The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End

Re:The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End by captainbland on Saturday January 12, 2019 @06:22PM (#18893907)

I mean maybe it is, but then comes the problem: Plastics are used because they're cheap, they're not worth recycling because they're so cheap but you can't just do away with the packaging material entirely because that just leads to, in the case of food, spoiled goods and foods which can't be stored or transported for so long which can cause its own environmental issue.

It doesn't make economic sense to use a different material which is more recyclable because, by the definition of this problem, they're much more expensive.

Perhaps the answer is re-usable plastic containers - maybe some system where you can post them back to the manufacturer for cleaning and re-use.

It might just be that once oil drilling for energy goes away, so does some of this problem - at least in that plastics would cease to be so cheap.

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Re:The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End by brownbat on Saturday January 12, 2019 @07:15PM (#18894105)

You're right... There are some powerful heuristics in environmentalism-- disposable is generally worse, plastics are bad, recycling is better for the environment...

But these will break in some special cases. We should avoid treating them as dogmas and be open minded when examining the entire lifecycle of products.

For example, styrofoam is so much less energy intensive than firing ceramics. Given the hot water used in rewashing, you can get some unexpected consequences where disposables are the better option.

https://sustainability.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/Comparat...

(That analysis is sensitive to how energy efficient your dishwasher is, and how durable the ceramic is.)

So imagine if even after we stop using petroleum, Texas finds a giant pool of easy oil next to abundant landfill space... Could be Texans should probably just use plastics and toss them in that situation.

New Yorkers might have a different calculus, because the cost of trash hauling and processing is more significant there.

It all depends.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End by manicdee on Saturday January 12, 2019 @08:37PM (#18894459)

Disposables are only the better option when you move some part of the entire planet outside the system you are measuring.

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Re:The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End by brownbat on Saturday January 12, 2019 @10:52PM (#18894947)

Is your worry that we'll convert every inch to landfill?

Rest assured, at the rate we create landfills, the tectonic plates will push our landfills below the surface of the Earth and create new untouched landmasses before we run out of space.

There are unintuitive results in this domain. Highly recommend you check out some of the lit, like Hocking mentioned above.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End by manicdee on Sunday January 13, 2019 @06:07PM (#18899298)

Have a talk to any marine biologist about how effective landfill is as a means of disposal. Single use plastics are a hair behind AGW when it comes to existential threats to humanity as a whole.

We’ll poison the oceans long before landfill becomes an issue.

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Re:The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End by r00fus on Saturday January 12, 2019 @07:37PM (#18894202)

> in the case of food, spoiled goods and foods which can't be stored or transported for so long which can cause its own environmental issue

How do local supermarkets compete with TJs? Seriously, I love me some TJs but if the plastics are truly non-recyclable I will need to consider - we need go back to using a more sustainable method.

Also paper, glass and wood are all much more easily recycled. Re-Use should be king.

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Re:The Era of Easy Recycling May Be Coming to an End by grogenaut on Saturday January 12, 2019 @08:47PM (#18894505)

Because TJ's is essentially 1/4 of a grocery store. There are many many things you can't make from ingredients at TJs that you could from even the worst stocked super market in the blandest food areas.

TJ's in many ways is a way over stocked 7-11 full of prepped foods and the most common of things.

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