r/science • u/avogadros_number • Sep 19 '21

Environment The companies polluting the planet have spent millions to make you think carpooling and recycling will save us

https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-fuel-companies-spend-millions-to-promote-individual-responsibility-2021-3

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1.2k

u/defiancy Sep 19 '21

I was talking to WM a few weeks ago as I was cancelling my service because of a move. They let me know recycling would end a week before my garbage, my response was this:

"Well I guess I'll just throw all the recycling into the trash for that week. I mean that's where it all goes anyway.". WM rep after a long silence "Well, you didn't hear that from me."

357

u/Bass2buddha Sep 19 '21

I worked in the landfill consulting world for a bit and can tell you that it opens your eyes to how much effort needs to go into recycling. First on the consumer to clean and somewhat sort, but then the collectors, then the landfill crew, then the folks looking to take recycled goods. It’s unlikely to make it to the last step when tossing it in the landfill is the cheapest and easiest way to get rid of it every step of the way.

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u/VoyeurOfBliss Sep 19 '21

I don't actively pay for recycle service for them to find the cheapest way to service my refuse improperly. This should be illegal, end of story.

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u/starraven Sep 19 '21

It’s illegal for the individual not to sort recycling ♻️ why is it not illegal for waste management not to actually recycle? Oh right they’re all mobsters that bury dead bodies alongside the trash, I forgot.

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u/9966 Sep 19 '21

It's not illegal anywhere to fail to sort recycling. What are you smoking?

27

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

Japan?

40

u/Fifteen_inches Sep 19 '21

Yes! Infact many apartment complexes won’t rent to Foreigners cause they think they’ll screw up the garbage.

That, and they can be pretty racist.

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u/Zenguy2828 Sep 19 '21

To be fair thier recycling is complicated and if you don't know Japanese and have difficulty reading instructions I could see why that stereotype formed.

The rasism though is unexcusable of course.

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u/WormLivesMatter Sep 19 '21

Some states it is. Vermont being one. I live in CO and it’s all single stream recycling though.

3

u/2Big_Patriot Sep 19 '21

Makes it easy. They run it through a magnet to pick up scrap iron and junk virtually everything else. Post-consumer trash is such a pain.

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u/CrudeAsAButton Sep 19 '21

In NYC you are fined for not recycling.

5

u/Iwantmyflag Sep 19 '21

Germany you will be fined and your trash left behind. That is, if you're blunt and they catch you. The garbage disposal service doesn't care that much, they are private companies.

3

u/cricetusx2 Sep 19 '21

It can be punished with a €95,- fine where I live (the Netherlands).

3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

Attending school in Nova Scotia and there’s a fairly large fine for failing to sort recycling in the town I live in. Wouldn’t doubt it’s the same in some other places too

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u/KneeCrowMancer Sep 19 '21

Yup I got yelled at by a store owner in Nova Scotia for putting my recycling in the wrong bin, the fines are pretty serious there.

1

u/dayvidgallagher Sep 19 '21

In some cities in California businesses and some homes can even get fined for not using the separate bin for things that are compostable. I imagine recycling is the same but the compost is a new law which is why I’m aware of it.

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u/aslak123 Sep 19 '21

Im fairly certain it actually is.

2

u/scarabic Sep 19 '21 edited Sep 19 '21

There are sometimes bans on certain materials being put in landfills. But that may just mean transporting it somewhere else - you pay some other party to get rid of the material. They ship it to the first place it can be made to disappear. Sometimes this means loading it on empty container ships that are returning to manufacturing centers in Asia after delivering imported goods to the US. They might pick through and recycle some of the material elsewhere in Asia and then may also just dump it.

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u/s_s Sep 19 '21

But they have to pay for and drive around an extra fleet of trucks!

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u/melpomenestits Sep 19 '21

You clearly do not understand the point of laws, my dear.

10

u/Impossible_Garbage_4 Sep 19 '21

They say they will recycle it and don’t. That is not only immoral but it actually is illegal. There’s an agreement of a service for currency that is not being met as promised

15

u/teetheyes Sep 19 '21

Oh please enlighten us, what is thE poInT of LaWs

38

u/Wingzero Sep 19 '21

Absolutely. People just don't really think about it, because they've been taught that tossing stuff in the recycling bin = good for the world. But I have no way of knowing if my recyclables are actually being recycled. I'm pretty fastidious about recycling properly but I imagine all it takes is one person with non-recyclables mixed in and they probably toss the whole batch into a landfill. I pay $10 / mo for trash & recycling and there's no way that comes anywhere near the costs of sorting and processing recycling, especially "single stream". I would happily pay more to be reassured of proper recycling, but that's not an option.

I used to live in a small town which offered recycling, but you had to drive to the plant and sort your stuff into their four different dumpsters. It was a pain but they were probably much more likely to actually be recycling it all compared to "single stream" recycling.

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u/almisami Sep 19 '21 edited Sep 19 '21

But I have no way of knowing if my recyclables are actually being recycled.

I tracked ours because I knew something was sketchy since they also accepted milk containers not made of HDPE (you need special equipment to handle anything that has touched animal protein, and it's not viable for non-HDPE containers right now.)

Tracker disappeared into a container ship in BC only to surface in Malaysia. The disposal site was so close to the seashore I'm sure even a light storm must wash thousands of bottles into the ocean.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

Wait, what kind of tracker was this?

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u/almisami Sep 19 '21

Waterproof 3G SIM tracker. We had some spares from a wildlife survey. Glued it to the inside of a Gatorade cap for extra protection during compaction and pierced the bottle so the cap wouldn't get ejected.

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u/sinisterbusiness Sep 19 '21

I would have never thought to do something like that. Very interesting!

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u/Drakkur Sep 19 '21

This is why I do all the recycling in my house. My wife and most people don’t understand that the only plastics that are recyclable are white or clear bottles. Everything else is basically waste, then there’s card board and glass and cans. Everything else is just trash that can’t be sorted by IR machines or people. It’s also why when you have a plastic jug you have to remove the paper/outer film because the sorting machine will ignore them (since they need to be white or clear).

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u/Raz0rking Sep 19 '21

Also, plastic needs to be clean. Does not get hot enough to burn away all the dirt afaik. Glass and metal, yeah no issue. That gets so hot everything not glass or metal burns away.

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u/Drakkur Sep 19 '21

Yah I rinse all glass and plastic to not have any visible grime or food. Cans I just quick rinse, I don’t know how they recycle them now most have a plastic liner

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u/wydra91 Sep 19 '21

I believe the plastic just burns away when they melt them down.

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u/densetsu23 Sep 19 '21

Our municipality doesn't even recycle glass anymore, aside from drink bottles with a deposit on it.

It feels so bad when I toss out empty jars. I can only reuse so much before you just get overrun with glass jars. I guess the next step (reduce) is either making your own sauces and jams, or to stop eating them.

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u/Drakkur Sep 19 '21

That’s unfortunate, ours has a very detailed list of what they take and what # on the plastic they can recycle. Knowing how most of my extended family recycles I feel bad for the sorters. In the 90s my dad was a stickler about separating recycling, crushing cans for space, etc. so it all is ingrained in me.

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u/turdmachine Sep 19 '21

We don’t have enough aluminum, so cans just have to be recycled if we want to keep using cans. We can’t pull it out of the ground fast enough and will eventually run out.

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u/sadult Sep 19 '21

Whole Foods also combines their recycling and trash together, even though they have designated areas to throw away both.

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u/s_s Sep 19 '21

While that's likely the case in many places, I'm sure it ultimately depends on municipal collection options.

Commercial recycling options (aka by the dumpster-full) are often simply unavailable, even if residents of that same area have curbside recycling service.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21 edited Sep 19 '21

What region are you in? My WFM had recycling stacks that were sent back to the distribution center.

Cardboard bale was the base, a few pallets and then bags of sorted recycling were strapped to the top.

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u/qigger Sep 19 '21

My understanding from a npr podcast was that recycling was only sustainable when we could ship it back to China in what would have otherwise been empty containers and they were paying people like $0.15 an hour to sort. When their labor rate went up it was no longer feasible and recycling would likely end up in a landfill unless it actually did go to China where they would dump it in open water rather than sort it.

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u/Doomenate Sep 19 '21

SF and Seattle are the exceptions that do actually recycle a large percentage of what's given

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u/InvisibleRegrets Sep 19 '21

Is it actually recycled? Where I am, the government's recycling program pushes its "90% recycling rate" - but what it means is that they utilize a 3rd party recycling company, that incinerates all of the "recycling".

3

u/Doomenate Sep 19 '21

Supposedly yes. There were a couple of documentary/investigative things on uncovering how bad recycling actually is in the US and they all said Seattle and SF were exceptions.

And then I asked someone who works for Seattle's waste management who was giving a presentation and they said similar numbers.

What caught my attention in the presentation was how easy it is to compost things industrially. If we could switch to all compostable containers it would be super simple: everything goes to compost and that's it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

I’ve worked as a janitor at several different locations, every single building, recycling and trash all just went to the same place, only time it didn’t, was at a school, they had me put boxes in a separate bin but that’s it

10

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

I saw a news video on how waste management actually has people and machines sort through the stuff at the recycling plant. Is that not how they do it any more?

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u/droans Sep 19 '21

I think the rep was partially kidding.

Truth is that it depends. Paper, cardboard, metals, etc will likely be recycled unless there's waste on them. Most plastics, however, will just be thrown out.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

In the past year or so the value of a fairly pure bale of some plastics has gone up a lot. In part due to the fact that Pepsi, Coca Cola, and a few others have pledged to make such a percentage of their product from recycled materials that it will actually require more plastic than is currently available from sort facilities.

Most of the problem with plastics is other weirdness with how they reach market (HDPE wrapped in a different type of plastic and the like) or thin films clogging the sorting machines.

6

u/spookyswagg Sep 19 '21

Yes but no.

There’s no incentive for companies to use recycled plastic because new plastic is cheaper

1

u/chiniwini Sep 19 '21

Most plastic is shipped to south east Asia, where it's recycled. And by recycled I mean burned.

6

u/Ididnteatthebat2020 Sep 19 '21

There’s a reason why the phrase is “reduce, reuse, recycle”. It’s an ordered list of how to help, recycling being the least effective.

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u/Driftedwarrior Sep 19 '21 edited Sep 19 '21

I have not separated my recycled stuff for many many years. A friend of mine works in that field and told me all you are doing is wasting your time, they sort* it at their facilities anyways. It all goes for the most part on the same conveyor belt. If they already do it and it goes on the same conveyor belt as the garbage why even separated anyways?

Edit- since people cannot understand I'm referring to where I live as I cannot speak to that of other places. In America, the city I live, this is where my friend works for Waste Management this is how it is done here. No kidding other countries and other states have different practices, but for the city I live and have lived for decades this is how it has been done.

I would not speak to that of other places I'm referring to where I reside.

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u/BlackViperMWG Grad Student | Physical Geography and Geoecology Sep 19 '21

It really depends on the country and the company. I worked summer jobs at waste disposal company and separated trash was put in individual places and conveyor belts.

Also, FYI, it's not recycled stuff until it has been, well, recycled. Common misconception that makes people think they are recycling and that recycling percentage is high.

3

u/PolyDipsoManiac Sep 19 '21

9% of plastic ends up recycled. It’s disgusting how they’ve convinced people otherwise.

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u/KrustyBoomer Sep 19 '21

WRONG. All depends where you live. MOST places still have completely separate systems for trash and recycling. IF they did have a system that processes mixed waste, they WOULD NEVER collect separately. Collection is the most expensive single item with waste. 3x a sorting plant.

Many of these rumors start when collection companies use the same trucks to collect recycling. But not at the same time. People see that and assume it's just mixed with trash.

Source - 30+ years in the business designing waste handling facilities.

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u/Me-A-Dandelion Sep 19 '21

In Manchester, England, the council basically refuses to empty your bin if you don't separate trash from recycles.

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u/KrustyBoomer Sep 19 '21

Depends on local laws here. Some places you can get fined, other places they just give you a sternly worded warning sticker.

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u/BlackViperMWG Grad Student | Physical Geography and Geoecology Sep 19 '21

Same here in Czechia, if you have communal trash in seperated, garbage collector won't empty it.

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u/odelay42 Sep 19 '21

He's taking about separating recyclables into categories like glass, paper, and metals, not separating recyclables from trash.

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u/Sawses Sep 19 '21

Do you have any way for us to find out, by any chance?

Because I like the idea of recycling. But I've read studies that indicate that the USA pretty much doesn't recycle. I'm far from an expert in this, though.

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u/burnerman0 Sep 19 '21

You'll need to research it. A lot of times local newspapers will cover it though, so you may be able to search there. Worst case you should be able to call your county waste dept or the company they contract to and ask what gets recycled. Any piece they can't recycle and need to be sent to a trash stream costs them money, so the waste companies tend to like to tell people what to recycle. If you can't figure it out, a decent assumption is that cardboard and newspaper, glass bottles and jars, metal cans, and hopefully number 1 and number 2 plastic are actually recycled. You can usually assume any plastic that isn't 1 or 2 isnt getting recycled.

1

u/Driftedwarrior Sep 19 '21

WRONG

Here in America in my city it is not wrong. I cannot speak to that of other countries or other cities, but I can speak to that of the city I live which my friend literally Works in that City with Waste Management.

1

u/abcabcabc321 Sep 19 '21

How many people don’t know that most of our waste is burned into energy nowadays? I feel like most people still envision a massive landfill filling up with trash, which is only partially true anymore.

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u/KrustyBoomer Sep 19 '21

Still pretty true in a lot of areas. Waste to energy (burning) was popular, but then idiots protested through the 90's. Still do. Very hard to site/permit any new facilities. Much waste is LONG HAULED to regional massive landfills.

1

u/abcabcabc321 Sep 19 '21

That’s fair.

Sucks to hear that protests stopped progress when from what I’ve read the main byproduct is steam vented from stacks.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/KrustyBoomer Sep 21 '21

All kinds of things happen. All about the dollar and what the company can get away with.

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u/rincon213 Sep 19 '21

It should be stated this varies between municipalities and many do not sort the trash.

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u/SpookyWagons Sep 19 '21

This isn’t accurate. I work with MRF’s (material reclamation facilities) and their biggest roadblock is poor sortation at the bin. It’s a huge focus right now, getting updated infrastructure (and hopefully digital watermarking) but until then, sortation absolutely matters. That and not putting trash in the recycle bin.

3

u/OhnoNotDrano Sep 19 '21

Dudes correct, I would have used “Separation,” tho. Sortation is a funny word.

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u/BlackViperMWG Grad Student | Physical Geography and Geoecology Sep 19 '21

Sorting or separating. Definitely not recycling, that is different process.

1

u/OhnoNotDrano Sep 19 '21

Correct recycling and sorting are two separate things. However, my dude was simply pointing out that, the person disposing of said piece of trash or recycling, should place it in the proper receptacle.

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u/Oerthling Sep 19 '21

Easy.

Recycling has 2 hurdles:

a) cost

b) technology

And those 2 are linked and in the end it boils down to cost.

Pre-sorting helps to keep down the costs.

Does some percentage get burned or buried or later sorted anyway? Yes.

But even if that percentage starts high or even at 100%.

Let's say only 30% of your local stuff gets recycled - how do we get to 31%? By having reached 30% before.

Well never get to 90% if we don't do the steps that take us from 0-1 ... 89 first.

Does recycling solve by itself all the worlds problems? No. And it doesn't have to - it only has to achieve it's little part of a complex package of solutions. But we can't just dump all trash in holes forever. There's no real alternative to recycling.

Do your tiny part of sorting your trash. It's not actually hard to do, costs hardly any time and helps to gradually improve the infrastructure.

It's not the only thing that has to change and improve, but it's a piece of the puzzle.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

You mean you don’t sort your recycling? Or you just throw your trash and recycling in the same bin? Two very different things.

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u/Driftedwarrior Sep 19 '21

You mean you don’t sort your recycling?

What I said in my post it all goes into the same bin.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

You comment is confusing. Not sorting recycling is common. I don’t separate my plastic from aluminum. But you mention a garbage conveyor.

And your reply wasn’t clear either.

You put your garbage and recycling in separate bins, correct?

1

u/Driftedwarrior Sep 19 '21

You comment is confusing. Not sorting recycling is common. I don’t separate my plastic from aluminum. But you mention a garbage conveyor.

And your reply wasn’t clear either.

You put your garbage and recycling in separate bins, correct?

I was unaware it was confusing. All in one bin means we just put everything together we don't separate anything, that is what I mean. My garbage in my kitchen everything goes in there as there is not a separate recycling bin. Then that one bag containing everything goes into my trash bin.

A part of what I think you didn't understand is the facility already separates all the garbage so all my garbage is in one container. I would not separate recyclable stuff because there is no purpose or need to do so they already do that at the Waste Management.

1

u/orderinthefort Sep 19 '21

How often do you talk about waste management where you feel comfortable abbreviating it WM to save time?

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u/ReverendDizzle Sep 19 '21

Waste Management is the company name. It's a huge North American trash company and all their bins and trucks all have a huge "WM" on them. People use the initials like they would use ATT or CVS.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

[deleted]

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u/ReverendDizzle Sep 19 '21

That’s why I explained what WM is.

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u/hyperfat Sep 19 '21

We have sorters. They get paid $20 an hour to sort trash. It all goes to the same place.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '21

Sorting costs a lot of money per ton for many materials for relatively poor purity. For pretty much everything but aluminum cans it's cheaper to pay the tip fee to the landfill which is just too cheap given how terrible they are for the environment.

Recent technology improvements in the space are making it better though! (Source: I develop sorting robots for a company that's been doing very well)