But it started a conversation

I'm fine with recycling things that really can and should be recycled - ie when there is actually a market for the recycled product and it makes sense economically to do so. But if 95% of the stuff I'm throwing in a recycling bin just has to be sorted by hand later and thrown away, that seems like a terrible waste of labor. Just tell us what can really be recycled and we can throw the rest into the trash bin. Quit with the lying about plastic recycling that isn't happening.

Back in the '90s when I started my career my company decided to jump on the recycling bandwagon.

Bought everyone a fancy recycling can for white paper and another for colored paper. Everyone no matter pay grade spent time separating their paper.

I stayed late working one night and the custodians came through and took both the colored and plain white recycling cans and dumped them into the regular trash can in the office and then out to the dumpster.

I knew then that recycling would never see the light of day as a legitimate process and was a waste of money.

Recycling programs actually hurt the environment? Whodathunkit

It looks like paper and cardboard are actually getting recycled. It is mostly the plastics that are not.

According to recent studies and reports, only about 5-6% of plastic waste in the United States is actually recycled[1][3][4]. This low recycling rate applies to post-consumer plastic waste, which includes the plastic that is typically placed in recycling bins by households[3].

While many people diligently sort their recyclables, the reality is that most plastic ends up in landfills or the environment rather than being recycled[4]. This low recycling rate is due to several factors:

1. Limited recycling infrastructure
2. Lack of market demand for recycled plastics
3. Contamination of recyclable materials
4. Difficulty in recycling certain types of plastics

It's important to note that the recycling rates for other materials, such as paper and metals, are significantly higher[3]. The low plastic recycling rate highlights the challenges specific to plastic waste management in the United States.

Some cities and recycling facilities may report higher recycling rates for the materials they collect. For example, in Austin, Texas, it's estimated that around 80-85% of the materials placed in blue bins are recycled[2]. However, this higher rate includes all recyclable materials, not just plastics, and may not reflect the national average for plastic recycling specifically.

Citations:
[1] https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3702187-us-only-recycled-5-percent-of-plastic-waste-in-2021-greenpeace-report/
[2] https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2023-04-18/how-much-of-the-stuff-we-put-in-the-blue-bin-in-austin-is-actually-recycled
[3] https://www.beyondplastics.org/plastics-recycling-rates
[4] https://www.earthday.org/plastic-recycling-is-a-lie/
[5] https://www.beyondplastics.org/news-stories/may/04/us-recycling-plastic-waste
[6] https://www.vpm.org/news/2023-10-11/curious-commonwealth-what-gets-reduce-reuse-recycle-bin-how
[7] https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/new-greenpeace-report-plastic-recycling-is-a-dead-end-street-year-after-year-plastic-recycling-declines-even-as-plastic-waste-increases/
[8] https://recyclingpartnership.org/report-shows-only-21-of-u-s-residential-recyclables-are-captured-points-to-policy-and-investment-as-immediate-solutions/
[9] https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data
[10] https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/12/1081129/plastic-recycling-climate-change-microplastics/
[11] https://usplasticspact.org/baseline/

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2. Lack of market demand for recycled plastics

4. Difficulty in recycling certain types of plastics

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It takes a lot of energy to break the covalent bonds, thus people don't want to pay a higher price when feedstock to make original is cheaper and more difficult plastics require more energy and chemical separation processes, thereby increasing costs.

Aluminum is really the only recyclable item worth doing as I have seen in my career.

At a sales call in Australia when I was much younger, I saw the same thing as most in this thread. Dozens of 3 story tall giant heaps of garbage all over. I asked them, this is a recycling plant right? Which ones get recycled? The maintenance guy just laughed at me and patted me on the back.

Later found out all of these go to the same place: the incinerator. None of it got recycled from what I can tell besides the few indoor piles that got sorted (and there was only one sorting line).

Metals can make sense. Other materials need much more process and product work before they make sense. Bury now, and dig it up later if it becomes valuable.

Houston Lee said:

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Quote:

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JOHN STOSSEL: Do you recycle? For decades, we've been told: "Recycle!" Because recycling will save the planet, and that's what people believe.

"If we're not using recycled paper, we're cutting down more trees!" says Lynn Hoffman, co-president of Eureka Recycling.

Recycling paper or cardboard does save trees. Recycling aluminum does save energy. But most of the other stuff is impractical.

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Huge amounts of what people send to her recycling plant will never be recycled. The worst is plastic, which for years has been marked with the recycling symbol. Even worse, plastic bags clog recycling machines. But people think most of our plastic is recycled.

The reality is that the amount of plastic actually recycled is around 5%.

All my life I've heard how important it is to recycle.

Science writer John Tierney debunked recycling claims years ago in a New York Times Magazine story, "Recycling Is Garbage." It set a Times record for hate mail.

But what he wrote was true.

"It's even more true today, the economics has gotten even worse," says Tierney.

My city would save over $300 million a year if it stopped recycling. It would be smarter to just dump our garbage in landfills.

"Recycling is an industry that uses increasingly expensive labor to produce materials that are worth less and less," says Tierney.

Because it's not worth recycling here, much is shipped overseas to countries like Malaysia, here it's just piled up some of it from America. That pollutes even more. And what they don't burn, they just dump in the ocean.

Plastic recycling is a “dead-end street."

That quote…unbelievably…is from @Greenpeace.

In my new video, we debunk the recycling religion. pic.twitter.com/loe7F7gS2L

— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) December 12, 2024

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Looks like John is over a decade late on what everyone who actually looks into things, and doesn't wait to be told what, why, and how to feel about things has known, that recycling of everything is a joke.

Good for John, I guess, but this is about as old news as it gets. It's not exactly Geraldo and Al's vault, but is up there to those who know.

One day, when the technology exists to make recycling economical, we'll be able to mine our landfills for "raw" materials. Landfills are not simply trash pits pimpling our landscape, they are future gold mines!

This is why my recycling can is just used for overflow for my regular trash.

Does anyone remember when it was the 3 Rs?

Reduce Reuse and Recycle

Nobody ever talks about Reduce or Reuse anymore because it doesn't promote buying more stuff.

Recycling increases Entropy.

Am i the only one who purposely throws non recycle into recycle and recycle into nonrecycle bin?

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Am i the only one who purposely throws non recycle into recycle and recycle into nonrecycle bin?

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well they both go to the landfill

Regular trash bin gets the potentially stinky trash.

Recycle bin gets the non stinky trash. Unless the regular trash is going to overflow, and the recycle is the next day.

It had dropped to page 3 so....no judgement.

https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3517094

BQ_90 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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Am i the only one who purposely throws non recycle into recycle and recycle into nonrecycle bin?

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well they both go to the landfill

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Don't care where they go. I just do it to be visible and maybe trigger a woke libtard lunatic who may try to argue with me.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Am i the only one who purposely throws non recycle into recycle and recycle into nonrecycle bin?

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Nope, and my lib friends can't stand it, so i do it more.

Good times.

Miss those days of the milkman picking up those empty glass jugs and putting full ones in that metal box on our front porch.

I was fine with paper bags at the grocery store...seems like the people who advocated for plastic to save a tree, are the same types now saying plastic is bad.

I fight with my wife, mother-in-law and my 2 adult step-daughters about the recycling BS. They are just trained and in the habit of doing stuff to put it in "recycle". I told my wife about this Stossel video and she refuses to watch it...

I was told by a relative that we should use volcanos as our incinerators for all the "plastic recyclables". I asked about the molten plastic lava and as I was told that wouldn't happen because the heat would be so intense.

Plastic would vaporize in the volcanic lava heat.

Old Sarge said:

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Regular trash bin gets the potentially stinky trash.

Recycle bin gets the non stinky trash. Unless the regular trash is going to overflow, and the recycle is the next day.

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Aka the Corpus Christi approach

combat wombat said:

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Yes, I learned that plastic recycling is a scam. Basically, the companies that produce plastic containers put it on there because we buy it thinking it will get recycled. It's not getting recycled, but we don't feel bad about buying it because "we're recycling it". We just need to go back to using more paper, cardboard, glass, and aluminum and stop with the plastic

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all of this.

I remember when I was a kid in the 80's getting scolded for killing trees for preferring paper bags at the grocery store and how plastic was the better choice to save the trees. That was a pretty egregious miss with huge unintended consequences.

I get the convenience of plastic but in reality there are probably a whole lot of single-use household items which wouldn't better for the environment and our health (ie- BPE free) if they were made from different materials.

switching from paper to plastic to save trees was to cover that plastic was cheaper for the stores and the people bought it

we haven't been short on trees in the this country, well ever. Its a renewable resource

BQ_90 said:

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switching from paper to plastic to save trees was to cover that plastic was cheaper for the stores and the people bought it

we haven't been short on trees in the this country, well ever. Its a renewable resource

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I was in probably 3rd or 4th grade so it's not like I knew better back then.

TarponChaser said:

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BQ_90 said:

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switching from paper to plastic to save trees was to cover that plastic was cheaper for the stores and the people bought it

we haven't been short on trees in the this country, well ever. Its a renewable resource

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I was in probably 3rd or 4th grade so it's not like I knew better back then.

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well nobody did, it sounded good so who would question it