most plastic could technically be recycled, some types are so difficult that is is just not done, but it still has the arrows and numbers to make you think it is.
hmmmmmm....maybe they can haul it all away with those ev’s that are going up in flames.
“hundreds of pounds of plastic trash”
Who would get their panties in a wad over that?
Now, if it was HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of pounds, that would be a concern.
> I would bet that less than 5% of plastics are ever recycled.
But you can be sure you’re paying 100% of the cost.
It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to recycle plastics because each time they are sent through a screw extruder they lose some molecular weight.
Each new lot of pellets will become more variable in mw over time so properties eventually won’t meet specifications.
It’s better to heat the plastics to make producer gas.
Plastic is light, but a few hundred pounds doesn't sound like much if you compress it down by running a bulldozer over it a few times. Out city takes 1, 2 and 5 for recycling. It won't take the other plastics.
The county I live in has a recycling program that is self sustaining. They don’t use a dime of taxpayer dollars to run it.
I have no idea what they do with the plastic, glass, aluminum, steel, newspaper and cardboard they take in but I’m happy to give them 2/3s of my trash for free.
link: https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/outreach/earth8/gps-tracking-plastic-recycling/509-0233a3d1-64b0-459c-ace9-49841ed75a7c
I wonder how plastic burns versus tires, and which is easier to put out.
It’s less than 6% last I checked, so that’s close enough for a win. But the “environmentalists” wont let anyone burn it either, so it just sits in landfill releasing chemicals.
The plastic recycling market died! China stopped accepting.
Our city has a recycling program. Put trash in the trash can, and recycling into a blue tub. Leave both out on the curb, and they will be picked up appropriately.
I stopped doing that when I witnessed, personally, the trash guys emptying the blue recycling bin into the same trash truck as the trash. I saw this multiple times, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. After 5-10 times of seeing this, I quit bothering. Everything now goes into the trash can.
In Europe, they turn plastic into asphalt by melting it into tiny pebbles. That seems an easy solution to me.
On a motorcycle tour of Italy I was enjoying a fine meal and wine at the banks of a fine mountain lake near the Austrian border. There must have been six trash cans that other tourists would dutifully sort their garbage and place them in the proper recycle bins. Later in the day the trash truck would come and throw everything in to the same truck and take it all to the landfill. I was laughing and being the ugly American I had to talk with one of the waiters who spoke English. He said they have to keep the recycle bins out because if they don’t the tourist set all their garbage (recycleables) next to the bins because they are so obsessed with recycling they can’t bear just throwing trash in a trash bin. So the village keeps all these phony recycle bins so Brits and Germans can sleep well thinking they are saving the planet by sorting out their garbage in to the proper bin even though it all gets sent to the same landfill.
Recycling is a SCAM
I’m thinking of the movie “The Graduate”.
Wheelabrator Baltimore is a waste-to-energy incinerator located in the Westport neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland and is operated by Wheelabrator Technologies, a subsidiary of Energy Capital Partners. It has an electric generation capacity of 64.5 megawatts.
Burn it for energy production
Types 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 either can not be recycled at all or it is not cost effective.
If compressed, that's a couple of pallets.