Comments on: Future of Plastic Recycling

By: Bert

Bert — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:42:02 +0000

Now we will not be able to tell if the plastic is going to give us cancer or man-tits!

Think that the FDA lost the battle to allow higher levels of BPA on one front as they tried to just allow bad plastics so they found a way around the whole issue.

All about money and supporting the big companies it seems.

What can we do about that?

By: Terry

Terry — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:53:36 +0000

Walter.. you killed the discussion it seems. You are right though. No individual can truly be gilt free when it comes to ‘goin’ green’. Many people want to do right and doing the best they can at this point is great! Unfortunately, what we have to work towards is better education and moving past the status quo.

I live in NJ. Why does my garbage get picked up twice a week and my Recycling gets picked up twice a month? Certainly there is no good reason. Garbage truck drives by my house eight times a month burning fuel spewing deisel exhaust for what? To pick up 20lbs of trash 8 times vs. 40lbs of trash 4 times. RIDICULOUS!

People wish that their waste didn’t end up in a landfill, but what if that landfill had the state of the art methane capture system and all of the waste became fuel? This shouldn’t be the goal because after becoming fuel the final resting place for the carbon then is the atmosphere. But it is better than methane being liberated to the atmoshphere. What if you could choose your landfill?

Why aren’t there huge tax incentives for recyclers? -Like ‘Cash for Clunkers’. Use federal money for multiple inherently good things. Eliminate landfill contributions, generate commerce, motivate the middle class, prevent/delay greenhouse gases.

Why is it OK that 7 in 10 items I receive in the mail are unsolicited wastes. I feel like my tax dollars (USPS) are basically being spent to deliver me garbage. Why isn’t there a tax on unsolicited mailings. The proceeds could go towards subsidizing paper recycling and paper farms.

By: Walter Huffell

Walter Huffell — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:14:56 +0000

Nobody has discussed HOW the different platic items are re-cycled.
Are they heated in some receptacle and in what form is the recycled and processed items distributed to ‘re-users’ ?????

Are we using as much ‘bad’ energy to do this – all to no reall avail ????

By: tanveer

tanveer — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:27:04 +0000

As Linda mentioned, this is great discussion. I am not so sure that recycling is an old concept. Making aluminum cans from recycled aluminum results in 95% energy savings as opposed to using virgin material. Check out slide 18 of the EPA presentation below. It shows the results for plastic, paper, cardboard, etc.

http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/ECOCOMM.NSF/Programs/wcf/$FILE/301-1-presentation.pdf

By: Ashleigh

Ashleigh — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:23:35 +0000

One of my questions is why do companies produce plastics and products that will never biodegrade? Most have knowledge of this but do not fully understand it. We need solid facts and tangible evidence!! ACTION! It’s simple. Once the truth has light shed on it, no one can deny! It’s one earth, one human life, lets make the most of it and just not become careless humans with no cares of the external world! We have to get the businesses to understand and care about these things that are little and take zero thought, just action! It will gain the business more customers and they can still create products that last a long time and isn’t purposeless after it has served its purpose.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:22:02 +0000

Around here, many people I know in my county & my town still usually just throws plastics in the trash can. It is like my city & my county doesn’t seem to care & they should try to encourage more people to.

By: Linda Weeks

Linda Weeks — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:10:49 +0000

Some very good discussion, and valid points to consider, but Dave, I wish it were as simple as that, it just isn’t…the pollution created by burning to provide electricity would have to be considered, just like recycling has its considerations. At this time, I think recycling is one effort that has its limits, but it is doing something tangible to offset the creation of the planet of trash. At least recycling is accomplishing something, now, even if down the road it takes an entirely different path. The beauty of recycling is how we feel as if the world may be clumsy and misguided sometimes, and people in it less than enitirely motivated to protect the environment, but one can say,we, (in italics) did something to help.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:55:43 +0000

I think an important component to curbside recycling is the need to implement deposits on all bottles of soda and water and other drinks. Curbside recycling doesn’t address all of the bottles and cans that litter streets and highways. Everyday, I see bottles stuck in street drains – many of these bottles ultimately end up in streams, lakes and oceans. Deposits on cans, bottles and other “disposables” will motivate many to make sure that they are not tossed along the streets.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:24:00 +0000

Used plastics should be converted to electricty, which is by far more environmentally favorable when the entire global impact is considered. Paraphrasing from Science Daily: Recycling is a nice concept, but we waste more energy in reprocessing our recyclables than we are gaining. No one has found a cost-effective means of recycling food containers into new food containers. Fact is most plastics go to China and there’s lot’s of energy consumed, resources consumed and green house gasses created in that process. Also plastics are recylced once, ex. from a soda bottle to carpeting, then done. But don’t take my word for it, check with the Basel Action network. Another generally ignored factor is that making electricity from used plastics reduces the need to burn coal and the negative results of doing so.

Be progressive, open minded and acknowledge the future: Support waste to energy. Recycling is a decades old concept that has been superseeded.

By: George Dreckmann

George Dreckmann — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:54:54 +0000

The City of Madison has been trying to educate our customers to recycle plastic based upon their use, not the numbers. The number system is very misleading as there are different chemical additives that make a #1 plastic food container non recyclable while a bottle with the same symbol is recyclable.

We currently have an all bottles program like the one Ms. Dunbar described. We still get lots of plastic that cannot be recycled because people think that since we take any bottle, they can go ahead and recycle any plastics 1-7 which is not the case.

The best thing that could happen for recycling would be the complete elmination of the symbols on the bottom of plastic containers, bottles, and jugs. (OK, the best thing that could happen is for all the plastic containers and wrapping to be recycled, but that is a whole different story.) Getting rid of the damn number code with the chasing arrows would help people understand that not everything is recyclable.