Despite loving such projects, sometimes I have a feeling that concentration on recycling shifts attention too much from the real causes of waste pollution, such as overproduction, overconsumption and lack of investment in biodegradable materials.
Or even from using truly† recyclable materials like aluminum. If we weren't so obsessed with seeing the liquid inside of containers, many things could be converted to use aluminum.
[Obviously, aluminum waste isn't 100% recyclable, but it's about as close as you can get besides maybe glass.
You are going to have to define what "over" means for each of those categories. Contrary to popular belief, I believe people generally consume what they need. It's much of the world coming "online", due to the global prosperity capitalism has enabled, that has resulted in such mass production of things we would do well to get rid of such as single use disposable plastics (that aren't for medical purposes, of course).
There is a process called pyrolysis which basically distills any kind of plastic into oil / diesel fuel.
A number of things can be added to the process, such as pressure, vaccuum, and catalysators, to make it more efficient. It even works on old tyres! The rest is basically sludge or soot which allegedly also can be utilized in some way. It also emits "pyrolytic gases" (iirc) which I guess are bad? Toxic? Bad for the environment? Idk...
This is an underrated solution. As everyone mentions in this thread, plastic reuse furthers the problem due to microplastic breakdown. Ideally, you're gasifying with plasma [1] [2] [3], with the slag going into road aggregate or other construction processes as feedstock. This doesn't work (yet) at hobbyist/small scale, but is entirely possible at municipal waste stream scale. Plastics (anything really, except metals, soil, and rock) go in, clean burning syngas and slag come out. Could even do carbon capture off the syngas to sequester the CO2 if you colocate somewhere where you can mineralize below ground, and use renewables to provide whatever power you can't recover from generation off the syngas.
This assumes you also outlaw single use plastics/disposable plastics to solve for the other side of the equation.
A friend has been making clothes from 100% certified ocean plastic: https://seathreads.co/
As a business owner, I don't envy his margins, but I certainly hope to see more companies doing similar in the future. We need to make re-use cool and something to brag about.
Plastic is bad because it degrades into microplastic which is mechanically toxic to life (gets stuck in yer body). Why would you want to wear something toxic? That's like taking asbestos out of the walls and rubbing it on your body. Also, (machine) washing plastic clothes further degrades them into microplastics. Bad idea all around.
I know microplastics are bad and stuff but I also have to recommend Got Bag (https://got-bag.com/), which is supposedly made out of recycled ocean plastic. I'm not sure if it is or isn't, but they make a great bag. I've had one for a few months now and it's held up well to being knocked around, no frayed material or even any significant scuffs, and it's at least water resistant (if not waterproof) in the rain.
A lot of these plastic-recycling products don't cope with the big issue of pollution with micro plastic particles. I read about making pavement from plastic waste. Sure you can do that, but the plastic will be slowly worn down and the micro particles will pollute everything. That's the same problem with low quality plastics being recycled into household items. I see a health risk here. I will prefer something from wood, glass or metal - or from high quality (and bio-degradable?) plastics.
It's a very bad idea to use recycled plastic for anything that will face abrasion, harsh temperatures or harsh chemicals, or a combination. Or any plastic really, microplastics don't care about which generation recycling your plastic has been through.
Obviously the most important thing to do is to reduce how much plastic is produced in the first place. Plastic recycling doesn't solve the microplastic issue, it arguably makes it worse, so any scrap plastic should be responsibly burned for energy and that energy should go towards production using materials that aren't plastic.
Use plastic only for products where the use of plastic is necessary for some critical functionality, and cannot be replaced with sustainable, biodegradable, properly recyclable materials. And only for products that are meant to last a long time, all single use and disposable plastic (such as packaging) needs to disappear ASAP.
Anyone interested in starting up some of these recycling facilities as a community project? I'm in Austin and could provide all of the funding but would love some volunteers to help. It would be a non-profit. [email protected]
Based on today's technology and knowledge, I think every community center should have plastic recycling and reuse, workshop tool library, community garden, and compost.
We can do things super-local now, use it as a teaching opportunity, and use volunteer effort within walking distance to make a change.
Are there any public communities in the world that are actually doing this on a super local basis? Making, Growing, Recycling.
Plastic breaks down is horrible ways and gets everywhere.
It's hard to clean well enough to be recycled.
Even when recycled it's still constantly breaking down into micro-particles and getting everywhere.
If we can't persuade retailers to use something else I kind of think that the best and cleanest use for single use plastic might be to just incinerate it with a very good scrubber system on the exhaust from the incinerator.
Get the energy back and do something useful with it. e.g. use it as base load for renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Anything but let it get buried or broken down and into water courses.
> Get the energy back and do something useful with it.
I fully agree about burning the stuff. You accomplish several important things that way:
- Destroying it, so it's not going to get washed up on random beaches after claiming to be "recycled" by shoving it in a shipping container and sending it to some country who doesn't have the systems in place to say "No."
- Fighting against the marketing of plastics as "clean" and "recyclable." If the stuff is so awful you can't come up with anything better to do than burn it, maybe it's not as nice as it's claimed to be.
- Offset some coal use.
Out in Boise (and a few other places), there's a pilot program to use the "weird plastics" (not #1/#2, which are now collected in a combined system most places, so I wonder if they're actually getting recycled at all) and burn them in a cement kiln. It's the Hefty Energy Bag program, and while one might rightly question a plastic bag company promoting plastics for energy, they've done what looks to be a pretty solid lifecycle analysis on the various alternatives, and "just burning the stuff instead of coal" works out, by far, the best.
Wrapping bars of deodorant in rice paper. Making it like a bar of soap that you can hold.
I found a (mostly) bamboo toothbrush. It's ok.
The bamboo dental floss is pretty terrific.
Hoping to never buy fleece or spandex again, I'm still looking for hemp (or whatever) "athleisure" clothing. Like pullovers. (My lame attempts to learn to my make own clothing didn't get very far.)
Consumers don't have much choice besides a recycling bin and a trash bin. Landfills are actually a decent option for plastics because the plastic stays in tact (no shredding - creating more microplastics) and in one place - stopping it from escaping into the local ecosystem. Most will use the recycling bin for plastics because they see that as the best option while not knowing the implications of recycling plastic in the United States.
Norway has a good system where plastic bottles are made with more plastic to make them thicker/durable, and when the bottles are recycled they are cleaned and reused [0].
"Machines to shred, melt and mould waste plastic are popping up in workshops around the world - from the UK to Malaysia, Kenya to Mexico.
The project is being led by an organisation called Precious Plastic. They put designs for the devices online for anyone to download and build themselves.
More than 400 teams around the world are now taking on the challenge of plastic waste using these machines, making everything from sunglasses to plastic bricks in the process."
If billions of dollars spent on various recycling programs fail, I can’t see these homemade machines solving this problem either. It’s clear this is not immune to the sorting problem which is the root cause of why plastic recycling is unprofitable.
I can see this as an educational program for children and adults that ignorantly throw anything plastic into the recycling bin thinking it would be recycled. But in reality, it’s likely going into the local landfill (or overseas).
The only way to solve this plastic problem is to ban all single use applications (ie, cups, straws, takeaway containers, grocery bags, ...).
The latest trick for plastic items is for companies to say they are reusable. So instead of a box of plastic straws, it is now a box with "reusable plastic straws" written on it. Same exact product, but now marketed to get around any single-use bans.
There's a lot of things that can be economically viable at the personal/household scale that can't work at the commercial scale because of the regulatory requirements of a modern first world workplace.
Most of the time when you see a kit to DIY something this is the niche in which it lives.
Not saying the economics work out for this particular thing but just because it's not commercially viable doesn't mean it's not economically viable. You don't see scrapyards hiring people to drive around picking up scrap metal yet people do it for a net profit, same concept.
Plastic needs classified as toxic and treated as such. There are beaches now covered in plastic chips instead of sand (the sand is underneath). The real scary part is waking up one day and realizing that we are infested with microplastics to a dangerous and irreversible saturation point from the natural breakdown. Man made fibers, water bottles, children's toys...all will break down to microscopic levels. We can probably filter it out effectively for drinking but the whole deal is just another log on the fire that humanity has built under themselves.
The sorting problem is mostly due to people feeling like they can get away with not washing their recyclables and throwing anything into the recycling bin. If you have to deliver those recyclables to a local business in person and they can tell you to your face that you didn’t do it right and you have to take your bin over to a washing station and redo it before you can leave it there you can be sure it won’t happen again.
> It’s clear this is not immune to the sorting problem which is the root cause of why plastic recycling is unprofitable
Yeah, they depict collectors bicycling around town with a trailer and then washing and delabeling the collected plastic in a domestic kitchen sink. They would have to charge thousands per ton for the clean stock.
What type of plastic types can be recycled this way?
From what I read, only a small percent of all plastic product can be recycled.
For instance, bags that are on their logo flag, are not recyclable, in UK when you sorting out recyclable materials they tell you that bags are not suitable for recycling. And in some way they tear quickly and contribute hugely to micro-plastic pollution that goes into food chain.
"not recycleable" sometimes only means its not economically feasable to recycle, which for example is true for diapers too (which make up about 30% of our houshold trash). There is some weird trash town in agypt that over 90% recycling rate especially with plastics (afaik).
Two interesting things, and a third. The first is that the whole business is upcycling disposable products/material into more long term durable ones. The second is the success of the collection depends entirely on the demand for the upcycled products up the supply chain. (extrusion, sheetpress, injection moulding, and the stuff you make out of them) So inventing very long term useful things made from recycled plastic (bricks, roads, large boats) would improve demand for recycling.
The third is the collection point business is a straight bounty program, which seems like the most basic business model in nature. There was a guy who trained crows to trade cigarette buts for peanuts in a machine, and it seems like you could do the same with plastics litter collection. Maybe we could build machines that other wild animals could figure out that accepted litter and waste and returned food.
Realistically, with the health issues coming up, the microplastics leaching into everything, and the energy-intensive process of reusing plastic, I think we should give up on recycling plastic completely. Bury it back in the oil holes we got it from (this is semi-sarcastic, I know burying it in such a way is not entirely feasible) in the first place below the bedrock and end the age of plastic.
This may sound the like the economists with the $20 bill, but if waste plastic is an untapped and valuable resource then why aren't other entrepreneurs already in the space?
This seems like fun for DIYers and makers, but it can't be viable business, can it?
[+] [-] dinamic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ravenstine|4 years ago|reply
[Obviously, aluminum waste isn't 100% recyclable, but it's about as close as you can get besides maybe glass.
[+] [-] dimitrios1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donkarma|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aliswe|4 years ago|reply
A number of things can be added to the process, such as pressure, vaccuum, and catalysators, to make it more efficient. It even works on old tyres! The rest is basically sludge or soot which allegedly also can be utilized in some way. It also emits "pyrolytic gases" (iirc) which I guess are bad? Toxic? Bad for the environment? Idk...
Heres one out of tonnes of YT videos:
https://youtu.be/TFuTCpCVSbM
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|4 years ago|reply
This assumes you also outlaw single use plastics/disposable plastics to solve for the other side of the equation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
[2] https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... (Treatment of Plastic Wastes Using Plasma Gasification Technology)
[3] https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasificati...
[+] [-] ladybro|4 years ago|reply
As a business owner, I don't envy his margins, but I certainly hope to see more companies doing similar in the future. We need to make re-use cool and something to brag about.
[+] [-] hypertele-Xii|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdponx|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Daniel_sk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harimau777|4 years ago|reply
It seems like wear would be less of an issue and the bulk properties of the resulting plastic would be emphasized.
[+] [-] sergeykish|4 years ago|reply
The real issue — plastic is cheap, manufacturing is expensive. As result marketplace is full of fashion items [2].
[1] https://www.ecofario.eco/en/microplastics
[2] https://bazar.preciousplastic.com/products/
[+] [-] KozmoNau7|4 years ago|reply
Obviously the most important thing to do is to reduce how much plastic is produced in the first place. Plastic recycling doesn't solve the microplastic issue, it arguably makes it worse, so any scrap plastic should be responsibly burned for energy and that energy should go towards production using materials that aren't plastic.
Use plastic only for products where the use of plastic is necessary for some critical functionality, and cannot be replaced with sustainable, biodegradable, properly recyclable materials. And only for products that are meant to last a long time, all single use and disposable plastic (such as packaging) needs to disappear ASAP.
[+] [-] singleuseuser|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged71|4 years ago|reply
We can do things super-local now, use it as a teaching opportunity, and use volunteer effort within walking distance to make a change.
Are there any public communities in the world that are actually doing this on a super local basis? Making, Growing, Recycling.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Lio|4 years ago|reply
If we can't persuade retailers to use something else I kind of think that the best and cleanest use for single use plastic might be to just incinerate it with a very good scrubber system on the exhaust from the incinerator.
Get the energy back and do something useful with it. e.g. use it as base load for renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Anything but let it get buried or broken down and into water courses.
[+] [-] Syonyk|4 years ago|reply
I fully agree about burning the stuff. You accomplish several important things that way:
- Destroying it, so it's not going to get washed up on random beaches after claiming to be "recycled" by shoving it in a shipping container and sending it to some country who doesn't have the systems in place to say "No."
- Fighting against the marketing of plastics as "clean" and "recyclable." If the stuff is so awful you can't come up with anything better to do than burn it, maybe it's not as nice as it's claimed to be.
- Offset some coal use.
Out in Boise (and a few other places), there's a pilot program to use the "weird plastics" (not #1/#2, which are now collected in a combined system most places, so I wonder if they're actually getting recycled at all) and burn them in a cement kiln. It's the Hefty Energy Bag program, and while one might rightly question a plastic bag company promoting plastics for energy, they've done what looks to be a pretty solid lifecycle analysis on the various alternatives, and "just burning the stuff instead of coal" works out, by far, the best.
https://www.hefty.com/sites/default/files/2021-01/Hefty-Ener...
[+] [-] specialist|4 years ago|reply
I've been daydreaming about alternatives.
Wrapping bars of deodorant in rice paper. Making it like a bar of soap that you can hold.
I found a (mostly) bamboo toothbrush. It's ok.
The bamboo dental floss is pretty terrific.
Hoping to never buy fleece or spandex again, I'm still looking for hemp (or whatever) "athleisure" clothing. Like pullovers. (My lame attempts to learn to my make own clothing didn't get very far.)
[+] [-] admiral33|4 years ago|reply
Norway has a good system where plastic bottles are made with more plastic to make them thicker/durable, and when the bottles are recycled they are cleaned and reused [0].
[0]: https://www.sciencealert.com/norway-s-recycling-scheme-is-so...
[+] [-] gadders|4 years ago|reply
"Machines to shred, melt and mould waste plastic are popping up in workshops around the world - from the UK to Malaysia, Kenya to Mexico.
The project is being led by an organisation called Precious Plastic. They put designs for the devices online for anyone to download and build themselves.
More than 400 teams around the world are now taking on the challenge of plastic waste using these machines, making everything from sunglasses to plastic bricks in the process."
[+] [-] xyst|4 years ago|reply
I can see this as an educational program for children and adults that ignorantly throw anything plastic into the recycling bin thinking it would be recycled. But in reality, it’s likely going into the local landfill (or overseas).
The only way to solve this plastic problem is to ban all single use applications (ie, cups, straws, takeaway containers, grocery bags, ...).
[+] [-] CannisterFlux|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway0a5e|4 years ago|reply
Most of the time when you see a kit to DIY something this is the niche in which it lives.
Not saying the economics work out for this particular thing but just because it's not commercially viable doesn't mean it's not economically viable. You don't see scrapyards hiring people to drive around picking up scrap metal yet people do it for a net profit, same concept.
[+] [-] datavirtue|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway316943|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _rpd|4 years ago|reply
Yeah, they depict collectors bicycling around town with a trailer and then washing and delabeling the collected plastic in a domestic kitchen sink. They would have to charge thousands per ton for the clean stock.
[+] [-] NiceWayToDoIT|4 years ago|reply
For instance, bags that are on their logo flag, are not recyclable, in UK when you sorting out recyclable materials they tell you that bags are not suitable for recycling. And in some way they tear quickly and contribute hugely to micro-plastic pollution that goes into food chain.
[+] [-] herbst|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] motohagiography|4 years ago|reply
The third is the collection point business is a straight bounty program, which seems like the most basic business model in nature. There was a guy who trained crows to trade cigarette buts for peanuts in a machine, and it seems like you could do the same with plastics litter collection. Maybe we could build machines that other wild animals could figure out that accepted litter and waste and returned food.
[+] [-] lostlogin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ancalagon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xsmasher|4 years ago|reply
This seems like fun for DIYers and makers, but it can't be viable business, can it?
[+] [-] mc007|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jokethrowaway|4 years ago|reply
Recycling is the marketing tool that the oil industry used to sell plastic.
[+] [-] scottyvg|4 years ago|reply