Hey Brian ✨I’m Arsh and my fairly new substack! Came across your post and thought I’ll drop by. My blog is all about sustainability so anyone who’s curious about the field, the new innovations, scoop, and even the basics for someone new! 🌱 follow along on this journey! I make it fun to #SUSitOut
Nowadays, glass is not allowed in most food or drink factories because of the liability that would ensue if Jane Doe crunched down on a potato chip with a glass shard in it.
There is a reason bottlers like PET bottles. They arrive with the threaded part full size but the rest of the bottle as a small thick short tube. For use the short tube is heated to melt then blown into a mold to form the bottle. When released it cools in seconds and is ready to fill. A sterilizing solution of peroxyacetic acid rinses the bottle, then it is filled, with orange juice, soda or other drink. Glass bottles would have to be collecte, washed, rinsed, inspected and then sterilized and filled. Broken glass and its liability in food products is a major concern. That is why we do not use glass bottles for beer and drinks in the USA.
Lummus Technology has developed a catalytic heated process that converts plastics into crude oil, ie, gasoline, kerosine, etc. Major energy and plastic companies are reportedly implementing this to consume used plastics. one of the limitations is that it does not handle chlorinated plastics like PVC well. In another 10 years we may see a major portion of plastics destroyed by this process into crude oil and its products.
I stopped recycling a few years ago. Now i put it in with the regular household trash; food, waste, coffee grounds. Now they have to address the issue and actually do the work.
I recall living in California and on Saturday taking all our recyclables to the recycling center. Glass, aluminum and plastic drink bottles. I only did that to recoup some of the money spent when purchasing via deposits. Aluminum was the only thing worthwhile, plastic wasn’t worth the time. You pay 2 cents a bottle at purchase and might get 2 cents a pound at recycle. Where I live now there are no deposits on containers and only recently started recycling plastic. I don’t bother; everything goes in the garbage except paper/cardboard. My personal feeling is that manufacturers of the containers should bear a greater responsibility for the lifecycle of their products.
When glass bottles were the only bottles, they were hazards for children walkin barefoot. Broken glass was ubiquitous. For that reason i prefer plastic or cans for drinks.
Great article. Plastics are insane. Somehow we need to reduce and even imagine no Plastic. How many years did humans manage to live without Plastics ? Neither of our Federal Monopoly Parties seems anywhere near interested enough to begin to do something. In the 1930s the milkman brought the milk in a glass bottle and picked it up too. Dodobbird.pixels.com (art)
Plastic recycling isn’t the cure—it’s the con. The industry sold us a fairy tale, a neat little loop of redemption where our waste is reborn, but in truth, it's just a slow-motion disaster. Every cycle shreds plastic into smaller, more insidious ghosts—microplastics infiltrating our blood, our bones, our unborn children.
"Recycling is not a solution to the plastic pollution crisis; it is a distraction that allows the industry to continue its harmful practices unchecked."
Damn right. The machine runs on illusion, feeding us moral pacifiers while it cranks out more waste, more poison, more profit. If we want out, we don’t recycle—we reject. >lesscleardotcom
In Japan, the recycling is done very well. In most other East Asia countries, recycling is also good but not as good as in Japan because they are not as paranoid as the Japanese in mostly every aspect of life. Countries in Southeast Asia rank a notch lower because they don't have enough money. Japan is short of flat lands, and I believe a large percentage of the recycling collections are burned off. It is not exactly green but the urgency is higher. In comparison, the USA has lots of place to dump garbage to stay out of sight. Port cities like NYC directly export garbage to dump overseas. Things will get resolved faster if all garbage stays inside national, state, county, and city boundaries.
A friend of mine used to work in the sanitation department of a city that had two recyclable sort trailers in town. He told me that when they would go out and get them, everything in them would go to the landfill.
You neglect the tremendous value recycling has in virtue signaling. During a recent election in Portland, ME, candidates were interviewed for profiles. One of the questions was, “How many recycling bins do you fill each week?” The higher the number, the greater virtue value!
Hey Brian ✨I’m Arsh and my fairly new substack! Came across your post and thought I’ll drop by. My blog is all about sustainability so anyone who’s curious about the field, the new innovations, scoop, and even the basics for someone new! 🌱 follow along on this journey! I make it fun to #SUSitOut
Nowadays, glass is not allowed in most food or drink factories because of the liability that would ensue if Jane Doe crunched down on a potato chip with a glass shard in it.
There is a reason bottlers like PET bottles. They arrive with the threaded part full size but the rest of the bottle as a small thick short tube. For use the short tube is heated to melt then blown into a mold to form the bottle. When released it cools in seconds and is ready to fill. A sterilizing solution of peroxyacetic acid rinses the bottle, then it is filled, with orange juice, soda or other drink. Glass bottles would have to be collecte, washed, rinsed, inspected and then sterilized and filled. Broken glass and its liability in food products is a major concern. That is why we do not use glass bottles for beer and drinks in the USA.
Lummus Technology has developed a catalytic heated process that converts plastics into crude oil, ie, gasoline, kerosine, etc. Major energy and plastic companies are reportedly implementing this to consume used plastics. one of the limitations is that it does not handle chlorinated plastics like PVC well. In another 10 years we may see a major portion of plastics destroyed by this process into crude oil and its products.
this is so wrong
I stopped recycling a few years ago. Now i put it in with the regular household trash; food, waste, coffee grounds. Now they have to address the issue and actually do the work.
I recall living in California and on Saturday taking all our recyclables to the recycling center. Glass, aluminum and plastic drink bottles. I only did that to recoup some of the money spent when purchasing via deposits. Aluminum was the only thing worthwhile, plastic wasn’t worth the time. You pay 2 cents a bottle at purchase and might get 2 cents a pound at recycle. Where I live now there are no deposits on containers and only recently started recycling plastic. I don’t bother; everything goes in the garbage except paper/cardboard. My personal feeling is that manufacturers of the containers should bear a greater responsibility for the lifecycle of their products.
Going back to glass bottles makes more sense.
When glass bottles were the only bottles, they were hazards for children walkin barefoot. Broken glass was ubiquitous. For that reason i prefer plastic or cans for drinks.
It would be helpful to know the details of what specific cities do with their houshold recycling streams. For example, what happens in NYC?
Great article. Plastics are insane. Somehow we need to reduce and even imagine no Plastic. How many years did humans manage to live without Plastics ? Neither of our Federal Monopoly Parties seems anywhere near interested enough to begin to do something. In the 1930s the milkman brought the milk in a glass bottle and picked it up too. Dodobbird.pixels.com (art)
Plastic recycling isn’t the cure—it’s the con. The industry sold us a fairy tale, a neat little loop of redemption where our waste is reborn, but in truth, it's just a slow-motion disaster. Every cycle shreds plastic into smaller, more insidious ghosts—microplastics infiltrating our blood, our bones, our unborn children.
"Recycling is not a solution to the plastic pollution crisis; it is a distraction that allows the industry to continue its harmful practices unchecked."
Damn right. The machine runs on illusion, feeding us moral pacifiers while it cranks out more waste, more poison, more profit. If we want out, we don’t recycle—we reject. >lesscleardotcom
Single stream recycling of paper and plastic by Waste Management is sold as fuel to generate electricity in India.
In Japan, the recycling is done very well. In most other East Asia countries, recycling is also good but not as good as in Japan because they are not as paranoid as the Japanese in mostly every aspect of life. Countries in Southeast Asia rank a notch lower because they don't have enough money. Japan is short of flat lands, and I believe a large percentage of the recycling collections are burned off. It is not exactly green but the urgency is higher. In comparison, the USA has lots of place to dump garbage to stay out of sight. Port cities like NYC directly export garbage to dump overseas. Things will get resolved faster if all garbage stays inside national, state, county, and city boundaries.
Why not incinerate it, generate electricity, clean up the exhaust gas and landfill the ash?
A friend of mine used to work in the sanitation department of a city that had two recyclable sort trailers in town. He told me that when they would go out and get them, everything in them would go to the landfill.
You neglect the tremendous value recycling has in virtue signaling. During a recent election in Portland, ME, candidates were interviewed for profiles. One of the questions was, “How many recycling bins do you fill each week?” The higher the number, the greater virtue value!