Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work. This is the real “Inconvenient Truth.”
If you really wanna “do your part to fight climate change,” you’re better off trying to live like someone out of 1890 before plastics was a thing, and people repaired/patched 100x before even considering replacements. You’ll have less time for arguing with idiots like me online but you’ll be much happier and actually be making a positive contribution.
> Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work.
No, it's because he's an idiot whose brain is turned to mush from obsessing about culture war politics.
The plastic recycling history is vaguely interesting for some plastics and completely irrelevant for glass and metals which are profitably recycled due to the economics of recycling them vs. creating them from scratch.
In any case, the local waste plant recycles what they can and then burns the rest for energy so I'll let them make the call on what's profitable to process.
All fired silicon materials are more stable when they have been fired at least twice. If you make ceramics, you save all your failures to make grog, which is basically ceramic sand or dust. Mixed in with fresh clay it reduced the expansion ratio and the internal stresses.
Bottles with recycled material are more sturdy than those without. I don’t know how the process of bringing a bottle plant online works, but if it doesn’t include either buying grog from a supplier or feeding all the glass from the test runs into a hopper I would be very surprised.
I have never heard a physicist explain this phenomenon, but if you crush something it tends to break along the weakest points, so crushed silicon has selected out many of the weakest grains and left the strongest ones. Then either they continue to grow or they just increase the ratio of strong to weak.
Things such as refillable water bottles are simple examples of this as well.
Of course MAGA country is a laggard so this will probably take another 5-10 years to become adopted after it becomes the norm in the left cities->suburbs>rural.
Perfect example of an unnecessary vile comment.
Most rural people already reuse and repurpose many things, they don’t have trash pick every week if at all and like to have a clean area for their children and grandchildren. It’s in their blood to find innovative ways to use something again in a different way. Your hate is coming from somewhere gross and you should consider some introspection on why you have so much of it in your heart.
Plastics like PET and HDPE are recyclable but sorting recyclable materials from non-recyclable ones is costly which meant a lot of recycling does end up as waste.
We need to start penalizing manufacturers and retailers for single-use plastics. Laws like those passed in Maine banned most single-use plastic bags and mandates that anyone offering them must also provide recycling a drop off bin.
Consumers mostly do not have a choice about how their products are packaged so the onus must be shifted onto retailers and manufacturers who make those decisions.
There's also a few good ones for moving away from ICEs: (1) I'd rather make things out of oil/plastic than just burn it up (2) national sovereignty and (3) resilience in case of war or disaster.
Relatedly, I don't think I've every heard an environmentalist use these points. Any idea what that is?
Stop arguing with abstract concepts, benefits for society, and dishonest framing (people are really allergic to anything they perceive as being lied to). Show the immediate, direct, tangible benefits they get.
So what does that leave us? Cult deprogramming techniques? Lithium in the water?
Show me the techniques that work, and I'll do it. I've studied and tried them all.
Meanwhile, I've given up. Absolutely refuse to talk news or politics with friends and relations. Not even with people I agree with.
Now I just practice radical empathy.
I fear the only way to win is to not play.
They might be less stubborn if you were less condescending and spent more time actually trying to come up with good arguments to convince them. pretty clear that being arrogant never changes anyone's mind. inclined to believe that you don't actually care about convincing, just judging
In fact some cities offset the price of trash service with the money from recycling. Which is part of the impetus to fine people for not separating. You’re costing the city money.
