I am more or less neutral on most recycling. Separating metals us a good idea, glass pretty neutral (it’s basically a rock and expensive to crush and recycle - much better to reuse). Separating plastics is probably worse than useless.
Separating organics, however, has immediate benefits. It’s so nice having trash that doesn’t stink to high heaven, and it almost eliminates the raccoon and rat problem. Municipal compost is one of the best public investments imo. Yes, it can be gross, but it concentrates the gross and makes it much simpler to deal with.
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 2 days ago
Sadly, recycling isn’t as effective as one might think. For example, only a small subset of the plastic you put in the plastic recycling bin will actually be recycled.
Does this mean you shouldn’t bother? No, but it gives all the more reason to try to use less plastic to begin with.
TherapyGary@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
1000010720
Yondoza@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Cans and glass are infinitely recyclable. Recycling aluminum saves 96% of the energy of producing new.
Paper is semi recyclable, but it degrades, so it can only go through the process a certain number of times.
Plastic is marginally recyclable. Only about 10% of plastic that goes into a recycling bin gets recycled. It was a hoax by petro-chem to make plastic seem more sustainable than it is.
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I believe that Iceland is home to some incredible geothermal networks, and thus they can produce aluminum at a volume and rate that outstrips any other nation by a mile.
That said, I’m curious how the electricity would be transferred from Iceland’s geothermal plants with maximum fidelity. Follow-up, if that number changes, so should the “96%”, correct? I’m no engineer, barely an oneironaut, so I’m just throwing it out there, in case anyone can break that down? 🤓
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 1 day ago
oh wow thats much better than I thought!
RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That 10% is going to be country specific, much higher plastic recycle rates are possible and are already happening in some countries.
In the eu about 40% of plastic packaging waste gets recycled, but with significant differences per country: …europa.eu/…/plastic-waste-and-recycling-in-the-e…
Slovakia and Belgium are/were the eu’s best performers in 2022. When looking for more general figures for Belgium, instead of only packaging, I found that 38.6% of plastic waste was recycled and 59.8% was used for energy generation, while the rest ended up in a landfill. plasticseurope.org/…/CircularEconomy_nationalinfo…
rumba@lemmy.zip 20 hours ago
Most places are at least burying the streams still sorted. The idea is that if we find a lucrative use for shitty plastic, we could mine it back out of the landfills.