Bikes, bowling balls, and the balancing act that is modern recycling (2015)(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Bikes, bowling balls, and the balancing act that is modern recycling (2015)
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/recycling-matching-high-tech-materials-science-with-economics-that-work/
36 comments
An entire generation of people was told in the 1990s that recycling was morally virtuous and that “doing their part,” however small, could clean up the environment. And they believed it because it was easy. “Oh, I can order this meal kit service and be environmentally friendly because it’s all organic and all that plastic packaging can be recycled? Great!”
Much of the messaging was "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", people weren't just told that recycling was magic.
I'm sure the 3 R's being frequently overlaid on the recycling logo didn't particularly help the cause of the first two.
People weren’t told that they were supposed to prioritize those three things in that order. First reduce consumption, and then reuse the things you do use, and then recycle the things you can no longer use.
Most people think recycling is as good as never having consumed in the first place.
Most people think recycling is as good as never having consumed in the first place.
It would be fine to collect plastic bags, as well as other plastic types, if recyclers could use plasma gasifiers ("burns" hotter, cleaner than incineration) on site to generate power (via syngas, waste to energy) instead of waiting for a buyer to arrive that never will. The slag would be used for roads mixed into asphalt aggregate (similar to how colored glass is used for construction aggregate).
Not everything collected through recycling must be "recycled" in the traditional sense. It should be called "landfill diversion", not recycling.
Not everything collected through recycling must be "recycled" in the traditional sense. It should be called "landfill diversion", not recycling.
> It is amazing how much infrastructure and technology is in place for a process that is proving incompatible with reality (both in terms of capability of the tech, and economics of the commodities).
Is it incompatible? The article makes it sounds like a clear win for the city, and a sometimes-win for the plant:
All of this may mean that at any given moment, recycling can be anything from highly profitable to a struggle to cover costs. If we were to shut these facilities down during periods where they weren't profitable, however, we'd be wasting infrastructure and expertise we'd want when costs shift in the other direction.
The city does pay a tipping fee to get rid of the materials, but it's less than what it would pay to landfill them—plus it avoids the cost of transporting everything to the landfill.
The city even has a chance to get some of its tipping fee back. When recycled materials are sufficiently valuable, Sims shares a percentage of the profits back with the government. During periods where these materials are priced low, the company gets to keep any profits it can eke out.
The net result is that the city can benefit when recycled materials are valuable. And when raw material prices are low, it's still profitable to keep the facility operating.
Is it incompatible? The article makes it sounds like a clear win for the city, and a sometimes-win for the plant:
All of this may mean that at any given moment, recycling can be anything from highly profitable to a struggle to cover costs. If we were to shut these facilities down during periods where they weren't profitable, however, we'd be wasting infrastructure and expertise we'd want when costs shift in the other direction.
The city does pay a tipping fee to get rid of the materials, but it's less than what it would pay to landfill them—plus it avoids the cost of transporting everything to the landfill.
The city even has a chance to get some of its tipping fee back. When recycled materials are sufficiently valuable, Sims shares a percentage of the profits back with the government. During periods where these materials are priced low, the company gets to keep any profits it can eke out.
The net result is that the city can benefit when recycled materials are valuable. And when raw material prices are low, it's still profitable to keep the facility operating.
New York City is a massive outlier when it comes to waste disposal. They have no working landfill sites or incineration facilities, they have considerable political difficulties in exporting waste to New Jersey or New York State and their waste management system is still substantially dysfunctional due to the legacy of organised crime. As a result, they have the highest per-tonne landfill costs in North America. These problems could be fixed on a practical level with a handful of modern waste-to-energy plants, but that's politically untenable in the current climate.
I wish Supercritical Water Oxidation had worked out.
But it requires ceramics that are resistant to heat, pressure, and chemical erosion, which turns out to be the usual 'pick two' situation.
I had heard someone was working on composite ceramics to deal with this (heat and pressure resistant bulk, enameled with heat and chemical resistant coatings) but have heard nothing since.
So far they only seem to be price competitive in hazardous waste situations.
But it requires ceramics that are resistant to heat, pressure, and chemical erosion, which turns out to be the usual 'pick two' situation.
I had heard someone was working on composite ceramics to deal with this (heat and pressure resistant bulk, enameled with heat and chemical resistant coatings) but have heard nothing since.
So far they only seem to be price competitive in hazardous waste situations.
The article was written in 2015 when commodity prices were high, I doubt that the city mentioned in the article is seeing the same results today. I'd encourage you to read up on China's import ban and how that has effectively upended the US recycling system.
Method famously split from the status quo for a while, years ago, and produced non-recyclable containers for some of their products. Their position was that if recycling only nets you 30% of the inputs back, you are better off using virgin materials to make a container that takes 30% of the material of the recyclable version, because you reduce the footprint of shipping, and the pollution of recycling.
I believe Danon yogurt made a similar decision when they went to thinner plastic on their single serving cups.
I think Method has since figured out a recyclable solution so their refill bags are recyclable but still made of next to nothing.
I believe Danon yogurt made a similar decision when they went to thinner plastic on their single serving cups.
I think Method has since figured out a recyclable solution so their refill bags are recyclable but still made of next to nothing.
Reduction is the best thing that could potentially happen right now, but it's also going to require a cultural sea change on par with the adoption of recycling -- and there are many, many interests aligned against reducing consumption.
In the meantime, recycling technology is still in relative infancy, so while it may not make business sense now, it may be essential in the future for the recovery of certain materials. And, like solar before it, the only way to get it to a useful enough efficiency for that future use is to suffer through adopting it while it's inefficient.
In the meantime, recycling technology is still in relative infancy, so while it may not make business sense now, it may be essential in the future for the recovery of certain materials. And, like solar before it, the only way to get it to a useful enough efficiency for that future use is to suffer through adopting it while it's inefficient.
Can the same be said about plastic straws? Maybe another one of those "let's all feel good about how much we're saving the world" efforts with quantitatively insignificant impact?
It's why "reduce" and "reuse" come before "recycling" in the full slogan. That's not compatible with the capitalist drive to upgrade and dispose of consumer electronics once every year or two, to say nothing of the packaging waste involved in many foods.
If you found the economics portion of this article interestingly, I would highly recommend the EconTalk podcast episode "Munger on Recycling"
http://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-recycling/
http://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-recycling/
For plastics, wouldn't it be possible to dissolve the whole bunch of trash in e.g. acetone or other solvents and then split the solvents again to get pure raw plastic precursors again? Or would that be too expensive?
The problem with this scheme is that fresh new plastic is incredibly cheap. A solvent based system like this basically has no chance of competing, even when getting the raw material for free. The end product won't be as good either thanks to all of the contamination.
I wonder if it would make sense to instead have dedicated areas in landfills where you put products that can't be reasonably recycled today in the hopes that in the future someone figures out a way to do it and can just tap into the neatly separated pile to get their raw materials? This is pretty speculative and optimistic. Plus it requires dump site operators to correctly guess which kind of materials are going to be useful in the future.
I wonder if it would make sense to instead have dedicated areas in landfills where you put products that can't be reasonably recycled today in the hopes that in the future someone figures out a way to do it and can just tap into the neatly separated pile to get their raw materials? This is pretty speculative and optimistic. Plus it requires dump site operators to correctly guess which kind of materials are going to be useful in the future.
A book I read as a kid was set in a future where they were out of oil and couldn't make new plastic. Plastic became very expensive and things like plastic bowls were used as signs of wealth. The plot involved kids who were taken and forced to mine plastic from old landfills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ear,_the_Eye_and_the_Arm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ear,_the_Eye_and_the_Arm
> The plot involved kids who were taken and forced to mine plastic from old landfills.
So basically what 3rd World countries do with the U.S. electronics.
So basically what 3rd World countries do with the U.S. electronics.
> where you put products that can't be reasonably recycled today in the hopes that in the future someone figures out a way to do it
We have those; they're called landfills.
> neatly separated pile[s]
The problem is that most types of refuse are already semi-uniformly mixed at the household level, so you would have spend labor separating them, which might not be needed[0], so you might as well put off separation until know you need it.
0: Eg, if the most efficient way of recycling them turns out to be: dump the whole mess into vat of genetically engineered bacteria, and sift out the glass and metal bits when they build up.
We have those; they're called landfills.
> neatly separated pile[s]
The problem is that most types of refuse are already semi-uniformly mixed at the household level, so you would have spend labor separating them, which might not be needed[0], so you might as well put off separation until know you need it.
0: Eg, if the most efficient way of recycling them turns out to be: dump the whole mess into vat of genetically engineered bacteria, and sift out the glass and metal bits when they build up.
"Genetically engineered bacteria" is basically pixie dust at this point. It's a potential solution, but we don't have the tech to know if it would even be practical.
Er, yes, that's exactly my point.
Incredibly expensive, solvent heavy and wouldn’t actually work either. You’d be better off burning the lot to produce electricity which is what increasingly happens.
I'd assume/hope they're capturing the gases from the burning, but do you know if that produces anything usable or something we also need to then figure out what to do with?
You're assumption, unfortunately, is incorrect.[1][2]
1.) Ocean City, MD opts to burn recyclables in Covanta Incinerators (selfish, awesome): https://www.oceancity.com/ocean-city-has-no-plans-to-return-...
2.) Covanta Incinerators are bad despite what the company claims (selfish, shocking): https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/too-much-pollution/
1.) Ocean City, MD opts to burn recyclables in Covanta Incinerators (selfish, awesome): https://www.oceancity.com/ocean-city-has-no-plans-to-return-...
2.) Covanta Incinerators are bad despite what the company claims (selfish, shocking): https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/too-much-pollution/
I tend to be a pessimist so I was trying to be a bit more optimistic, but I guess that was a bit misguided.
There's systems that are doing roughly that (but I think not a vat of solvent, some other process to crack the plastic):
https://renewlogy.com/renew-energy/
https://renewlogy.com/renew-energy/
There are a few yoytube videos that show diy versions of what you describe, but efficiency ia not there yet.
Related to the coffee cup discussion the other day, wouldn't greater adoption of municipal high heat composting solve some of recycling's problems?
What was the coffee cup discussion?
A colleague recently told me that re-usable coffee cups are about single-use plastics. I looked down at my coffee cup and found it to be both recyclable and biodegradable. He told me it was about the lids. The lid was the same.
Without further research, I would be a bit unsure about the cost of making a re-usable cup vs its lifetime vs biodegradable single-use cups. But despite the fact that things have already improved, I'm hearing they will be banned...
A colleague recently told me that re-usable coffee cups are about single-use plastics. I looked down at my coffee cup and found it to be both recyclable and biodegradable. He told me it was about the lids. The lid was the same.
Without further research, I would be a bit unsure about the cost of making a re-usable cup vs its lifetime vs biodegradable single-use cups. But despite the fact that things have already improved, I'm hearing they will be banned...
The vast majority of disposable coffee cups have a plastic inner lining. This makes them impractical to recyclable, as the plastic lining must be separated from the paper shell. They're still theoretically recyclable and so can carry that label, but it's overwhelmingly unlikely that your local waste system has the capacity to recycle them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43739043
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43739043
In the UK we now have the capacity to recycle all the 2.5 billion plastic lined cups we use each year. There are an ever increasing number of recycling collection points and many major companies are working to make this happen.
https://resource.co/article/veolia-recycle-120m-coffee-cups-...
> However, two reprocessors have announced this year that they have the capability to recycle coffee cup waste. In March, packaging company DS Smith stated that it could recycle all the UK’s coffee cups at its paper mill in Kemsley, Kent, while on a smaller scale, paper manufacturer James Cropper launched its own trademarked ‘CupCycling’ process in May
> Costa announced its aim to recycle as many coffee cups as it sells by 2020, equating to 500 million cups. The programme involves the chain subsidising a number of waste collection companies, including Veolia, to collect takeaway cups from stores (£70 per tonne collected). This subsidy aims to raise the value of coffee cups as a material in the eyes of recyclers, making it more financially viable to collect them.
https://resource.co/article/veolia-recycle-120m-coffee-cups-...
> However, two reprocessors have announced this year that they have the capability to recycle coffee cup waste. In March, packaging company DS Smith stated that it could recycle all the UK’s coffee cups at its paper mill in Kemsley, Kent, while on a smaller scale, paper manufacturer James Cropper launched its own trademarked ‘CupCycling’ process in May
> Costa announced its aim to recycle as many coffee cups as it sells by 2020, equating to 500 million cups. The programme involves the chain subsidising a number of waste collection companies, including Veolia, to collect takeaway cups from stores (£70 per tonne collected). This subsidy aims to raise the value of coffee cups as a material in the eyes of recyclers, making it more financially viable to collect them.
That would not be the case for biodegradable ones, presumably - and indeed the article mentions Vegware, which I see everywhere now.
Of particular interest was the bit on plastic bags (edit: which are largely considered “contamination” in the USA) - the worker complained that they put them into a dedicated stream to bale and sell, “but no one is buying them”.
Economics wrote the truth on the wall for these “recyclable” materials back in 2015 (or before). The world is just now catching up to the reality that reducing is the only real way to improve the situation we’re in - recycling should be a last resort.