Posted on 02/04/2020 8:29:21 AM PST by karpov
I figured something out about recycling.
It all ends up back in the ground where it came from eventually.
At least they can burn it. That is what we should be doing.
Build a huge incinerator. Burn the trash. Boing water. Turn a turbine. Create electricity.
Especially the plastics. After all, plastics are oil.
As a chemical engineer, I can state pretty clearly that only glass and aluminum makes sense to recycle, from an economic perspective
For many applications the actual color of the glass shouldn't matter, but consumer preferences and psychology come into play. If your soft drinks, beer or whatever all had a variable tint to them, I doubt many, if not most American consumers would be very happy about it, and would probably prefer, and purchase those with a more consistent appearance. It would be an interesting retail experiment for a company to see what actually happens from a consumer standpoint and if marketing could overcome consumer reluctance. For some applications, this wouldn't work really well. Anyone who knows anything about beer knows that it should be bottled in opaque glass. Other stuff isn't so sensitive.
Not having to be so terribly picky about the end result of the appearance of the glass would probably make the recycled stream more valuable.
Carbon, the element to the presence of which the structure, strength and utility of wood, cardboard and paper is properly attributed, comes not from the ground, but from the CO2 in the atmosphere.
You can only recycle so much waste... There is a limit and we’ve reached it... The excess becomes garbage where it will eventually recycle over a period of hundreds of maybe even thousands of years. In the end, it all gets recycled. That’s the way the earth works... And why we have awesome things like oil.
I live just northeast of Baltimore county. Our city provided recycle bin is full of leaves right now. Might as well use it for something.
Wouldn’t surprise me if this were basically the norm.
Most real recycling probably only happens in boutique enclaves of wealthy liberals. They have the wealth and political will to make sure it actually happens.
Bump
Nothing new to anyone that’s paid attention. There’ve been many articles about this going on all over.
The fakery just helps ignorant greenies like themselves more, I guess.
It turns out that to be reclyclable things need to be in almost new condition. No food, no caps, no this, no that. But who’s really washing out their soda bottles and removing the labels before they recycle them? So most of the stuff that goes for recycling just ... isn’t. I support the idea of recycling, I just wish it actually worked as well as people think it does.
Oh recycling has a huge benefit to the virtue signaling libs....makes them ‘feel’ so good and to a lib that’s all that matters—-reality and science be damned...plus just think of all the manufacturing costs for all those different colored containers made of petroleum products...and then the contract kickbacks...it i endless...
Someone somewhere is making a lot of money helping us keep our planet green. That is the whole point of the exercise.
Recycling works fine...
...when the product being recycled is available in bulk, unmixed, pure form - such as where it is a byproduct of manufacturing. Residential recycling aside from aluminum is counter-productive.
You can only recycle so much waste... There is a limit and we’ve reached it...
Thanks for responding to my post.
On a personal level, I’m actually a great believer in recycling.
I save containers from just about every suitable packaged food that goes into my kitchen.
Leftovers are always with us ... but hopefully not for too long. I was brought up in the old school that holds any waste of food is certainly a waste of money, and, if not actually sinful, just bad form in general.
But as for recycling on the macro level ... except for metals it just doesn’t pay, and only serves to make enviroweenies feel good about themselves.
But then, if you’re an enviroweenie, feeling good about yourself is the whole point.
Thanks for your comments, and check out my post 58 above.
I don’t believe in wasting food.
Done the poor and hungry routine sometimes.
Metal is the only thing that makes sense to recycle.
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