stamped on it but don't it make the food look nice? Some of the containers are "commercial composting only" which tells me that if I put it in our compost bin, I'll fish out most of that container in a year or so. Commercial composting has been discussed in my city for years now; the closest they've come is a few bins at the sites where we can dump our leaves and brush (but where we also can get free compost and mulch).
So our desire to create a low-carbon footprint would have us pass on getting takeout. But that hurts restaurants we'd like to visit in person when the pandemic subsides and particularly hurts people who are much lower on the economic pole than we are and who may not readily find someplace else to work when the restaurant "closed for remodeling". We can try to choose only restaurants that offer truly recyclable packaging (and, while we're at it, local food that doesn't have thousands of road and air miles on it before we even see it), but that adds a few more layers to the logistics and doesn't help the tiny place just trying to get by.
It's just really hard to try to honor so many priorities. Meanwhile, too many people are just dropping their used disposable masks on the street or in the parking lot and filling their trash containers to overflowing. So we get our takeout ... and toss it in our trash if we have to.
You're so right. As much as we want to "do the right thing"--is the right thing saving the landfill from one more plastic container, or supporting your local business? The problem is, at this point in our culture, if we look at our lives, we can say we are, like our no-iron clothes, a polyester blend--the fabric of our lives is half organic, half synthetic. Pulling out the synthetic part would create for us a different life. If I decided to give up plastic, I couldn't even write this post. I couldn't take the call I'm due on in 4 minutes. I would have to turn off most of my lamps, strip my beds, get rid of 3/4 of my clothes, throw out my band-aids, medications in pill bottles, my ball-point pens, my gardening gloves, ... the list goes on and on.
iris lilies
1-28-21, 3:56pm
Omg Steve, yes! All of the damn packaging for the takeout! Oh dear lord. It’s horrible I can’t stand it.
A little bakery opened up about eight months ago and I try to buy something from them every two weeks. I’ve learned to take my own containers. For dry stuff and bakery stuff yeah you can bring your own containers, but ubiquitous Styrofoam for actual dinners seems to be the norm. However I will say my upscale restaurant around the corner does not do styrofoam Because the owner knows her clientele frown on that. She uses a wax coated cardboard for all her outtake dinners.
And then, there’s all the Amazon boxes and packing materials that are happening here during Covid.
It’s really sickening and I am contributing to it, I admit it.
iris lilies
1-28-21, 4:00pm
Recycling of many materials appears to be a scam.
https://zerowastechef.com/2019/11/13/recycling-scam/
On the island here, our waste flow is very visible, and an object of community interest. All garbage and recycleable materials have to be removed from the island at some considerable expense, and the organization that does that is pretty transparent about their costs/issues.
I comfort myself in thinking that landfills will some generations from now be wonderful sources of concentrated resources, and mined by whoever survives us. I don't waste any of my precious life energy engaging in hairshirt environmentalism.
I know, but I will bet, bae, if you were producing waste packing materials at the rate I am producing them, you would have some feels about it. Rational or not, practical or not, I feel like a pig.
I mentioned elsewhere that DH has recently “spoke” to me about excessive consumption. He’s concerned about money. But I am paying attention to what he saying because well I’m not concerned about money, I am concerned about bringing too much crap into our house and not liking or taking care of the crap I bringing in.
GeorgeParker
1-28-21, 4:18pm
Are your stores not refusing to pack in reusable bags due to covid? They are here.If there is a rule/law that says they can't do it, they need to figure out how to tell people that in a logical undeniable manner that makes the customer feel like the clerk understands and sympathizes with them but unfortunately they can't do what the customer wants them too do.
As soon as the clerk says to just take the regular bags and move everything to the reusable bags when you get to your car, that's an obvious tip off that the clerk is clueless about why you want to use reusable bags, and that's the point at which I would yell for the manager and tell the manager to put everything back on the shelf because I'm not buying anything in this store.
Personally I've never run into that situation because I do self-checkout and use the minimum number of plastic bags, leaving things that are in boxes, etc unbagged.
But the whole idea of not being able to bag your own groceries with reusable bags is silly. The products you buy and the plastic bags the clerk puts them in are just as likely to have Covid on them as your reusable bags are.
So if it's the law you have to go along with it, but if the clerk is just being obtuse for some reason, that a whole other story.
ApatheticNoMore
1-28-21, 4:23pm
Before covid I had a clerk thank me for washing my resuable bags (uh) as she got mites from reusable bags or so she thought. Yea ok I get it, you don't like reusable bags!!!
Now during covid packing my own bags would require me to stand closer to the checkout clerk etc.. yea nah doubt they really want that, so I just take what bags they have (I ask for paper if I can get them, paper bag shortage is also a covid thing though so sometimes they only have plastic). And yes I then use the paper bags as my garbage bags, so they aren't actually single use at all. Greener than buying plastic trash bags.
rosarugosa
1-28-21, 4:30pm
We are able to use our reusable bags like in pre-pandemic times. There was a brief period where we could not, but that was awhile ago.
Teacher Terry
1-28-21, 4:31pm
The grocery stores here can’t pack groceries in reusable bags either because of COVID. Most have signs up.
GeorgeParker
1-28-21, 5:21pm
I then use the paper bags as my garbage bags, so they aren't actually single use at all. I use the plastic grocery store bags as trash bags in my tiny bathroom trash can, which they fit perfectly.
rosarugosa
1-29-21, 6:45am
I use the plastic grocery store bags as trash bags in my tiny bathroom trash can, which they fit perfectly.
I use them to pick up trash on my walks. It's nice if we can get a second use out of them.
Teacher Terry
1-29-21, 8:59am
I reuse the grocery plastic bags for bathroom garbage and when I used to walk noki. Now the babies poops are so tiny I use a Kleenex. I also use them when I give things to people as the bag.
happystuff
1-29-21, 11:22am
We reuse what few plastic bags we get for our regular kitchen garbage. We don't seem to generate a whole lot and I actually got a trash can specifically for using those types of plastic bags.
We are able to use our reusable bags like in pre-pandemic times. There was a brief period where we could not, but that was awhile ago.
That's my experience, too. I always pack my own bags, and for a time I had to keep them in the cart while packing them. The bags couldn't touch the surface of the checkout counter.
Early on we couldn’t bring reusable bags but now we can as long as we pack them ourselves.
Having watched clerks dealing with everyone’s reusable bags during pre-covid times I can see why clerks hate them. Everyone’s bags are different size, different texture, firmness, etc. using them undoubtedly slows the clerk down. I’ve always wondered why every store doesn’t have checkout counters like the wegmans we used to go to in NJ. It was set up so that the clerk scanned the item and then set it in a plastic bag near the scanner. As the bag got full the clerk moved it to the ‘exit ramp’ part of the counter. By the time everything was scanned it was also in a bag. Super efficient. Reusable bags would kill the speed of it.
In Michigan you could not use them but yesterday, in Maine, I bought two and she said it was okay to use them, and if the bagger was uncomfortable, we could pack them ourselves.
Here in Maine you line up in one big line and then are directed to the open cashier. So that's different.
Here in Maine you line up in one big line and then are directed to the open cashier. So that's different.
This sounds like a Hannaford thing.
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