=v= New York City is threatening to give up on recycling.
=v= In my opinion, this is an entirely predictable consequence of their idiotic "blue bag" recycling program in which they crush glass and plastic together, then complain they can't afford to separate and recycle them. <_Jym_>
"That's the 20th Century spirit!"
On 20 Jun 2002 15:00:23 -0700, Jym Dyer wrote:
In Phoenix, we put glass, plastic, metal and paper in one big blue hopper. They pick it up once a week at curbside. They use mechanical separators to do most of the work and the rest is done by hand.
It's very easy for residents and it's cheaper than dumping it.
--Larry
=v= I New York they put all the stuff in blue plastic bags, which is then thrown into the regular garbage trucks and squished along with the garbage. Then they pick out the blue plastic bags and remove the recyclables, but by then (surprise surprise) they're comingled and contaminated. <_Jym_>
The reasoning behind the combined-recycling programs is: if you ask people to separate, a) a lot of people won't bother to recycle at all because they're lazy, and b) the program still has to sort things out because some people just throw everything together anyway (see a) and because people make mistakes. So they figure it's better all around to just let people mix everything.
And hello, off-topic. :)
=v= Well, clearly it's not working at all because they're now complaining that they can't afford to recycle and are trying to stop doing it. Which was what I said in the first place.
=v= Nuh-uh, entirely germane to this episode:
http://www.things.org/~jym/y3k/1ACV08.html
(Pardon the broken links, Futurama Fan closed down. :^() <_Jym_>
Yeah, but the point is, it wouldn't be any (or at least much) cheaper to have people pre-sort.
On 24 Jun 2002 13:13:41 GMT, [email] (Matthew Miller) wrote:
Since raw materials, like trees, ore and oil in the ground, are considered valueless, it is cheaper to keep mining than recycling. If raw materials were taxed to cover the ultimate cost of disposal, but recycled materials were considered "tax paid", then companies would have an incentive to buy recycled.
The final responsibility is on consumers. If we insisted on buying recycled paper etc, even if it was 5% more expensive, they would produce it. This would create demand for recycling.
--Larry
On Mon, 24 Jun 2002 15:31:04 -0500, Larry wrote:
THat goes against economic theory and practice, though. Customers almost always favor lower cost products over higher costs equivalents. The real way to solve this "big piece of garbage future" is to figure out an engineering solution that makes using recycled materials cheaper or cost-equivalent to new ones. The market forces would then ensure that recycled materials get more demand and usage.
Larry wrote:
But you have to take into account the cost of transporting the raw materials, and in the case of ore, of smelting and refining the raw materials. Because it take such huge amounts of electricity to turn bauxite into aluminum, it only cost 5% to make aluminum ingot from scrap aluminum vs ore.
On Sun, 14 Jul 2002 17:07:04 -0700, OmegaMan wrote:
Good point. aluminum was one of the first metals to be widely recycled. Mostly because of the very high cost of smelting and the ease of collecting cans. Taxation and other financial changes could make recycling more valuable for other materials.
A huge amount of used lumber is dumped into landfills. Construction waste, used pallets, demolition debris etc. If the cost of harvesting trees was higher, this wood could be collected for paper production or even re-use.
Likewise iron is often just thrown away while new ore is mined. If a tax was added onto the cost of mining and the money was used for tax breaks for the purchase of scrap iron, the value of the scrap would go up.
Also, the end costs of mining are never covered. There are thousands of abandon mines throughout the US. I would guess there are similar problems in other countries as well. People are killed and injured regularly when they explore them or just walk over them. They accumulate rain water which leeches toxic heavy metals and leaks them into ground water.
Mining operations could be taxed and the money held as long as the mine is active. The money would be used for tax refunds for the sealing of the mines when they are done. If a company goes bankrupt (after paying the CEO a $13 billion dollar bonus) the money would be used to pay the cost of sealing the mine or otherwise making it safe.
In the short term, and that's all most companies see, it would be cheaper to simply buy up scrap than mine.
--Larry
Due to the high costs of smelting and refining, aluminum has one of the higher scrap prices for non-precious metals, but I think copper is higher at the moment.
I can see using it for paper or something non-structural, but I wouldn't want to live in a house made out of recycled lumber. Sure the lumber could be ok, but is every board going to be inspected thoroughly before use? Plus, it's cheaper to tear down a building with a bulldozer and a backhoe than it would be to tear it apart by hand, piece by piece.
The scrap value of steel and iron is low, 5�/pound at most, and this is for large items, cans and smaller scrap is less. You really don't make anything at it, you hope to break even due to shipping costs.
Now mines are required to reclaim, providing the owner doesn't skip out, most reputable companies will reclaim. The problem is with older mines that were abandoned long before the new regulations came into effect, and the argument from the current mines is: "why should I pay to clean it up when I didn't create the mess in the first place?"
If you look at recyling, the only materials that are easy to recycle and have value are glass and metals, mainly due their high processing costs to make them new. And, the one thing that helps glass and metals to be recycled is the fact the the recycling process does not appreciably alter the material. You can turn an old glass nail polish bottle into a pickle jar, and you will not be able to tell the difference. Same thing with steel, a tin can or a car can become an aircraft carrier, and you'll never know.
Compare this to paper or plastics, recyling chops them up into smaller bits, thereby weakening the material, so in the case of paper, you have to mix in some new paper to get the strength back. Since plastics depend on the polymer chains for strength, once they're cut, they are never as strong again. Plus, FDA rules prohibit the recyling of plastics into food containers, which is probably the largest use of plastics.
<snip>
This is interesting because doesn't plastic originally delivered as a large drum of itty bitty colored pellets ready for molding.
DGH
large
In the case of HDPE (high density polyethylene):
1000 or 1100 pound boxes (sometimes called Gaylords) of pellets. Each pellet is on the order of 1/8 inch. The pellets are moulded from the powder that is the result of chaining together thousands of ethylene molecules. The length of the molecule chains will vary for the type of HDPE being created. You want different ones for bags (think noisy "t-shirt' bags) than for dairy cases. Pellets are easier to handle than powder.
Colours are often added by the moulder: they usually want a custom colour so they do their own blending.
Recycling uses all types of HDPE. The percentage of recycled material will vary with the application. Speed bumps are made of 100% recycled HDPE. Milk jugs may be 20% in factory recycled material (the handle slugs, tails, etc. are ground and then mixed with virgin material.)
Sorry, I used to be in R&D in a facility making HDPE.
On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 02:43:10 GMT, [email] (Ken) wrote:
Used lumber probably wouldn't be widely used for construction. However, pallets, crates, and fencing can all be made from reclaimed wood. Large beams and long 2X4s could be re-used, especially for non-load bearing walls, shelving and decorative facia.
That's the problem. It's cheaper to throw it all out and cut down more trees. I don't think that re-cycling would stop the need to cut trees, but we could reduce new cutting significantly.
No matter how good the company is, if they suddenly go bankrupt, their abandon mines would become a liability to the government. If the company had to pay up as it mined, then get the money back as they reclaimed, it would be more assured. The real point is to make the cost of mining new materials a little higher and the cost of re-cycling a little lower.
A fairly small adjustment, over time, would have a big effect.
Hemp paper has much longer fibers than wood pulp paper, so it can be recycled more times and still be useable. The average length of the fiber required varies by the grade of paper. By varying the mix of recycled and new fibers, you can make whatever ever grade is need. Right now, we use far more new fiber than is needed. If new fiber cost most than recycled, we would use much less new fiber.
There is a lot they can do with the chemistry of plastics. They could probably increase the chain length if needed. The re-processed plastics could be used for car parts, notebooks, floppy disks and millions of other plastic items. Again, it is generally cheaper to just buy more oil (from the friendly and politically stable folks who have lots of it) than it is to recycle. If the real "costs" of buying more oil were taken into account, we would re-use plastics more times before it would be considered useless.
--Larry
"Jym Dyer" wrote in message news:[email]...
"That picture of your wife? Pure trash! "
Richard.
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