Social [Plastic Waste] Startup turns trash into construction-grade building blocks

Its insane just how damaging humans are to the environment. Literally a planetary plague.
 
I have definitely noticed a lot of restaurants don't give out straws anymore unless requested.
 
For a long time China has been buying America's contaminated plastics and recycling them back into water bottles and toys.

Then sales them back.

But no other country would allow those chemicals in their plastic toys and water bottles.

China dont Give a f.

And they do this all in a coal burning factory.
 
Planned obsolescence is profitable, especially when it's used as a selling point of the product and is a built in feature.

It's so cheap you can afford to throw it away. Over and over and over again....

Of course it’s profitable

It’s also pigheaded, shortsighted and reckless
 
Travel industry takes aim at reducing plastic waste
Nancy Trejos, USA TODAY | May 31, 2018

636633536996712204-Paul-Mitchell-Tea-Tree-large-bottles-9x6.jpg

Marriott International is replacing small amenity bottles with re-usable Paul Mitchell Tea Tree dispensers

The hospitality industry no longer is being hospitable to plastic waste.

Momentum is growing to minimize the use of single-use plastic among hotels, airlines, airports and cruise lines. That means plastic straws, cups, bottles, laundry bags and even packaging for hotel guestroom slippers are starting to disappear.

Plastic waste has wreaked havoc on tourist destinations around the world. Late last year, authorities in Bali, Indonesia, declared a “garbage emergency” because of the amount of plastic washing up on a nearly 4-mile stretch of beach on the island’s west coast.

“The visibility of plastic waste in our community is becoming much more prevalent, especially in the travel industry,” says Denise Naguib, vice president of sustainability and supplier diversity for Marriott International. “It’s much more visible not to the microscopic portion of the public paying attention to these things, but to everyday travelers."
Some recent industry efforts to reduce plastic:

Hilton will eliminate plastic straws across its managed hotels globally by the end of this year. It will also get rid of plastic bottles from its conference and event spaces. Across Greater China and Mongolia, its managed hotels have been removing plastic water bottles from meetings and events, health clubs and spas since September 2017. That has resulted in the elimination of 13 million plastic bottles annually. In Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, Hilton’s managed hotels have already transitioned away from plastic straws. The properties now offer biodegradable paper straws on demand, which has led to the reduction of 2.5 million plastic straws annually.

Marriott is replacing individual, small amenity bath bottles at five select-service brands in North America with recyclable 8.5-oz. dispensers containing Paul Mitchell Tea Tree products. The company expects about 1,500 hotels in North America to participate in the initiative by year’s end. That will result in the elimination of about 34.5 million bottles and 375,000 pounds of plastic in an average year. So far, 450 hotels have started getting rid of their plastic. The brands include Courtyard and Fairfield Inn. Marriott has also removed plastic straws from 50 of its hotels in the United Kingdom.

AccorHotels — parent company of Fairmont, Raffles, Swissôtel, Novotel and more —recently announced a pledge to ban the use of plastic straws at its North and Central America properties starting this July. Already, several hotels have instituted a “straw upon request only” policy.

InterContinental Hotels Group is implementing bulk-size bath amenities across many of its brands, including Holiday Inn Express, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, avid hotels, EVEN Hotels, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

Delaware North, one of the largest privately held hospitality and food service companies in the world, has started scaling back its use of straws at the company’s 200-plus dining locations at 23 airports and travel hubs across the USA. “The Last Straw” campaign aims to curb excess plastic waste by offering drinking straws on a request-only basis. Last year, the company served an estimated 8.1 million plastic drinking straws at airport dining locations.

Alaska Airlines will begin replacing plastic stirring sticks on its flights and frequent-flier lounges with compostable versions made of white birch. Citrus picks will switch from plastic to bamboo starting July 16.

United Airlines has made several environmentally friendly initiatives, recycling 13 million pounds of plastic, paper, aluminum and other materials in 2016.

Carnival Cruise Line announced in April that it no longer will automatically serve plastic straws for sodas or cocktails, except for frozen drinks. Guests will have to request straws if they want them.
The industry has gotten a boost from initiatives in Europe to reduce plastic waste. The European Commission last week proposed a ban on single-use plastic items such as straws, plates and cutlery in an effort to clean up its beaches. The European Parliament and Council will have to approve the proposal.

However, France has imposed a ban on disposable plastic cups and plates. The law requires that those items be made from 50% biodegradable materials by January 2020. It must increase to 60% by January 2025.

In April, the United Kingdom, which is leaving the European Union, proposed a law to ban plastic straws, cotton swabs and drink stirrers, citing studies that more than 100,000 sea mammals die from ingesting plastic waste each year.

Even the Queen of England has banned the use of plastic straws and bottles from Royal estates, including at any public cafes open to visitors touring the grounds.

The movement has been buoyed by influential documentaries made by the likes of BBC naturalist David Attenborough, whose A Plastic Ocean has been wildly popular, so much so that Hilton offers it as a complimentary viewing option on its guestroom TVs in China.
Hilton has made a commitment to cut its environmental footprint in half by 2030. Many of its younger guests are particularly concerned about efforts to protect the environment, says Maxime Verstraete, Hilton’s vice president of corporate responsibility.

In a survey of about 72,000 guests conducted in early May, 49% of those 34 years old and under said they actively seek information about a hotel brand’s environmental and social efforts before booking a stay.

“Millennials, they get really passionate about these things,” Verstraete says. “That is very important to us because these are our future travelers.”

As new brands get introduced, Hilton is adopting more stringent environmental standards. Canopy by Hilton, for instance, does not provide plastic water bottles. Instead, it has water filtration systems throughout and refillable water bottles. The new Tru by Hilton brand will have bulk dispensers for amenities rather than tiny bottles.

Even luxury brands, which were slow to adopt such efforts, are becoming more environmentally conscious. Marriott’s Edition hotels, a partnership with famed boutique hotel developer Ian Schrager, has vowed to go plastic-free by the end of this year.

The brand has also partnered with bottled-water company Just to provide guests with reusable paper-based containers.

Parent company Marriott’s goal is to reduce waste by 45% by 2025. It is working with its suppliers to remove unnecessary plastic packaging from cleaning products and to deliver food in reusable bins.

“Dozens of plastic alternatives are being developed,” Naguib says.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav...tting-rid-plastic-straws-and-waste/658804002/
 
The latest idea is turning plastics and rubber into bricks.

Imagine how many low-cost housings can be build with the millions tons of recyclables that China no longer takes.

They're doing it now in Colombia. A complete house can be put together like giant lego pieces by four people in five days and cost less than $7000.





https://www.archdaily.com/869926/this-house-was-built-in-5-days-using-recycled-plastic-bricks


I wasn’t on the team, but in college a senior design group made a project that took plastic milk jugs and water bottles, heated them with nothing but solar energy, and at the end was a shingle that was actually Durable and waterproof to be good for 20 years on a hut

It was a painfully slow process, but the capability is there judging by that working prototype I saw
 
I wasn’t on the team, but in college a senior design group made a project that took plastic milk jugs and water bottles, heated them with nothing but solar energy, and at the end was a shingle that was actually Durable and waterproof to be good for 20 years on a hut

It was a painfully slow process, but the capability is there judging by that working prototype I saw

Shingles, siding, that kind of stuff I believe. Entire buildings, support structures, I am skeptical of that.
 
It's incredible what we do to our environment.

enhanced-24034-1460711481-10.jpg

i think about shit like this all the time. the grocery store cashiers where i live are always trying to put drinks/beer with handles that i buy in plastic bags for me to carry out. wtf for? they have F'ing handles on them already.
 
Shingles, siding, that kind of stuff I believe. Entire buildings, support structures, I am skeptical of that.

We're not talking about high-rise office buildings here.

The framing structure of the typical one or two story house is still just good old dimensional lumber.

Wood-framed_house.jpg


If this stuff is four times stronger than concrete, it's sure as hell sturdier than wood.
 
We're not talking about high-rise office buildings here.

The framing structure of the typical one or two story house is still just good old dimensional lumber.

Wood-framed_house.jpg


If this stuff is four times stronger than concrete, it's sure as hell sturdier than wood.

I'm sure it is initially. But I'd be highly suspect of how it holds up over time, especially in areas with hot summers or cold winters.

One of the links say these houses should last 60yrs, there are houses in my area made of wood and stone that are 200+ years old on their original frames.

Even quality, high density, high rigidity plastics sag. Look at vinyl decking or smaller storage buildings that are made of plastics. I get that the overall idea here is new, but building with plastic isn't new at all.

I'd hope that something like this would work out, but I'm just skeptical right now.
 
I'm sure it is initially. But I'd be highly suspect of how it holds up over time, especially in areas with hot summers or cold winters.

One of the links say these houses should last 60yrs, there are houses in my area made of wood and stone that are 200+ years old on their original frames.

Even quality, high density, high rigidity plastics sag. Look at vinyl decking or smaller storage buildings that are made of plastics. I get that the overall idea here is new, but building with plastic isn't new at all.

I'd hope that something like this would work out, but I'm just skeptical right now.

What's there to be skeptical about that incredible rated lifetime, consider that these affordable pre-fab houses are aimed squarely at the temporary shelters segment?

60 years is an enormously long life for a temporary refugees shelter, like the $6,800 units in Colombia mentioned on Page 1. Chances are they would serve their intended purpose wonderfully, then dissembled and put in storage after the job is done, until they are needed again.

Many governments around the world are also thinking about building homeless shelters to replace the tent cities in their neighborhoods, my own County included. These pre-fab houses would make an excellent choice.

And since they only take less than 5 days to put together, they are also great for emergency situations for the families who REALLY needs a roof over their heads. Sure as hell beats the U.N-issued canvas tents that desperate families had to live in like dirty rats for months after the Haiti earthquake, or the frankenstein sheds that poor Asian villagers along the coasts pieced together with debris after the Asian tsunami.
 
Last edited:
What's there to be skeptical about that incredible rated lifetime, consider that these affordable pre-fab houses are aimed squarely at the temporary shelters segment?

60 years is an enormously long life for a temporary refugees shelter, like the $6,800 units in Colombia mentioned on Page 1. Chances are they would serve their intended purpose wonderfully, then dissembled and put in storage after the job is done, until they are needed again.

Many governments around the world are also thinking about building homeless shelters to replace the tent cities in their neighborhoods, my own County included. These pre-fab houses would make an excellent choice.

And since they only take less than 5 days to put together, they are also great for emergency situations for the families who REALLY needs a roof over their heads. Sure as hell beats the U.N-issued canvas tents that desperate families had to live in like dirty rats for months after the Haiti earthquake, or the frankenstein sheds that poor Asian villagers along the coasts pieced together with debris after the Asian tsunami.

I see where you are coming from but i am thinking of them in place of the kind of housing I normally see.

In the types of situations you described this plastic housing would be more than adequate.
 
I think the real money-saving factor here is it only takes less than 5 days to build (assembles?) a house with these oversized lego blocks, in oppose to months. And you'll probably need a much smaller skilled work force to put them together.

There was an article a while back about a Welsh company that does the same thing, and they actually did the testings to verify that recycled-plastic bricks have four times the strength of concrete, twice the insulation, and fire/storm/water-proof.

Building a "recycled house" in Britain would cost £42,000.


New homes to be built from 18 tonnes of recycled plastic
By Emily Andrews for MailOnline

article-0-087287DB000005DC-961_468x389.jpg

It puts the fab into prefabricated. And goes some way to solving the huge problem of managing the mountains of rubbish we throw away.

For the latest use of recycled plastic is building family homes.

And the price? All yours, complete with bathroom, kitchen and plumbing, for £42,000 - although you will have to provide your own land.

A pioneering company is building three-bedroom houses with frameworks made entirely of recycled waste plastic - including thousands of water bottles.

Each house is made up of 18 tonnes of recycled plastic trash that would have been destined for waste tips across the country.

Which equals 9,000 old televisions or about 7,200 desk top computers.

And the special plastic is almost four times as strong as concrete and insulates the house twice as well, enabling house-holders to cut their heating bills in half.

It is fire, storm and wind proof and, being made of plastic, is naturally waterproof.


The firm, Swansea-based Affresol, uses material that cannot be recycled any other way, to make panels that bolt together to create low carbon homes.

Any plastic, from old patio chairs and tables to building fixtures and fittings, are ground down into small granules that are then fused together in a chemical reaction to make Thermo Poly Rock (TPR).

Forty TPR panels are then bolted together to form the load bearing frame of houses.

They can then be externally clad with brick, block or stone, with the interior insulated and plastered as any other house.

Managing director of Affresol, Ian McPherson, believes the company is solving the country's housing and recycling problems at the same time.

article-0-08728A38000005DC-162_468x350.jpg

He came up with brainwave three years ago, after selling his IT company, and teamed up with manufacturing expert Scott Phillips and the universities of Cardiff and Glamorgan.

Father-of-two Mr McPherson, 60, said: ‘The materials are stronger and lighter than concrete.

‘They are waterproof, fire retardant, do not rot and have great insulation.

‘We estimate the life of the houses at more than 60 years and after that they are recyclable.

‘We believe there is tremendous potential for this new product particularly with the growing focus on carbon reduction, low energy affordable homes and sustainability.

‘At the moment about 50 to 60 per cent of all plastic is recycled – we take the other 40 to 50 per cent and use it to make something really useful.

‘Individuals can buy houses from us or developers can buy in bulk.

‘This is a new kind of prefabricated house which helps the environment as well.

‘As a country we put far too much waste into landfill and this goes some way to helping solve the problem of all our rubbish.

‘It’s exciting to build something new out of things we throw away.’

The company has launched a range of eco-friendly homes and portable factory units with £140,000 of backing from the Welsh Assembly Government.

Affresol aims to have a pilot scheme of 19 houses built in Merthyr Tydfil up-and-running in the next few months once they receive accreditation from the Building Research Establishment.

And within three years their target is to build 3,000 homes - mainly for the social housing market - each year using 40,000 tons of waste

There would be a wide variety of homes with a typical construction cost of a semi-detached about £40,000 to £50,000- and taking just four days to erect the framework.

The company claim the eco-friendly homes, like the detached show home at its factory on Swansea West industrial park, could revolutionise the building industry.


If this is as good as this post makes it seem it’s a welcome alternative on many levels. Building houses has pretty much been the same for a long time now unlike say building a car and is one of many reasons why housing is expensive now. That it’s environmentally friendly is more important though not what companies and consumers actually care about lol
 
Whale dies in Thai waters after swallowing 80 plastic bags

9829576-3x2-700x467.jpg

Photo:
An autopsy found 80 plastic bags in the whale's stomach after it died in Thailand.

Thailand coastal authorities say a whale found in the south of the country died after swallowing 80 plastic bags.

Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources says the small male pilot whale was found last week.

The whale was spotted in a canal near the Malaysian border, unable to swim.

Officials tried to help by covering it with a sunshade and attempting to use boats to help it float, the BBC reported.

But it suffered convulsions during the rescue attempt and vomited five plastic bags shortly before it died.

An autopsy revealed plastic bags weighing eight kilograms inside the whale's stomach.

Thailand is one of the world's largest consumers of plastic bags, which kill hundreds of marine creatures living near the country's beaches each year.

Last month, the Thai government said it was considering a levy on disposable plastic shopping bags.

A study published this year revealed there was up to 16 times more waste in the Pacific Ocean than previously thought.

Drag netting and an aerial survey showed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covered 1.6 million square kilometres — an area almost the same size as Queensland.
 
Over 60 countries have introduced bans, fees to cut single-use plastic waste
CBS/AP June 5, 2018

plastics3.jpg

A seagull pecks at a plastic bag in Venice Beach, California, January 30, 2017.​

Increasingly aware of the scope of plastic pollution, governments in more than 60 countries have introduced levies and bans to combat single-use plastic waste, according to U.N. Environment, an agency of the United Nations.

"A growing number of governments are taking action and demonstrating that all nations, whether rich or poor, can become global environmental leaders," Erik Solheim, the agency's head, said in a report released Tuesday about sustainable solutions to single-use plastics.

With its release timed for U.N. World Environment Day, the report noted that rules limiting the use of plastic bags had decreased their use in places such as Morocco, Rwanda and parts of China, sometimes significantly.

"Rwanda, a pioneer in banning single-use plastic bags, is now one of the cleanest nations on earth," Solheim said in the report.

But elsewhere, things haven't gone so well. Poor follow-through has left many such bans ineffective.

In New Delhi, for instance, a ban on disposable plastics has had only limited impact "because of poor enforcement," the report said. The city has tried repeatedly over the past decade to ban the use of thin plastic bags, most recently announcing a heavy fine for rule-breakers. But the bags remain ubiquitous across the city, blowing in the wind, piled in ditches and readily offered in hundreds of thousands of shops.

Elsewhere in India, including the states of Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, there have been better results.

Solheim praised India, which is hosting this year's Environment Day, for its growing focus on environmental protection. But he also noted that while traveling in the country he'd seen "some of the most beautiful scenic places, but destroyed by plastic pollution."

In its report, the U.N. made a series of recommendations to make plastics bans more effective, from encouraging more cooperation from businesses to improving waste management practices to offering incentives. Governments must finance more development and research of alternative materials, as well as raise awareness among consumers, among other actions, the report said.

By some estimates, as many as 5 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year, the report noted.

"To meet the rising tide of plastics, we urgently need strong government leadership and intervention," it added.

Solheim said, however, that plastic -- which has saved "countless lives" in the health sector and revolutionized safe food storage -- isn't the problem.

"It's what we do with it," he said. "And that means the onus is on us to be far smarter in how we use this miracle material."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/over-60-countries-introduced-bans-fees-single-use-plastic-waste/
 
Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not
Plastics and papers from dozens of American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped recycling most “foreign garbage.”
By Livia Albeck-Ripka | May 29, 2018

I
13cli-recycling-facility-articleLarge.jpg

Bales of recyclable waste in Seattle. American waste managers are struggling to find plants to process their recyclables.
Oregon is serious about recycling. Its residents are accustomed to dutifully separating milk cartons, yogurt containers, cereal boxes and kombucha bottles from their trash to divert them from the landfill. But this year, because of a far-reaching rule change in China, some of the recyclables are ending up in the local dump anyway.

In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in dozens of American cities and towns — including several in Oregon — have gone to landfills.

In the past, the municipalities would have shipped much of their used paper, plastics and other scrap materials to China for processing. But as part of a broad antipollution campaign, China announced last summer that it no longer wanted to import “foreign garbage.” Since Jan. 1 it has banned imports of various types of plastic and paper, and tightened standards for materials it does accept.

While some waste managers already send their recyclable materials to be processed domestically, or are shipping more to other countries, others have been unable to find a substitute for the Chinese market. “All of a sudden, material being collected on the street doesn’t have a place to go,” said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Republic Services, one of the largest waste managers in the country.

China’s stricter requirements also mean that loads of recycling are more likely to be considered contaminated if they contain materials that are not recyclable. That has compounded a problem that waste managers call wishful or aspirational recycling: people setting aside items for recycling because they believe or hope they are recyclable, even when they aren’t.

In the Pacific Northwest, Republic has diverted more than 2,000 tons of paper to landfills since the Chinese ban came into effect, Mr. Keller said. The company has been unable to move that material to a market “at any price or cost,” he said. Though Republic is dumping only a small portion of its total inventory so far — the company handles over five million tons of recyclables nationwide each year — it sent little to no paper to landfills last year.

But for smaller companies, like Rogue Disposal and Recycling, which serves much of Oregon, the Chinese ban has upended operations. Rogue sent all its recycling to landfills for the first few months of the year, said Garry Penning, a spokesman.

13cli-recycling-facility2-jumbo-v4.jpg

Western states, which have relied the most on Chinese recycling plants, have been hit especially hard. In some areas — like Eugene, Ore., and parts of Idaho, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii — local officials and garbage haulers will no longer accept certain items for recycling, in some cases refusing most plastics, glass and certain types of paper. Instead, they say, customers should throw these items in the trash.

Theresa Byrne, who lives in Salem, Ore., said the city took too long to inform residents that most plastics and egg and milk cartons were now considered garbage. “I was angry,” she said. “I believe in recycling.”

Other communities, like Grants Pass, Ore., home to about 37,000 people, are continuing to encourage their residents to recycle as usual, but the materials are winding up in landfills anyway. Local waste managers said they were concerned that if they told residents to stop recycling, it could be hard to get them to start again.

It is “difficult with the public to turn the spigot on and off,” said Brian Fuller, a waste manager with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The fallout has spread beyond the West Coast. Ben Harvey, the president of E.L. Harvey & Sons, a recycling company based in Westborough, Mass., said that he had around 6,000 tons of paper and cardboard piling up, when he would normally have a couple hundred tons stockpiled. The bales are filling almost half of his 80,000-square-foot facility.

“It’s really impacted our day-to-day operations,” Mr. Harvey said. “It’s stifling me.”

Recyclers in Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany and other parts of Europe have also scrambled to find alternatives.

Still, across much of the United States, including most major cities, recycling is continuing as usual. Countries like India, Vietnam and Indonesia are importing more of the materials that are not processed domestically. And some waste companies have responded to China’s ban by stockpiling material while looking for new processors, or hoping that China reconsiders its policy.

13cli-recycling-route-superJumbo.jpg

Republic Services collecting recycled materials in Kent, Wash.​


Americans recycle roughly 66 million tons of material each year, according to the most recent figures from the Environmental Protection Agency, about one-third of which is exported. The majority of those exports once went to China, said David Biderman, the executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, a research and advocacy group.

But American scrap exports to China fell by about 35 percent in the first two months of this year, after the ban was implemented, said Joseph Pickard, chief economist for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade group.

“It’s a huge concern, because China has just been such a dominant overseas market for us,” Mr. Pickard said.

In particular, exports of scrap plastic to China, valued at more than $300 million in 2015, totaled just $7.6 million in the first quarter of this year, down 90 percent from a year earlier, Mr. Pickard said. Other countries have stepped in to accept more plastics, but total scrap plastic exports are still down by 40 percent this year, he said.

“There is a significant disruption occurring to U.S. recycling programs,” Mr. Biderman said. “The concern is if this is the new normal.”

Curbside recycling is typically hauled by a private company to a sorting plant, where marketable goods are separated out. Companies or local governments then sell the goods to domestic or overseas processors. Some states and cities prohibit these companies from dumping plastic, paper and cardboard, but some local officials — including in Oregon, Massachusetts and various municipalities in Washington State — have granted waivers so that unmarketable materials can be sent to the landfill.

Recycling companies “used to get paid” by selling off recyclable materials, said Peter Spendelow, a policy analyst for the Department of Environmental Quality in Oregon. “Now they’re paying to have someone take it away.”

In some places, including parts of Idaho, Maine and Pennsylvania, waste managers are continuing to recycle but are passing higher costs on to customers, or are considering doing so.

“There are some states and some markets where mixed paper is at a negative value,” said Brent Bell, vice president of recycling at Waste Management, which handles 10 million tons of recycling per year. “We’ll let our customers make that decision, if they’d like to pay more and continue to recycle or to pay less and have it go to landfill.”


13cli-recycling-facility3-superJumbo.jpg

Mr. Spendelow said companies in rural areas, which tend to have higher expenses to get their materials to market, were being hit particularly hard. “They’re literally taking trucks straight to the landfill,” he said.

Will Posegate, the chief operations officer for Garten Services, which processes recycling for a number of counties in Oregon, said his company had tried to stockpile recyclables but eventually used a waiver to dump roughly 900 tons. “The warehouse builds up so much that it’s unsafe,” he said.

In California, officials are concerned that improperly stored bales of paper could become hazards during wildfire season, said Zoe Heller, the policy director for the state’s recycling department.

While China has entirely banned 24 materials, including post-consumer plastic and mixed paper, it has also demanded that other materials, such as cardboard and scrap metal, be only 0.5 percent impure. Even a small amount of food scraps or other rubbish, if undetected, can ruin a batch of recycling.

Some waste managers say that China’s new contamination standards are impossible to meet, while others are trying to clean up their recycling streams by slowing down their processing facilities, limiting the types of materials they accept or trying to better educate customers on what belongs in the recycling bin.


13cli-recycling-facility4-superJumbo.jpg

Waste traveling along a conveyor belt to be sorted​


Mr. Bell, the Waste Management executive, said he had seen everything from Christmas lights to animal carcasses to artillery shells come through the company’s recycling facilities. “Most of our facilities get a bowling ball every day or two,” he said.

Some materials can ruin a load, he said, while others pose fire or health hazards and can force facilities to slow their operations and in some cases temporarily shut down. (And a bowling ball could do serious damage to the equipment.) Approximately 25 percent of all recycling picked up by Waste Management is contaminated to the point that it is sent to landfills, Mr. Bell said.

Recyclers have always disposed of some of their materials. But the percentage has climbed as China and other buyers of recyclable material have ratcheted up quality standards.

Most contamination, Mr. Bell said, happens when people try to recycle materials they shouldn’t. Disposable coffee cups — which are usually lined with a thin film that makes them liquid-proof but challenging and expensive to reprocess — are an example. Unwashed plastics can also cause contamination.

“If we don’t get it clean, we’re not going to be able to market it, and if we can’t market it unfortunately it’s going to go to the landfill,” said Mr. Penning, the Rogue spokesman. In March, Rogue told customers to put everything in the trash except for corrugated cardboard, milk jugs, newspapers and tin and aluminum cans, which the company is finding domestic markets for, Mr. Penning said.

Rogue customers who make mistakes might see an “Oops” sticker the next time they check their recycling bin, he said.

In Eugene, similar restrictions have been imposed by the waste company Sanipac. These have not sat well with some residents. “Eugene is a very green city and people love their recycling here,” said Diane Peterson, a resident. “There are a lot of things like yogurt containers that we get all the time, and now we can’t recycle them.”

Leah Geocaris, another Eugene resident, said the change had prompted her to try to consume less overall. “On the one hand, I hate it, because I don’t want stuff to end up in landfill,” she said. “On the other hand, it’s a wake-up call.”

“Recycling is the third R,” she said. “You have to reduce and reuse first.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html
 
Back
Top