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You can stop washing your tuna cans and milk jugs

2,881 Views | 18 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by W
Ciboag96
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Trigger warning to those who believe washing Mittens yummy cans of tuna delight is saving the planet.

Cause our beloved City is dumping your well management recyclables into the landfill.

Instead of carefully separating and shipping it to China to be dumped in the ocean.


2.6M pounds of Houston recyclables tossed in landfill

Quote:

HOUSTON The City of Houston broke its own recycling rules more than 300 times this year and sent at least 2.6 million pounds of curbside recyclables to the landfill, according to a KHOU 11 analysis of city records.
Fat Bib Fortuna
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AG
was 99.9% sure I was going to see boobs on this thread.
The Milkman
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AG
It's better environmentally for that to end up in the landfill anyway. Recycling is doing more harm than good. Your recycling needs to be washed and separated (because people don't do it properly), then shipped to Indonesia or Malaysia (because China doesn't have a market for it at the moment). Between the energy that takes, plus what those countries dump into the ocean, it's better to just landfill it here.
HeightsAg
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Not surprised - this is a nation wide problem now that China has decided to no longer to buy our recycled waste. Without a market, the choices are either dump into the landfill or lose money to continue the program. There's a good article about it in the Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/

E
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AG
There was a very recent Planet Money podcast about this subject, even they admitted it was more economical to landfill it...
P.H. Dexippus
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AG
Texaggie7nine
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Recycling has always been mostly BS. People do it because it makes them feel good. That is the only actual benefit of it. Overall it only really either evens out the amount of energy expended through fossil fuels or increases it.

Obligatory
https://www.sho.com/penn-and-teller-bull****/season/2/episode/5/recycling
7nine
Chewy
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AG
I've noticed several times this year the green recycling truck picking up regular trash in my neighborhood and the regular trash truck picking up the recycling. I know technically they could still keep them separate and dump them at different places. I just assumed they weren't even trying anymore and looks like I was right.

Recycling is such a huge scam for the most part. It makes people feel better about themselves so I guess there's some benefit.
Milwaukees Best Light
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AG
You all make Al Gore sad.
Bondag
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AG
1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle

Same green BS that electric cars are better for the environment. Until you look at the impacts of making the batteries and the fossil fuels to actually charge it.
MouthBQ98
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AG
Pretty much any real recycling that isn't metal collection is done by the end user simply re-using bottles and grocery bags for other things.

SOME plastics do get recycled here, and some metals, but setting up those supply chains and facilities takes time and requires a degree of stable inputs and outputs.
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Dill-Ag13
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AG
E said:

There was a very recent Planet Money podcast about this subject, even they admitted it was more economical to landfill it...


I listened to the same one. I don't believe waste management recycles anymore
Tom Hagen
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AG
Our recycling container is at the side of the house. It's never been used.
schmellba99
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AG
jayelbee said:

When you say it's more economical to trash something than to recycle it, what does that mean? Do they both have the same endpoint? Genuinely curious.

For example with a beer can. If you recycle it, you end up with an aluminum ingot and eventually another beer can. If you don't add the cost and environmental impacts of mining and smelting aluminum ore to get back to the same ingot as recycling then you're just lying about it being cheaper.


It is more economical to use raw materials because the amount of energy and cost required to recycle is greater than the enerfy and cost to create from raw ore.

When you account for the pickup costs, washing costs, transportation costs, shredding costs, bailing and packaging costs, cleaning (wax, dye and paint removal) and the fact that there is about a 20% material loss through the,process - all to return the recycleable material back to the foundry, it adds up.
TXAG 05
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AG
Tom Hagen said:

Our recycling container is at the side of the house. It's never been used.


Ours only gets used when we have overflow trash
Jack Cheese
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AG
schmellba99 said:

jayelbee said:

When you say it's more economical to trash something than to recycle it, what does that mean? Do they both have the same endpoint? Genuinely curious.

For example with a beer can. If you recycle it, you end up with an aluminum ingot and eventually another beer can. If you don't add the cost and environmental impacts of mining and smelting aluminum ore to get back to the same ingot as recycling then you're just lying about it being cheaper.


It is more economical to use raw materials because the amount of energy and cost required to recycle is greater than the enerfy and cost to create from raw ore.

When you account for the pickup costs, washing costs, transportation costs, shredding costs, bailing and packaging costs, cleaning (wax, dye and paint removal) and the fact that there is about a 20% material loss through the,process - all to return the recycleable material back to the foundry, it adds up.

Plus the fact that you have doubled-up the infrastructure required to supply the raw material - multiple streams of production to feed the inputs. It's not even an either/or comparison, it's a both vs. one comparison.
terradactylexpress
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I've never once seen a study or report saying it's not economical to recycle metal, especially aluminum
SockDePot
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terradactylexpress said:

I've never once seen a study or report saying it's not economical to recycle metal, especially aluminum


I've done enough projects over the years with enough clients who make stuff to get enough knowledge just to be dangerous on this.

1) it is more economical to recycle steeel
2) aluminum is basically made from dirt and water. It just takes a bunch of electricity to make it happen.
3)everything plastic will be cheap forever. Most come out of natural gas, which is cheap for a long time. Some of those guys have catalyst efficiency of near 100%. Which if you think about it is frightening, it's alchemy.
W
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AG
stick to copper, brass, aluminum, and scrap iron
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