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

[gatchaman]

Throw it in the ocean?

I don't think that the Chinese would be buying half of the worlds recycling just to pollute their own region of the ocean.

The Chinese have been paying to do the worlds dirty work, only to get fingers pointed at them in return.

It looks like the Chinese are about to negotiate a better deal for themselves.

 

[Wulfanon]

I don't know any Chinese people who drink Chinese tap water straight from the tap.

 

[Arkain2K]

That's not really an issue. If it's not defined properly yet, let's define it. Get expert consultants on board to help with writing the guidelines on what the legislation deems to be appropriate packaging.

Congress probes plastics recycling challenges
Steve Toloken | May 03, 2019

​

Washington — The head of a U.S. House science subcommittee is calling for a national strategy around plastics recycling.

Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., made the call to upgrade decades-old waste infrastructure and deal with new challenges like microplastics.

The April 30 hearing, titled "Closing the Loop: Emerging Technologies in Plastics Recycling," was the first U.S. House Science Committee hearing on recycling in a decade. It included calls for more federal research into chemical recycling to deal with hard-to-recycle plastics.

Lawmakers expressed concern that only 9 percent of plastics are recycled in the U.S. today, and hearing witnesses noted that even for the most widely recycled plastics like PET and high density polyethylene bottles, the rate is only 30 percent.

"Our recycling policies haven't kept pace with today's plastics use," Stevens said. "Our first response should be to reduce and reuse more. But it is not realistic to think we can give up disposable plastic altogether.

"We urgently need a national strategy to build out our country's recycling infrastructure. At the same time, we must invest in research and development of sustainable materials and processes as well as in standards," she said.

Stevens said the last major rewrite of federal waste policy was the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976, which she noted was enacted before she was born.

Lawmakers and witnesses said China's ban on imported plastic waste is raising costs for city recycling programs that had depended on export markets. But Stevens and others also said that China's ban could be an opportunity to improve domestic recycling.

Since it was a subcommittee of the House Science, Space & Technology Committee, several witnesses focused on R&D and how the federal government could support technology innovation, in this case chemical recycling.

That technology, which breaks polymers back down into oils and base materials to then be rebuilt into new polymers or converted to things like fuels, is seen as next generation recycling.

Advocates tout it as a way to reclaim complex plastic products that cannot be easily handled with mechanical recycling.

"Fundamental research will be really critical for enabling a new industry in the United States, using chemical recycling," Gregg Beckham, a senior research fellow at the National Bioenergy Center in Golden, Colo., told the hearing.

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio, said it was his sense from witnesses that "chemical recycling is probably ultimately how we get there," and he quizzed a Dow Inc. executive on how close those technologies are to commercialization.

Tim Boven, Dow's recycling commercial director for the Americas, packaging and specialty resins, said the technology is viable but work is needed on the economics.

He said systems are needed to collect and aggregate enough material, and industry has to then integrate finished products back into the petrochemical industry.

"We have to work on the business model side," Boven said. "We're talking about mature technologies like gasification and pyrolysis, they've been around for a long time [but] they've not been used widely for the purpose of recycling plastic."

Even with the push for chemical recycling, Boven told the lawmakers there's still a strong role for mechanical recycling.

"There is a relationship between mechanical and chemical recycling in the sense that we would suggest that if it can be mechanically recycled, it should be because there's a lower carbon footprint," Boven said. "It's not as energy intensive and it can be deployed locally."

But he noted a strong role for chemical recycling because up to 30 percent of the materials collected for recycling by cities ultimately have to be thrown out because they're too contaminated.

He said mechanical recycling has "significant limitations" handling contaminated materials and is more limited in finding end markets.

Boven urged Congress to play a role in seeing that pyrolysis and gasification technologies are defined as recycling. The American Chemistry Council is currently mounting a lobbying campaign in state governments to do that, although that push is being questioned by environmental groups and some lawmakers.

Boven said defining them as recycling would help industry certify to customers that they're using recycled content.

"We want to be able to certify what is recycled and give those to our customers so they are confident they are purchasing recycled materials, much like wind energy," he told lawmakers.

The hearing also delved into plastics pollution in the environment.

The chair of the full Science Committee, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, noted a recent study that found Switzerland, a country she said had high recycling rates, had 90 percent of its river flood plains "contaminated with microplastics."

"While there is little research to date, we should be very concerned about the impact on human health of all of this microplastics in our environment and our food chain," she said.

The concerns were echoed by Stevens and other lawmakers.

The panel also heard that the federal government is spending $3.2 million to set up a plastics recycling research center at Troy University's School of Science and Technology, in Troy, Ala.

https://www.plasticsnews.com/articl...congress-probes-plastics-recycling-challenges


"Stevens said the last major rewrite of federal waste policy was the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976, which she noted was enacted before she was born." <- That's just depressing, man.

Stop bickering and pandering about pointless shit and get to work on the actual important stuff, politicians!

 

[MicroBrew]

It seems inevitable that humanity will save or destroy the planet.

We'll destroy it, thought it will be gradual. We are to successful for our own good.

 

[hillelslovak87]

Thread Index:​

• Malaysia and the Philippines to send back plastic waste to the West (May 28, 2019)
• Recycling: Where is the plastic waste mountain? (January 1, 2019)
  
• Environment Officials Reveal That 90% Of Canada’s Plastic Is Not Recycled (Nov 20, 2018)
  
• Why can't all plastic waste be recycled?
  
• Starbucks is going strawless (July 9, 2018)
  
• The Recycling Game Is Rigged Against You (June 27, 2018)
  
• Recycled plastic could supply nearly three quarters of UK demand (June 13, 2018)
  
• Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not (May 29, 2018)
  
• Over 60 countries have introduced bans, fees to cut single-use plastic waste (June 5, 2018)
  
• Travel industry takes aim at reducing plastic waste (May 31, 2018)
  
• BBC: Can plastic roads help save the planet?
  
• France become first country to ban all plastic cups, plates, cutlery (May 30, 2018)
  
• California proposes law to ban plastic straws (May 30, 2018)
  
• Building roads from plastic waste in India
  
• Plastic bottles and bags recycled to build U.K roads
  
• Rubbish is being transformed into roads in Melbourne
  
• Recycling crisis: California, U.K, Australia, Canada (May 17, 2018)
  
• Flashback: Japan streets ahead in global plastic recycling race (29 Dec 2011)
  
• New homes to be built from 18 tonnes of recycled plastic
  
• Glass straws? Straw straws? Here are some eco-friendly alternatives to plastic (May 23, 2018)
• This House was Built in 5 Days Using Recycled Plastic Bricks (May 1, 2017)
  
• California has a recycling crisis. The only way to solve it is to stop making so much trash (May 26, 2018)
  
• Plastics Pile Up as China Refuses to Take the West’s Recycling (Jan. 11, 2018)

For the longest time, I believed that the recyclable materials we drops off at the local recycling centers would be taken to recycling plants in our own states, melt down, magically turns into new products that would make Captain Planet proud.

I was deceived. As were you.

As it turns out, we only cherry-pick somewhere between 5% to 10% of the highest-quality stuff that's easiest to recycle with maximum returns. The rest are crushed into giant cubes about the size of your bedroom, shoved into shipping containers, and sent off to Asia on huge cargo ships. What happens to them next is no longer our concern.

For the record, we don't bother dealing with those low-quality recyclables not because we don't have the technology or know-how, but simply because it would cost us WAY less in labor, raw material, and energy to simply produce new materials rather than recycling old materials.

Recycling companies in China/Indonesia/Malaysia/Philippines/Vietnam then recycles what they can, and dump the rest of the contaminated and non-recycleables where ever they can, much of which usually ends up in the ocean.

Well, that sweet deal is now coming to an end, and the West has just awakened to the new reality: we'll now have to deal with our own 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

Bales of recyclable waste in Seattle. American waste managers are struggling to find plants to process their recyclables.
​

I once saw a giant truck transporting 4 of these giant assed cubes towards the port. It went up a slight incline and the last cube fell off. I will never forget that shit. The trash looked like it exploded into gaseous tires and skunks. It was insane, like this black putrid smoke emanating from it.

​

 

[ShinkanPo]

I once saw a giant truck transporting 4 of these giant assed cubes towards the port. It went up a slight incline and the last cube fell off. I will never forget that shit. The trash looked like it exploded into gaseous tires and skunks. It was insane, like this black putrid smoke emanating from it.

​

Do you have a vid? It could be demons

 

[Otto!]

Whale dies in Thai waters after swallowing 80 plastic bags

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.

I lived in Thailand for 3 years and it was heartbreaking to see the amount of plastic that gets thrown into the rivers every day. People walking out of their house and throwing their garbage in the river. The bottom of the Chao Phraya river must be lined with 50 feet thick of garbage.

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Chest Rockwell]

Wild Bees making hives entirely out of plastic for the first time...
https://www.sciencealert.com/wild-b...ts-entirely-out-of-plastic-for-the-first-time

 

[Arkain2K]

Canada to ban single-use plastics as early as 2021

Canada will ban "harmful" single-use plastics as early as 2021 in a bid to reduce ocean waste, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced.

This initiative is modelled on similar legislation passed last year by the European Union and other nations.

Canada will also establish "targets" for companies that manufacture or sell plastics to be responsible for their plastic waste.

Currently less than 10% of plastic used in Canada gets recycled.

Mr Trudeau called the issue of plastic pollution a "global challenge".

In May, the United Nations said 180 countries reached a deal to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the world's oceans, where it can harm fish, sea turtles, whales and other wildlife.

Marine animals can become entangled in larger plastics - particularly cord, nets and ropes from fishing.

While European and North American countries tend to produce a lot of plastic waste per capita, their management of that waste limits the impact of that product on the ocean compared to other regions, according to research out of the UK.

The Canadian government has yet to decide which single-use plastic products will be included on the list but it could target plastic bags, straws, cutlery, plates and stir sticks.

About 3m tonnes of plastic waste is thrown away each year in the country.

"As parents we're at a point when we take our kids to the beach and we have to search out a patch of sand that isn't littered with straws, Styrofoam or bottles," Mr Trudeau said.

"That's a problem, one that we have to do something about."

n October 2018, the EU voted for a complete ban on a range of single-use plastics across the union in a bid to stop pollution of the oceans.

The EU hopes it will go into effect across the bloc by 2021.

That included a ban on plastic cutlery and plates, cotton buds, straws, drink-stirrers and balloon sticks and a reduction in single-use plastic for food and drink containers like plastic cups.

The prime minister made the announcement a few months before the next general election, which is scheduled for this coming autumn.

Issues like climate change and pollution are widely expected to be among the top concerns on the campaign trail.

Across Canada, a number of municipalities and some provinces have recently moved ahead with various single-use plastics bans, mainly targeting plastic bags.

Mr Trudeau acknowledged those efforts and said "a real solution needs to be nation-wide".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48477087

 

[Arkain2K]

rePlanet closes all recycling centers, prompting a call for bottle, can redemption at stores
The popular recycling center closed its remaining 284 centers on Monday.
By Kevin Smith | San Gabriel Valley Tribune | August 7, 2019

California’s largest chain of recycling centers closed its remaining 284 locations this week, and Consumer Watchdog wants grocery and convenience stores to pick up the slack.

“We warned just months ago that the bottle deposit program was in crisis, and today’s closure shows consumers are being left in the lurch by the failure of the state to keep recycling centers open,” consumer advocate Liza Tucker said Monday when the closures were announced. “Gov. Newsom needs to tackle this problem personally and make reform of the broken bottle deposit system a top priority this fall.”

The Los Angeles-based organization has called for CALRecycle, the state agency in charge of recycling, to require the retail outlets to begin redeeming bottles and cans for cash. CALRecycle, a department of the state EPA, said requiring all retailers in California to redeem beverage containers would require a change in statute, and it has not taken a position on that.


A downward trajectory

The last of rePlanet‘s centers closed Monday, resulting in hundreds of layoffs.

The company has operated in California since 1984, and at its peak had more than 600 redemption centers. In 2016, it closed 191 locations and let nearly 300 employees go, leaving smaller California communities with no place for consumers to redeem empties. Between 650 and 750 employees were laid off with the new closures, according to news reports.

David Lawrence, rePlanet’s president and chief financial officer, linked the closures to a variety of factors.

“With the continued reduction in state fees, the depressed pricing of recycled aluminum and PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic, the rise in operating costs resulting from minimum wage increases and required health and workers compensation insurance, the company has concluded that operation of these recycling centers and supporting operations is no longer sustainable,” he said via email.

Retailers aren’t following through

Consumer Watchdog said it should be mandatory for bottles and cans to be redeemed at any retailer that sells them. But a survey the organization released in March found that two-thirds of all retail stores that promised to recycle if redemption centers closed don’t follow through.

CALRecycle said that claim is misleading, as Consumer Watchdog only surveyed 50 stores.

John Votava, director of corporate affairs for the Ralphs supermarket chain, said rePlanet operated recycling centers at 45 Ralphs locations throughout Southern California.

“We remain committed to our social impact plan of creating communities that have zero hunger, zero waste and are working to identify a solution with other recycling vendors,” Votava said in a statement released Tuesday.

Recycling information, he said, can be found at www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/RecyclingCenters.

Another Consumer Watchdog report found consumers get only about half of their nickel and dime bottle and can deposits back each year, despite paying $1.5 billion in 2018. CALRecycle said that claim is “inconsistent with audits findings and reporting.”

Looking to stabilize subsidies

CalRecycle said it has taken action to stabilize Beverage Container Recycling Program subsidies paid to beverage container buyback centers to help cover the cost of processing materials and will continue to explore ways to support the program.

“That said, beverage container recycling centers are private businesses and many have decided to close in recent years, despite the subsidies they receive from the program, due to economic conditions affecting the industry as a whole,” the agency said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Tucker said the formula for calculating state payments to recycling centers is flawed. CalRecycle, she said, averages costs to run centers across the state. But the cost of operating a redemption center in a grocery store parking lot — which is the most convenient for consumers — is substantially higher.

Moreover, California allows waste haulers to collect bottles and cans in single recycling bins and redeem them for up to $190 million a year in consumer deposit money even as haulers also hold lucrative trash hauling contracts at the same time.

“If consumers could just take their empties to stores and redemption centers were everywhere, consumers would get their refunds, and we would have less litter and more recyclable material to make new bottles and cans,” she said.

Widespread closures

More than 40% of all California redemption centers have closed over the past five years, according to Consumer Watchdog, and hundreds more closures are on the way due to severe underpayments by the state to support the centers in the face of plummeting commodity prices.

The closures impact communities through job losses and a lack of critical income for families who gather discarded cans and bottles to earn extra cash.

https://www.ocregister.com/2019/08/...g-a-call-for-bottle-can-redemption-at-stores/

 

[Swoliosis]

I work in a hospital and the amount of plastic waste each day is fucking atrocious. Everything has excessive plastic wrapping

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

I have definitely noticed a lot of restaurants don't give out straws anymore unless requested.

As long as there are alternatives...we should all be in favor.

So currently we have paper, metal, silicone, glass and even bamboo..

Thinking of resteraunts/fast food.

Paper is good but shouldn't be used with hot liquids or fast food lid with the 'star' design, apparently.9

Metal. Re used straw. No thanks.

Silicone.. Re used. Yuck

Glass.. Re used. Nope

Bamboo. I imagine you would need to use a lot of water to grow the plant. Seems counter productive. More niche than reality.


Paper straws will be the norm in 10 years.

I don't see anyone shiting on the idea. There's still hope for us, folks

The food court inside our local Costco switched from plastic straws to paper straws, and I must say they works incredibly well!

 

[west42]

I'm glad people are realizing an entire extra fleet of garbage trucks in addition to ones going to the landfill, in order to haul "recyclables" to a sorting facility, then to a port, then to a huge fossil fuel guzzling freighter, then to Asia, then another truck, to another facility to be burned or thrown in a river......isn't particularly beneficial to the environment.

 

[MT7]

I'll gladly pay more for alternatives to plastic, as long as they are available. I'm even thinking of bringing glass containers in case I need to take food to go when I'm eating out.

 

[PEB]

President Trump not going to like this as he deregulates years of environmental efforts to reduce plastic use and spend government money developing alternative methods of bottling while keeping costs down.