Recycling What a joke

[DAKA]

I use the labels from wine bottles to make decorative serving trays

Each tray takes about 15 labels, that's a lot of wine for us to drink, so I always take home the wine bottles from restaurant meals with friends

(they think its weird. but F em)

A few days ago I got the bright idea that restaurants must discard their bottles in some kind of "Recycling Container" where they have the dumpsters.

MrsDaka decided that she wanted to have lunch "out"....great I can look for the recycling

Turns out that all the local restaurants dump their bottles in the regular trash. WTF  so much for reusing all that glass,

Our little community of 22O homes has paper and glass bins for recycling, that we PAY extra for  WHY?

Compared to a TON of local restaurants that just trash the bottles   WHAT A F-----G joke

[railfancwb]

Intended for another purpose but makes the point. 

[ChuteTheMall]

2 hours ago, DAKA said:

I use the labels from wine bottles to make decorative serving trays

Each tray takes about 15 labels, that's a lot of wine for us to drink, so I always take home the wine bottles from restaurant meals with friends

(they think its weird. but F em)

A few days ago I got the bright idea that restaurants must discard their bottles in some kind of "Recycling Container" where they have the dumpsters.

MrsDaka decided that she wanted to have lunch "out"....great I can look for the recycling

Turns out that all the local restaurants dump their bottles in the regular trash. WTF  so much for reusing all that glass,

Our little community of 22O homes has paper and glass bins for recycling, that we PAY extra for  WHY?

Compared to a TON of local restaurants that just trash the bottles   WHAT A F-----G joke

About 50 years ago I had a summer job in a glass bottle factory. Once I got to work a weekend in the recycling shack, paying the general public a penny a pound for color sorted glass bottles. You can't imagine the disappointed look on the various civic groups who had massive glass bottle drives, and after I weighed their 200 or 300 pounds of glass, paid them $2.00 or $3.00.  Not a great fundraising project.

Paper drives used to fill warehouses with fire hazards until we admitted the recycling is not economically feasible. But great for ESG scores.

[jmohme]

23 minutes ago, ChuteTheMall said:

About 50 years ago I had a summer job in a glass bottle factory. Once I got to work a weekend in the recycling shack, paying the general public a penny a pound for color sorted glass bottles. You can't imagine the disappointed look on the various civic groups who had massive glass bottle drives, and after I weighed their 200 or 300 pounds of glass, paid them $2.00 or $3.00.  Not a great fundraising project.

Paper drives used to fill warehouses with fire hazards until we admitted the recycling is not economically feasible. But great for ESG scores.

Actually, computer paper and cardboard are some of the most useable materials in recycling. Glass is hit or miss. There are so many types of glass, and a large portion of them are not recyclable back into glass, but most get used in other ways. Just not in ways that are all that profitable, so lots of it ends up in the landfills.

 

I was hired once to do photos for a single steam recycling facility. For those that don't know, single stream refers to recycling that does not require a person to separate glass from metal from plastic, etc.

I went to this companies huge building where trucks came in and dumped their contents. From there, wheel loaders scooped up the recyclables and fed the conveyor into the 2 1/2 story tall sorting machines. On the back side of this huge structure were bins that were constantly being fed the sorted materials the bins fed other conveyors that led to balers that were spiting out huge cubes of plastic, aluminum, and paper. Glass was not baled, but was separated by clear, colored, and unusable glass to be discarded.

I was completely fascinated by the machine, but was only asked to photograph the ground level input and outputs. The plant manager that was leading me through the process did take me up to see the actual workings of the sorting. I almost fell back down the stairs laughing when I go to the top and saw a dozen or so Mexicans hand sorting the garbage.  

The only automation was a conveyor with a magnetic head roller that separated aluminum from steel and tin.

[railfancwb]

Aluminum cans are worth recycling - usually. 

[ChuteTheMall]

13 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Aluminum cans are worth recycling - usually. 

Put that Masters Degree in Environmental Justice to work.

[gwalchmai]

42 minutes ago, jmohme said:

Actually, computer paper and cardboard are some of the most useable materials in recycling. Glass is hit or miss. There are so many types of glass, and a large portion of them are not recyclable back into glass, but most get used in other ways. Just not in ways that are all that profitable, so lots of it ends up in the landfills.

 

I was hired once to do photos for a single steam recycling facility. For those that don't know, single stream refers to recycling that does not require a person to separate glass from metal from plastic, etc.

I went to this companies huge building where trucks came in and dumped their contents. From there, wheel loaders scooped up the recyclables and fed the conveyor into the 2 1/2 story tall sorting machines. On the back side of this huge structure were bins that were constantly being fed the sorted materials the bins fed other conveyors that led to balers that were spiting out huge cubes of plastic, aluminum, and paper. Glass was not baled, but was separated by clear, colored, and unusable glass to be discarded.

I was completely fascinated by the machine, but was only asked to photograph the ground level input and outputs. The plant manager that was leading me through the process did take me up to see the actual workings of the sorting. I almost fell back down the stairs laughing when I go to the top and saw a dozen or so Mexicans hand sorting the garbage.  

The only automation was a conveyor with a magnetic head roller that separated aluminum from steel and tin.

Recycling paper short-circuits the solar (ALL HAIL SOLAR!) powered carbon cycle. You make Gaea mad.

[Huaco Kid]

I've worked places where the "recycling" trucks, covered in graphics of tender green tendrils shoosting up to the sun, and "Green! Sustainable! Energy!", lined up down the block, waiting to dump their loads by the boiler furnace conveyors.

[Batesmotel]

There is a tiny amount of clear glass recycled here. Most other glass and any colored glass is not recycled. Just too expensive and many types of glass are just not practical to recycle.

The environmental nut jobs here blame the Mormon Church for not recycling glass. And they can be very militant about it. I don’t understand why they blame the Mormons. Maybe it’s because they don’t drink.

Tons of regular recycling goes straight to the landfill because there is not enough capacity to recycle it all. 

[railfancwb]

47 minutes ago, Huaco Kid said:

I've worked places where the "recycling" trucks, covered in graphics of tender green tendrils shoosting up to the sun, and "Green! Sustainable! Energy!", lined up down the block, waiting to dump their loads by the boiler furnace conveyors.

Actually burning trash to generate useable energy is recycling. Just not the politically correct type. 

[tous]

8 minutes ago, Batesmotel said:

Tons of regular recycling goes straight to the landfill because there is not enough capacity to recycle it all. 

Or demand for it.

Most recycled materials are more expensive to use than raw materials and that doesn't include the cost of recycling.

Like everything else the hippie Marxists force on the rest of us, it's a giant scam to make suburban housewives and sensitive males feel good about themselves.

Reclaimed metals may be the exception.

 

[Batesmotel]

11 minutes ago, tous said:

Reclaimed metals may be the exception.

Someday we will strip mine old landfills because of the concentration of pre-refined metals. 

[Huaco Kid]

One place I went to recycled tires (Green! Sustainable! Energy!). They'd get several semi-truck loads each day (they dump the whole truck at once. drive it onto a platform, strap it down, open the back doors and tip the whole truck (cab still attached) almost vertical.)

I don't remember if this place burned garbage or coal or what. They made a special conveyor that would take tires, single file, way above the bottom fire, and once every three or four minutes this jet-engine wheel would spin up, touch a tire, and send it shooting into the furnace.

They could only do one tire every several minutes, or their pollution monitoring averages would spike too much, and they'd violate their permit.

Green! = the .gov set our pollution limits.

Sustainable! = we'll make more tires.

Energy! = tires burn hot.

[Borg warner]

.

[Batesmotel]

I want to be buried shallow under an apple tree but the state won’t allow it. 

[Fog]

Most cities that "recycle" glass bottles actually dump them at the landfill.

There have been many attempts in many states to subsidize glass recycling and make it a thing. But they all shut down when the government funding runs out.

There is simply more supply than demand.

My state used to use crushed glass for road base, till an inspector cut his finger after running his hand through it. He had the finger amputated a few days later because of a terrible infection he got from the cut. So they stopped using crushed glass.

[gwalchmai]

8 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

Someday we will strip mine old landfills because of the concentration of pre-refined metals. 

[minderasr]

Just another example of a government money grab from the gullible populace.  How many recyclable deposit bottles/cans get returned for that nickel?  I don't recycle anything.  I figure I'm doing my part in providing the homeless with all my nickels.

I know I've mentioned this before, but Penn & Teller had a show (on HBO I think) called Bullshit.  It was dedicated to debunking all the nonsense the gullible populace believe to be true.  And they dedicated at least one episode to recycling.  If you can find it, it's worth the watch.  Eye opening to say the least.  It will make you laugh and cringe with anger.

[jmohme]

21 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

There is a tiny amount of clear glass recycled here. Most other glass and any colored glass is not recycled. Just too expensive and many types of glass are just not practical to recycle.

The environmental nut jobs here blame the Mormon Church for not recycling glass. And they can be very militant about it. I don’t understand why they blame the Mormons. Maybe it’s because they don’t drink.

Tons of regular recycling goes straight to the landfill because there is not enough capacity to recycle it all. 

The place that I did the photo shoot for crushes the colored glass and tumbles it to be used like a decorative gravel. They still reject a lot of the glass to be sent to their landfill though.

[Huaco Kid]

My buddy worked in China a lot. He said there were miles of non-stop container ships bringing "recycling".

He said they'd dump it into mountainous piles, set them on fire, and when they cooled enough for the kid's feet, they'd scamper through it and dig out the metal.

[Valmet]

Years ago I ran into a guy at a bar downtown who was an admin for the city’s recycling dept (Richmond, VA). He told me he didn’t recycle because the recycling process the city used created just as much (or more) waste than actually tossing it in a landfill. 

[Fog]

Micro plastics are mostly caused by government funded attempts to recycle plastic.

Several studies have found the source of the micro plastics is the recycling plants themselves, which operate with little regulation, and discharge tons of the micro plastics every day in their wash water.

[jmohme]

39 minutes ago, Valmet said:

Years ago I ran into a guy at a bar downtown who was an admin for the city’s recycling dept (Richmond, VA). He told me he didn’t recycle because the recycling process the city used created just as much (or more) waste than actually tossing it in a landfill. 

Well, I can't see how it can create more waste, but recycling does use a whole lot of energy.

[Valmet]

1 hour ago, jmohme said:

Well, I can't see how it can create more waste, but recycling does use a whole lot of energy.

Well the Richmond city gov has never been know for its foresight, efficiency or intelligence so it wouldn’t surprise me if it actually produced waste 🤣

[Maser]