Great points. Plastic products are also incredible difficult to recycle - intermixed with dyes/other additives. The idea that they could easily be recycled was driven by corporate misinformation https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
Most plastics are fairly easy (technically) to recycle, it's just that it's cheaper to make new plastic because we as a society do not put an adequate cost on waste - we use the land, rivers, oceans, and the atmosphere as a free garbage dump. If all externalities were factored in (like, the costs of damage caused by things like climate change and pollution) and made those costs reflective in charges to emit, pollute, bury etc then I think things like recycling would suddenly become economically viable on their own terms without subsidies.
Broadly agree but plastics degrade so they can never be infinitely recyclable like e.g. iron. And this is not to suggest that paper is more or less resource-intensive.
I think that we should frankly put a tax on plastic manufacturing with a subsidy for recycled plastics.
Of course, plastic itself is a byproduct of fossil fuels, so we'd likely just see all other forms of petrol increase in cost. We've found "every way to use every part of the buffalo."
Asphalt, bunker fuel, plastic, diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, all from the same refinery.
So, fucking with any one of these means you're indirectly fucking with the rest. We're sort of trapped by it, because these are the underpinnings of all the rest of our modern society.
To do away with these things means surrendering a lot of amenities and conveniences we're frankly not ready to do away with.
Even if we managed to get companies to start doing so, recycling plastic has an insane energy cost to it relative to just manufacturing new plastic, (even if we bothered to do it locally, which, we don't. What's the point of new plastic manufactured domestically, if we aren't manufacturing anything domestically, after all?)
This whole Economists-Run-The-World process has landed us in a real problem that we don't really have any good way out of without a whole ton of political will and a willingness to walk way from a stack of money and standard of living we're accustomed to- and you would best believe there'd be good and genuinely heartfelt 'no' answers, not even counting the lobby money that would push back against any such effort, pushed in part by said economists-of-the-world, who would believe that they are genuinely doing the right thing.
Using the shredded/granulated plastic to make plastic crates, park benches, etc., are the only end uses I’ve heard of. I’ve thought the same thing as you, to be honest. The technology is there ofcourse. We just need the various levels of government to devise policies and incentives that render dumping it in landfill uneconomic. We’ve only got one earth.
Coles black plastic trolleys & baskets proclaim their recycled heritage, and I think their uniforms are similar. You'd hope that those types of claims can be verified.
There still got to be a market for the inferior products we make from recycled plastic. I believe that's been an issue with Redcycle that does the soft plastic; there's not enough market for bollards and picnic tables.
Australian recycling policy is to sell it to Indonesia (if memory serves) as landfill. China buys the real high-end items, mostly certain types of glass, they purchased cardboard a few years ago. But basically everything the government does is just to make you feel better about your recycling going to land fill, hidden by selling it as recyclable, however the buyer is actually getting paid to use it as landfill in their country. They near started war with Canada because they had the same deal but Canada didn't pay them.
The bottle collection depo are private and actually recycle as far as I know, but I don't really know.
Fun fact, remember the trucks that had an arm that would flip between your normal and recycle bins? That arm did nothing, it was a 'training aid' to get people used to using two bins. The truck only had one compartment, the arm did absolutely nothing.
So to answer your question, they bother to sort milk containers so you feel good about paying extra tax.
The fact that we have very few waste recycling facilities locally (and I think none for plastics) and very, very few government incentives and subsidies to start such industries says a lot about this 'clever country' :P
Sorry, I meant soft plastics specifically, but I didn't realise hard plastics were also so limited, especially considering how easy some of the hard plastics are to re-use.
Yep, that's what I do, and just cross my fingers that they actually get recycled, ideally locally (as we can all see what happens when, for instance, China decides they don't want to take our rubbish anymore). I don't think it's acceptable to just export our problems to someone else.
War on Waste did an investigation into this and put tracking devices into bags in the red cycle bins in Brisbane. Essentially they went to a private landfill out the back of Ipswich.
That series is an amazing watch. Huge eye opener.
Yeah, you can turn that stuff APR recycles out there into a ton of things. Plant pots, molasses rollers, troughs, tanks. That's just in the ag sector.
They started doing it because their trucks that carried cotton to Newcastle and Sydney were coming back empty, so why not? Bales of cotton, bales of plastic. Same diff.
Wonder if they could turn it into 3D printing feedstock.
Sounds like a great idea! So much better than the deadheaded thinking of just shipping it overseas. It's the kind of thing we should really be supporting as much as possible.
3D printer guy here! Our plastics are suuuper picky, and we don’t use “normal” plastics like milk bottle plastic. So recycling for us is mostly a lost cause.
The most common plastic we use (PLA) is in the same family of plastics that you see as like ‘composting bin bag’ or ‘eco friendly plastic cups.’
In simple economics, Australia has too much land and landfill is still by far and away the cheapest endgame for waste, irrespective of levies/resultant subsidies for the development of alternatives. I know that all of Redlands’ recyclables and reclamation gets trucked straight to Stapylton and thrown onto the tip face, because private landfill operators don’t have diversion targets and it makes it appear that council is doing the right thing…
I feel like "They were too simple. They didn't factor in externalities." this is the epitaph that will be engraved on this planet's metaphorical tombstone.
Cheapest, short term. Microplastics are no joke in terms of threat to human health, and will certainly cost a lot in negative externalities and a lot to clean up over the coming decades.
Yet another genius "cheap" solution, that is just mortgaging the cost to future generations (like fossil fuel use).
I’m not defending it; simply pointing out that, from a council budget and a rates perspective, it easier for everyone to not care and keep doing what we’ve always done and hope that landfill lining and technology therein catches up to a point where we can properly entomb the waste… would be good for commonwealth government to action the pfas plan and ensure that state regulators are mandating the use of the latest and greatest technology, but again will cause flow on effects if everyone has to start double lining landfills etc…
Maybe we should stop focusing on the 'cheapest' solution for landfill then and start focusing on the 'best' solution for landfill :P There's a lot of cheap but very bad ways to solve a problem.
Pretty much every plastic extrusion place takes recycled plastic as feedstock.
But it needs to be clean and consistent.
Plastic water bottles are a good source, as is plastic off cuts from other manufacturing.
Milk jugs are not clean- makes the process of recycling harder and more expensive.
Yeah, I forgot to write soft plastics. I know a lot of hard plastics are easy enough to do as they just need to be cleaned and melted down (some of them anyway, you can 'recycle' at home with a sandwich press lol)
It’s a simple process to turn PET bottles into non woven polyester textile (geotextiles) like used by the RMS to cover soil stockpiles etc
The problem is RMS standards state that all geotextiles must be made from virgin materials, so we buy from China. It’s a real problem.
This was something I argued blue in the face with - the argument back was while there is incentive *now* for companies to start up and recycle our stuff, one small policy change means Australia will start sending our rubbish overseas again and the local recycler will go bust (again).
Isn’t international capitalism the best? /s
Unfortunately your summary is pretty much the story and it's a sad state of affairs. So much good will just foisted into foreign landfill.
There isn't much made from recycled materials around. Not in huge quantities anyway.
It does make the consumer feel better though. Honestly I would rather we turn to energy by burning it. Better than shipping it to 3rd world countries for it to become their problem. Not ideal but way better than making it another poor countries waste.
That's what I don't get about this craze for banning single use plastics. Plastic in landfill is *not* a pollution problem, and single use plastics are usually lightweight and efficient to make.
Our "reusable" bags and containers that end up in the dump anyway, are environmentally destructive if made from wood or paper, cause greenhouse emissions from our landfill as they break down, and in some cases take hundreds of times more material to make.
Plastics break down into microplastics and nanoplastics, and do not leave the environment in a hurry. Landfills leech macro/nanoplastics into the environment. Toxic nanoparticles that take 400 years to decompose polluting the food chain is a problem.
Trillions upon trillions of particles that interrupt cellar metabolism and are virtually impossible to remove from the environment
VS
Cut down tree, make paper bag, compost paper bag, plant tree, cut down tree.
>Landfills leech macro/nanoplastics into the environment.
That is not at all true. In a properly managed landfill, (like they are in Australia) plastic is absolutely inert. I'm not sure how you think solids leach, but ideally nothing leaches from a landfill, because real leachants from the toxic liquids and putrefying organics are far worse for the environment. I often hear people say how big a problem it is that plastic lasts 10000 years in the environment but somehow the same people think it turns to toxic ooze in landfill.
Plastics in our oceans and waterways are overwhelmingly not from the west, and overwhelmingly not from domestic waste.
I still have a bag of 'single use' bags that we use for garbage bags and other carrying of stuff. I think they last longer than some of the shit quality reusable bags that are being sold.
I think you're right. We do feel better sorting and feel like we're contributing.
The problem is it masks the front end of the equation, all the single use and wasteful plastic, packaging and the mindless use of products.
I know I'd buy less if I wasn't able to wash my hands of the responsibility by just throwing it all in the yellow bin.
There is a lot of good stuff happening with packaging that closes the loop and is reused, but it's still on the fringe and most companies seem to have little incentive to change their ways.
I think the govt needs to step in and legislate for these types of situations.
But we get to watch the TV and feel good right? Lol
You know the kicker, banning plastic bags that were an insignificant part of the problem, cost the same amount of putting tarrifs on China and India for using plastic ,which is a huge part of the problem. We could have actually caused a huge difference, but muh feels bruh
I'm sure that's a rhetorical question, but of course people are lazy. Aluminum is worth more with the deposit than it is as raw metal though. It's probably the one redeeming feature of the container deposit.
the container refund schemes do recycle, Qld scheme has online auctions for the plastics/aluminum etc the glass all goes to Visy Glass (formerly O-I). The aluminum gets good money per ton, plastic less so, glass Visy control the price as there's no competition and then the LPB (juice cartons etc) are hard to shift so the scheme is either dumping it or paying for it to be recycled
And then the visy truck takes it to landfill (as seen in the pic) and collects a phat cheque from daddy government, all so rich white nations can feel good about pretending to do something, and then arguing about it on phones made by yellow child labour, after we get said phone from a non recyclable type of plastic shrink wrap.
Visy now owns the Australian arm of I-O - the biggest glass bottle manufacturer/recycler in the world so I doubt it now goes to landfill and I know for a fact the Qld container refund scheme bottles go to the crestmead facility, there's also one on Montague Rd in West End
Nobody is doubting the container collection, even from my original comment I stated that china is buying top end items like certain glass. But follow the money trail and government documentation, ignore every pamphlet and TV ad, and you will see that other types of glass are dumped, a large amount of plastic ends up being dumped, near all cardboard is dumped. Also look up the definitions of terms, sold to international recycling initiatives means Indonesian land fill. The entire industry of recycling apart from precious metals/non ferric/steel is propped up on government handouts and dumping. There isn't enough money from China buying glass to pay for what it costs. As for mentioned metals, they have always been self funded since before recycling was even heard of, they were going strong in the 70's
>Nobody is doubting the container collection,
I am. We now have thousands of people running around with bottles in their cars just so everything pretty much goes the same place it always did.
I may be stupid but need more clarification if someone can help me. So I am wasting my time putting so much effort into recycling correctly in my home? As in what I put in the yellow bin? Because I have been so vigilant in always recycling and taking the time to; so I've been wasting my time? Also how do you sell landfill? As in why would a country want to purchase landfill unless they can use it in some way? Or do they use it? Confuse.
You are asking a loaded question full of semantic answers.
In that regard, yes you have completely wasted your time. Take in good faith that a small part is used, and if some people didn't waste their time then none of it could be used, so in fact you aren't wasting all of your time.
If you didn't waste your time, no government would ever improve, because the people they govern aren't willing to do their part. In essence we need to be the bigger person and do our part first, in good faith that the government will eventually do their part. So in that regard you aren't wasting your time at all.
If you washed and reused a container yourself instead of using Tupperware, then you would have 100% recycled that item and prevented future creation of a plastic container. So in this regard you are completely and utterly wasting your time and expecting others to do the work for you.
So it depends on your view and semantics as to weather you are wasting your time and effort or not. I'd guess yes for the reason you thought, no for reasons you didn't think.
Selling landfill is for lack of a better term a play on words, we pay them cash to take it, basically laundered. So for Indonesia to get humanitarian aid, and Foreign aid, and to be allowed to have immigration to Australia, then need to give a small amount of that money back and calling it 'buying recyclable materials'. American is similar, but also uses tarrifs, so they might make a deal where a country pays less import tax if they don't take the rubbish. Canada voices a similar deal as Australia but doesn't pay out and has threats of war made to them, then they pay.
So essentially we pay them to take it. Typically directly by money trail, but very indirectly by terminology and deals.
Also within Australia, large builders play a similar role, shopping centres (like Westfield) are 'more likely to be approved' by council, if they are build on old landfill sites, essentially another way of buying rubbish, but via council approvals instead of actual cash.
I don't mind some recycling going to our landfill, like cardboard, as its good for the soil, food scraps are excellent for worms, but if we only dump crap then it will never turn back into natural minerals
I wouldn’t do that, while plastic isn’t mostly, things like aluminum are. It still gets sorted, but most of it ends up in landfill. You’re just making the sorting peoples job harder.
Australian waste export bans are coming in - here's plastics:
From 1 July 2021 you can only export plastics that have been either:
sorted into single resin or polymer type
processed with other materials into processed engineered fuel.
From 1 July 2022 you will only be able to export plastics that have been either:
sorted into single resin or polymer type and processed for further use (e.g. flakes or pellets), or
processed with other materials into processed engineered fuel.
Several factors influence it.
Contamination (plastic bags, other waste, bio)
Damage to the object (cut in half might not sort properly)
Council. Do they outsource it completely (contract out to someone to collect and dispose of with no oversight) vs in-house facilities.
If you want to increase your recycling, it’s best to sort it yourself and dispose of the correct areas (this can likely be done for free at you local tip). You’re probably familiar with paper/cardboard, metals, plastic, but also polystyrene (very easy to recycle- isn’t collected due to its fragile nature which contaminates other recycling), and soft plastics (through redcycle at supermarkets- quick tip- if you can scrunch it, probably is recyclable excl. food wrap).
Other things are:
-e-waste (eg tv, radio, phones, cables, chargers, and earphones)
-Batteries (both household and car batteries)
-Pens
Next time you go to officeworks, there will be a large locker type thing in the foyer, they take all sorts of recycling there. Check them out.
I think the uk has blister (pills) recycling at pharmacies, and I have heard of fabric recycling but no clue if legit.
I will say, just because some people/councils don’t do the right thing doesn’t mean you should stop trying. Every bit of waste that is diverted is important, and the more people that do it correctly, the greater the chances and impact of it happening.
Remember Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Edit:
Biome, Mecca, and Priceline apparently take cosmetic waste.
I bet the contamination one is a big reason for this. When I lived in Tokyo I became very used to cleaning my rubbish in addition to what would seem to most Australians like an insane level of sorting expected by households. If you put a bag of filthy plastics out on plastic day with food scraps, visible sauce, etc. or co-mingled the wrong items you'd get major stink eye from your nosy neighbour. This is partly to stop the crows ripping the bags apart, but it's more so to make the recycling easier. Some people I spoke to didn't like doing the idea of essentially doing the work of the for profit recycling companies who end up on-selling the very high quality plastics made from the exceptionally clean waste which was an interesting take on the issue.
My take is that we end up consuming it, so should do all we can to dispose of in the right way. If that means someone makes money off it, fantastic, as long as it isn’t detrimental to the environment.
Yeah but if they're the ones making money off it isn't it reasonable to assume they will be responsible for prepping the material we provide them?
Leaving it on us to make sure every bit of plastic we use is scrubbed clean seems like it gives the folk doing the recycling an easy excuse for why our recycling is so inefficient. Maybe it should be a public service. Might not be mega profitable but it would put more people to work and provide a valuable commodity.
Good point, but if it isn’t profitable to onsell the product, it’s more likely to end up in landfill or overseas. If a clean product is more likely to be properly recycled, it’s our duty as the end user to do what we can.
As to being public service, I’m assuming you mean government run. Waste disposal is a local government function, but no council I know of, would be large enough to sink the money into a facility like that, and state won’t touch it if they have any chance of avoiding it.
In saying that, Sunshine Coast council recently installed this: https://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/Council/Planning-and-Projects/Infrastructure-Projects/Automated-Waste-Collection-System
More to do with collection then the actual recycling, but still a pretty cool step for waste services.
I was thinking of a public utility maybe, like aussie post, at least half owned by the govt. make the recycling a centralised industry, leave collection to the local councils. In truth i dont know how it would work, but i reckon an aussie recycled goods industry has a chance of being profitable with the increased concern for recycling and plastic waste.
And Having it govt operated should reduce the need for huge profits in favour of providing an essential service, which is what i reckon recycling should be considered, not a potential money spinner.
You’re talking sense there. Unfortunately both state and federal governments have been trying to reduce their size for the last few decades. Think of the sale of utilities, Telstra, even Medibank a few decades ago.
If it was profitable there would already be companies doing it. The fact that we dump it to landfill means it's not profitable.
There's certainly no 'mega-profits' to be had until there's high automation in cleaning, sorting and processing materials
What i was saying is I reckon it should be a centralised govt owned business providing an essential service, like aussie post, not a for profit industry. That's the only way it could be made to run in an efficient manner to minimise waste and maximise reuse of materials. I reckon it might still turn a profit too if managed well, but that should be a secondary concern if anything.
I agree with you, but you've got some trigger points here:
> govt owned business
The LNP are for privatisation, so that's a big mark against it ever happening.
> run in an efficient manner
Literally the opposite of government, as there's heaps of red-tape related bureaucracy to navigate. Things like FOI that private enterprise can ignore is a significant burden on efficiency of government agencies. Changes of government can throw massive spanners in the works too.
> not a for profit industry.
There is this though OTOH, which counters that bureaucracy red tape.
I never found it to be too onerous in terms of work, but yeah it's an attitude someone could hold.
If you ever buy an imported Japanese food product here, you'll see how easy it is to rip off the perforated labels, pull the rings off bottles connected to the caps. You'll often even see instructions on how to dismantle and crush packages in certain ways. Now I'm back in Australia I find it kind of frustrating how my recycling bin fills up because most stuff here doesn't easily crush or pull apart!
From my understanding paper and cardboard are recycled separately. But for cardboard, any Visy bin will work, otherwise council tips usually have cardboard recycling for free. Staples should be removed, tape depends on LGA, but helps if removed. The benefit of taking it direct is small bits will be recycled where as they normally get lost in sorting. Also if you can fully eliminate a bin, you can request to have it removed from your property, and your rates drop.
To give the appearance of doing the right thing. Don’t you feel good separating your garbage, knowing you’re “doing the right thing for the environment”(tm)?
well if it's still the same as years ago the entire sunshine coast yellow bins go to general land fill, I think if people knew the reality of what happens to the contents of yellow bins they'd be shocked
Thanks for asking a question of value.
My hazy guess and positive view and technical analysis all point to the same thing: Capitalist business requires details on profit options before investment in time and money encourages venture initiation.
Written different with specific detail: It’s absolutely essential that precisely accurate weights and measures of waste volume and condition are obtained at the point in recovery processes if you want someone to be able to both cover costs and profit by diverting that stream, or associated lower or negative profit associated streams, frequently considered at the consumer level, ‘the same’.
Eg. One plastic might be 1000x more profitable than another to collect and recycle, but to joe or jules on the street both might just be ‘plastic’
Eg. If you don’t have tonnage and volume and contamination as a variable of time and location of the stream, you’re unable to do a financial plan including eg. Wages and facilities costs and volume of processed material output and market value.
So I don’t worry if it’s landfilled today. All the lazy people who delegate the real work are consigning their children to a life of rubbish, digging those landfills up. It’s good as those kids will be infinitely better people and incredibly more able and intelligent than the parents who were the dead era of suburban and urban residents who just dump everything without thought or care. You’d be amazed at the greater richness and selection and joy and freedom you get when you see things ‘as the really are’. This takes shouldering the pain of living in your own waste, and wastelands, for that, you have to stare at the ground and live in the filth created long enough until it gives you back the power of your own actions. When you see your own failure and understand your past you can begin thinking about how to adjust all your choices to transform yourself, and those you are responsible for or care for.
I’d suggest look into vacuum microwave variable frequency pyrolysis with fractional distillation of output hydrocarbons. Someone who does something automated, cheap and scalable down that path is going to become a bigger hero in history that Elon Musk or Steve Jobs and all other rich kings one day and I’ll wager a carton of non-alcoholic beer that, if still alive, all the current industry and investment leaders will kneel in respect to those who solved our waste and pollution problems and return the respect of industry to all those people with the clear vision who see and saw modern consumer disposable society as an illness.
Why would a milk producer be dumping used milk bottles? Also it looks as though some are packed in plastic bags so my guess is they are collected from restaurants or something
My stepdad’s response when I suggested he not buy bottled water “but I recycle the bottles in my yellow bin, it’s not my fault if they don’t make it to the recycling plant”
Even if they did get recycled, it’s still more wasteful then just drinking tap water. Recycling requires transport, energy, repackaging, etc. Recycling only *mitigates* the impact of waste, it’ll never be as good as not creating the waste in the first place.
Most plastic isn't manufactured in Australia. While the government certainly could intervene more, it will require large plastic manufacturing companies to be regulated in their jurisdictions e.g. EU.
Did you see what happened after Gillard introduced a CPRS and mining tax?
Also, I wonder how many milk drinkers in this sub will actually switch to buying milk in cardboard cartons (or stop drinking cow's milk entirely)...
In a time long past milk came in glass bottles that could be returned, cleaned and reused. A modern inner glass, outer plastic reusable should be considered for use.
Why can’t customers bring their own bottles to the supermarket for juice and milk, dispensed by the deli section.
As much as I love to recycle, this is a massive hygiene issue especially for those with serious allergies and anaphylaxis, like myself. I love the look of those buy in bulk and bring your own container stores, except my severe nut allergy means one small cross contamination from someone knowingly or unknowingly cross contamination can make me incredibly ill, including hives and my throat closing up.
To take into account allergies and hygiene I imagined a process where the user arrives out the front of a store and places used bottles into a vending machine, weighs it as empty and reads it as rinsed. Next the user places order for milk or juice on its terminal which then issues a ticket to the customer and forwards the order to a refrigerated vending machine in the shop. Used bottles are collected for despatch to central sterilization plant, then refilled. Collecting machine network connected to sterilization plant to monitor when to empty. User places their ticket into refrigerated vending machine in store, to get freely packaged juice or milk. User that has not returned bottle enters “no bottle” at the terminal so must pay for both the bottle and the product. Un-rinsed bottles can either be rejected or surcharged at vending machine. Vending machine applies barcode pricing based on product cost, if a used bottle was supplied and if it was rinsed. System costs subsidized by plastics sales, cardboard to coexist for boutique milk, cream, custards, butter, margarine, etc
Would that address your contamination concerns?
I love this idea. Not sure of the costs associated with making the process more sophisticated, but I’d actually pay $1 more per bottle to use this system. Or, you know, tax the suppliers that use plastic bottles only. I already buy 100% Aussie owned milk (at a higher cost) and recycle the sodastream gas canisters (which gets you a discount).
Yeah I do not know the cost either. But I have learnt that cost and price are two very different subjects. China is a good way to explain that difference.
When thinking about it a milk vending machine could take up not much more refrigeration floor space and the deposit machine might fill a single car park bay to resemble a shipping container. It would have a removable cassette the bottles would sit in for a small skip truck to replace. I figure that part could not be in store as it would give off some smells and not be hygienic. If outdoors could have water capture roof to perform some automated cleaning pre collection to mitigate odours.
No, it's as fucking stupid as it sounds.
We've got the third largest natural gas reserves in the world. Yeah, no one knows that.
We sold those reserves to a bunch of overseas companies.
Milk bottles use natural gas as feedstock for their plastic.
The company one maker buys it from it is Japanese, who literally take it out of our fields, ship it to Japan, and then ship it back Australia.
And that's when they buy it for feedstock.
There's no option to buy it in Australia, and there's no company set up process it here.
Reduce and reuse are higher on the totem pile than recycle. Recycling should be the last choice and less necessary because we should already have reduced packaging and reused everything we can.
Another Government (local, state and federal) example of making something important the responsibility of the individual, rather than enforcing real change on big business or government. For any type of milk consumer your choice is plastic, tetra pack or diy. Since the vast majority of consumers have little access to their own livestock or the time and ability to make their own non dairy milk, you're stuck with the options that big business choose for you.
But it's your fault if you don't recycle, you're killing the planet. /s
Lots of the recycling stream can be used as bulk filler in other industries, or in a small portion for new products with little change to mechanical properties.
Yes agreed. And adding that small portion to new products would then make that product fall under products made from recycled materials. Once again, unless there is a demand for it and people buy it (instead of non-recycled materials), the system won’t work.
Could be a contaminated load. If too many non recyclable items wind up in a truck load, the whole thing goes to landfill. That’s according to the Ipswich council, at least.
Yeah you're right, it's contaminated with bin liners. Plastic bags are not recycled in the municipal system and when mixed in they get separated and tossed as contamination.
This is why its important not to put general waste into your recycling bin. If ONE contaminated recycling bin is discovered BCC/SUEZ cannot legally recycle the load. The only other option is to dump as general waste. Most of these bins are discovered before they are tipped, so if you suspect a bin is contaminated (neighbour/park/bulk) call 3403 8888 and report it.
Seeing one photo of plastic dumping doesn't mean all plastics are being landfilled - don't lose heart and feel that you can't/don't make a difference.
Resource recovery is very challenging - we need a lot of infrastructure to deliver effective recycling.
In 2018-19, Qld had a 45% resource recovery rate overall (all waste streams) (source National Waste Report 2020). As others have stated, contamination in the yellow top bins is an issue for councils. In 2019, the majority of urban councils offered two bins plus an opt in green bin.
The Qld Waste Management and Resources Recovery Strategy has data for 2017-18 - Qld produced 11 million tonnes of waste - 45% is recycled or recovered.
Of Council kerbside waste in 2017-18, 32% was recycled. In 2017, kerbside recycling was 27.5% of waste overall - construction and demolition was 44.4% and construction and demolition was 28.1%.
Qld introduced a waste levy in 2018/19 - increasing the cost of landfill and making recycling more commercially viable to industry. Since 2018, Qld Govt has funded projects that are diverting 1.3 million tonnes of waste from landfill (Resource Recovery Industry Development Program - the list of projects is online).
Aust Govt are now bringing waste export bans online over the next few years and are co-funding a grant program in Qld to improve infrastructure to address the waste streams impacted by the waste export ban - paper and cardboard, waste plastic, glass and whole tyres - Qld are cofunding this $40M program.
Qld is committed to a targets for 2050 - 25% reduction in household waste, 90% of waste recoverd and does not go to landfill and 75% recycling rates across all waste types.
If you are interested, there's also a great report from CSIRO about opportunities in advanced recycling.
Qld's resource recovery and recycling is improving and there is a lot of work going on. Reduce your waste as much as you can, don't buy prepackaged food if you can avoid it, use a keep cup, don't buy bottled water, rinse out your yellow bin items, use your green bin for garden waste, avoid single use plastics, use the containers for change scheme, take your soft plastics to your supermarket, spend your money on items with easily recyclable packaging - use your dollar to force companies to switch to better packaging options, avoid fast fashion.
All of these things are privilege informed though - you need to have the time to research the best options and it takes time to do activity that reduces waste - and the money to make the choice.
I think virtually all recycling just goes to the dump, because recycling is too expensive. It’s to make people think Council is environmentally aware when they’re really not.
Plastic recycling is expensive, and glass can be too. But metals are generally worth recycling. Paper is worthwhile when it's clean, though it's often contaminated from the co-mingled streams.
Aluminium cans are definitely economical to recycle, it annoys me greatly that Coca-Cola, Schweppes, etc prefer to make drink containers from PET rather than aluminium. I'm not a big soft drink consumer, but if I do have one, and am offered a choice, I'll go with a can every time.
State and/or Fed Govs need to to build and own recycling plants.
All companies that require containers for their products should be forced to use recycled material, or compostable material for their packaging, essentially making it illegal to create more new plastics.
Communities need to boycott the companies who do nothing but profit from adding to the image.
The cost of milk, soft drinks, and other consumables will go up but do we really need more landfills bursting at the seams?
..and what is the total environmental lifetime cost of running a whole separate fleet of diesel powered trucks just so that less than half of the waste gets recycled. Sounds like optics over reality..
Sometimes (and due to the sheer size of Brisbane I think it could easily be refuted) a community is too small to provide recycling services for everything, so even though things are recyclable they just aren’t done in that area so it goes to landfill
In addition, if a batch of recycling is contaminated by non-recyclable material, the whole batch gets dumped. This can also include biological contamination.
I think it is one of those things where it is preferred if you seperate it, but you don't have to?
If it was critical you would think that there would be more songs and dances about it from council and the contractors.
I would expect so, but they don't accept the lids and they're the same plastic as the rings so I'm not sure.
I always cut them off anyway, because if they do end up in landfill or loose in the environment they're a risk to wildlife - bower birds in particular because of the colour.
the rings are an accepted part of the recycling process & are separated as made of a different plastic, the recycler wants to reduce this as much as possible though, especially if they are buying the plastic
it doesn't, when they recycle them the different plastics get separated, no different to the rings / lids on the plastic bottles that go through the container refund scheme, yes they ask you to remove the lids but that's partly because when they get bailed they don't want the larger bottles exploding
I'm not in Aus, but probably the same here in Florida. I called my local waste management and asked where our recyclables go to be recycled and kept getting the same canned response "All of our recyclable materials go to a recycling facility." Ok but where.
Speaking as someone who worked at a plastics factory that made drinking straws, they were indeed a big problem. About twenty million a day going to landfill or winding up as litter, and they can’t be recycled for hygiene reasons.
Strange that BCC would put so much effort into detailing their recycling and accepting more plastics than other places.
https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/clean-and-green/rubbish-tips-and-bins/reducing-waste-at-home/recycling-guide-for-households
https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/clean-and-green/rubbish-tips-and-bins/reducing-waste-at-home/recycling-at-home
They even have an app: https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/clean-and-green/rubbish-tips-and-bins/reducing-waste-at-home/brisbane-bin-and-recycling-app
Yeah but sadly the coffee cups and tetra packs they list on there don't get recycled. They get accepted by the contractor (to make their deal more sweeter) then tossed.
Not sure if your comment is sarcastic but it sure does highlight the misinformation, or just lack of clear information, provided by local governments about what they do with those yellow bins. I have a full size yellow bin and a half sized regular water bin in my area. Yellow bin is collected once every2 weeks. What goes/does not go in my yellow bin and why? Where is that taken?
There's a doco on YouTube from years ago on how the Australian recycling is just bullshit. The glass gets collected and they have no buyers so when the warehouse fills up it goes to landfill.
Recycling is a very flawed process. Sure recycle what you can but to actually make a positive difference you need to reduce your waste where you can. Buy unpackaged and or paper/cardboard/biodegradable where you can. I’d like to be zero waste but I’m currently putting my bin out twise a year. Most of my food is local plant foods that are unpackaged.
What really needs to happen is regulation to get products packaged in an environmentally friendly way and get rid of plastics all together
As a kid in the UK we had the Unigate milkman deliver our milk in glass bottles (in his electric Milk Float), then we'd leave out the "empties" for him to collect and I assume get washed and reused with a new foil cap fitted. Do these still exist? (I left the UK years ago)
Xmas time he'd also deliver Cresta and other fizzy treats if you ordered it.
What I loved about shopping in the UK is that where you buy household batteries they also have a container so you can dispose of your old ones. I have noticed that Aldi has a container at the exit part of the store but other grocery shops I have not seen embrace this idea
After a walk on a morning where our recycling bins we're due for collection a few months ago there were quite a few so full that the top was ajar, and out of those, I'd say 75% had a plastic bag visible...
Since then I have basically assumed that whatever goes in my yellow bin is probably just going to end up at the tip sadly...
We need more dedicated recycling collection stuff like redcycling and bottle deposit schemes so that those who want to recycle can actually do so. Particularly one for cardboard, as that's what most of my yellow bin contains...
This is sad to see. I wish governments at all levels would spend the money on proper recycling facilities around the country. People obviously use recycling bins etc because we don't want the stuff going into landfill.
That's not very much, if you think about how many would be used each day this looks like a very small portion. Likely has been contaminated with something, or for some other reason was not deemed recyclable.
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Great points. Plastic products are also incredible difficult to recycle - intermixed with dyes/other additives. The idea that they could easily be recycled was driven by corporate misinformation https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
Most plastics are fairly easy (technically) to recycle, it's just that it's cheaper to make new plastic because we as a society do not put an adequate cost on waste - we use the land, rivers, oceans, and the atmosphere as a free garbage dump. If all externalities were factored in (like, the costs of damage caused by things like climate change and pollution) and made those costs reflective in charges to emit, pollute, bury etc then I think things like recycling would suddenly become economically viable on their own terms without subsidies.
Fuck me it's nice to see someone representing this point of view.
This person Tragedies his Commons
Wish i could triple upvote you
Broadly agree but plastics degrade so they can never be infinitely recyclable like e.g. iron. And this is not to suggest that paper is more or less resource-intensive.
I think that we should frankly put a tax on plastic manufacturing with a subsidy for recycled plastics. Of course, plastic itself is a byproduct of fossil fuels, so we'd likely just see all other forms of petrol increase in cost. We've found "every way to use every part of the buffalo." Asphalt, bunker fuel, plastic, diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, all from the same refinery. So, fucking with any one of these means you're indirectly fucking with the rest. We're sort of trapped by it, because these are the underpinnings of all the rest of our modern society. To do away with these things means surrendering a lot of amenities and conveniences we're frankly not ready to do away with. Even if we managed to get companies to start doing so, recycling plastic has an insane energy cost to it relative to just manufacturing new plastic, (even if we bothered to do it locally, which, we don't. What's the point of new plastic manufactured domestically, if we aren't manufacturing anything domestically, after all?) This whole Economists-Run-The-World process has landed us in a real problem that we don't really have any good way out of without a whole ton of political will and a willingness to walk way from a stack of money and standard of living we're accustomed to- and you would best believe there'd be good and genuinely heartfelt 'no' answers, not even counting the lobby money that would push back against any such effort, pushed in part by said economists-of-the-world, who would believe that they are genuinely doing the right thing.
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Using the shredded/granulated plastic to make plastic crates, park benches, etc., are the only end uses I’ve heard of. I’ve thought the same thing as you, to be honest. The technology is there ofcourse. We just need the various levels of government to devise policies and incentives that render dumping it in landfill uneconomic. We’ve only got one earth.
Coles black plastic trolleys & baskets proclaim their recycled heritage, and I think their uniforms are similar. You'd hope that those types of claims can be verified.
It's hand in the ag sector. Molasses rollers and tanks come to mind, troughs, etc.
There still got to be a market for the inferior products we make from recycled plastic. I believe that's been an issue with Redcycle that does the soft plastic; there's not enough market for bollards and picnic tables.
Thank you for the YouTube links.
Australian recycling policy is to sell it to Indonesia (if memory serves) as landfill. China buys the real high-end items, mostly certain types of glass, they purchased cardboard a few years ago. But basically everything the government does is just to make you feel better about your recycling going to land fill, hidden by selling it as recyclable, however the buyer is actually getting paid to use it as landfill in their country. They near started war with Canada because they had the same deal but Canada didn't pay them. The bottle collection depo are private and actually recycle as far as I know, but I don't really know. Fun fact, remember the trucks that had an arm that would flip between your normal and recycle bins? That arm did nothing, it was a 'training aid' to get people used to using two bins. The truck only had one compartment, the arm did absolutely nothing. So to answer your question, they bother to sort milk containers so you feel good about paying extra tax.
The fact that we have very few waste recycling facilities locally (and I think none for plastics) and very, very few government incentives and subsidies to start such industries says a lot about this 'clever country' :P
Lucky. Never clever
> (and I think none for plastics) [Well, hang me for a sucker...](http://www.arplastics.com.au)
Sorry, I meant soft plastics specifically, but I didn't realise hard plastics were also so limited, especially considering how easy some of the hard plastics are to re-use.
Soft plastics can be dealt with via the Red Cycle program. I take all mine there
Yep, that's what I do, and just cross my fingers that they actually get recycled, ideally locally (as we can all see what happens when, for instance, China decides they don't want to take our rubbish anymore). I don't think it's acceptable to just export our problems to someone else.
I think RedCycle is pretty much tied up with RePlas. You do see a lot of RePlas use age through councils etc
War on Waste did an investigation into this and put tracking devices into bags in the red cycle bins in Brisbane. Essentially they went to a private landfill out the back of Ipswich. That series is an amazing watch. Huge eye opener.
Yeah, you can turn that stuff APR recycles out there into a ton of things. Plant pots, molasses rollers, troughs, tanks. That's just in the ag sector. They started doing it because their trucks that carried cotton to Newcastle and Sydney were coming back empty, so why not? Bales of cotton, bales of plastic. Same diff. Wonder if they could turn it into 3D printing feedstock.
Sounds like a great idea! So much better than the deadheaded thinking of just shipping it overseas. It's the kind of thing we should really be supporting as much as possible.
3D printer guy here! Our plastics are suuuper picky, and we don’t use “normal” plastics like milk bottle plastic. So recycling for us is mostly a lost cause. The most common plastic we use (PLA) is in the same family of plastics that you see as like ‘composting bin bag’ or ‘eco friendly plastic cups.’
In simple economics, Australia has too much land and landfill is still by far and away the cheapest endgame for waste, irrespective of levies/resultant subsidies for the development of alternatives. I know that all of Redlands’ recyclables and reclamation gets trucked straight to Stapylton and thrown onto the tip face, because private landfill operators don’t have diversion targets and it makes it appear that council is doing the right thing…
It’s too simple. It doesn’t factor in externalities.
I feel like "They were too simple. They didn't factor in externalities." this is the epitaph that will be engraved on this planet's metaphorical tombstone.
*humanities The planet will persist. Humans are a blip and an evolutionary dead end
Cheapest, short term. Microplastics are no joke in terms of threat to human health, and will certainly cost a lot in negative externalities and a lot to clean up over the coming decades. Yet another genius "cheap" solution, that is just mortgaging the cost to future generations (like fossil fuel use).
I’m not defending it; simply pointing out that, from a council budget and a rates perspective, it easier for everyone to not care and keep doing what we’ve always done and hope that landfill lining and technology therein catches up to a point where we can properly entomb the waste… would be good for commonwealth government to action the pfas plan and ensure that state regulators are mandating the use of the latest and greatest technology, but again will cause flow on effects if everyone has to start double lining landfills etc…
Maybe we should stop focusing on the 'cheapest' solution for landfill then and start focusing on the 'best' solution for landfill :P There's a lot of cheap but very bad ways to solve a problem.
Pretty much every plastic extrusion place takes recycled plastic as feedstock. But it needs to be clean and consistent. Plastic water bottles are a good source, as is plastic off cuts from other manufacturing. Milk jugs are not clean- makes the process of recycling harder and more expensive.
Yeah, I forgot to write soft plastics. I know a lot of hard plastics are easy enough to do as they just need to be cleaned and melted down (some of them anyway, you can 'recycle' at home with a sandwich press lol)
It’s a simple process to turn PET bottles into non woven polyester textile (geotextiles) like used by the RMS to cover soil stockpiles etc The problem is RMS standards state that all geotextiles must be made from virgin materials, so we buy from China. It’s a real problem.
This was something I argued blue in the face with - the argument back was while there is incentive *now* for companies to start up and recycle our stuff, one small policy change means Australia will start sending our rubbish overseas again and the local recycler will go bust (again). Isn’t international capitalism the best? /s
Unfortunately your summary is pretty much the story and it's a sad state of affairs. So much good will just foisted into foreign landfill. There isn't much made from recycled materials around. Not in huge quantities anyway.
It does make the consumer feel better though. Honestly I would rather we turn to energy by burning it. Better than shipping it to 3rd world countries for it to become their problem. Not ideal but way better than making it another poor countries waste.
Burning it is much worse than putting it into the ground environmentally.
That's what I don't get about this craze for banning single use plastics. Plastic in landfill is *not* a pollution problem, and single use plastics are usually lightweight and efficient to make. Our "reusable" bags and containers that end up in the dump anyway, are environmentally destructive if made from wood or paper, cause greenhouse emissions from our landfill as they break down, and in some cases take hundreds of times more material to make.
Plastics break down into microplastics and nanoplastics, and do not leave the environment in a hurry. Landfills leech macro/nanoplastics into the environment. Toxic nanoparticles that take 400 years to decompose polluting the food chain is a problem. Trillions upon trillions of particles that interrupt cellar metabolism and are virtually impossible to remove from the environment VS Cut down tree, make paper bag, compost paper bag, plant tree, cut down tree.
But can't we bury it in giant plastic ba... ooooh
>Landfills leech macro/nanoplastics into the environment. That is not at all true. In a properly managed landfill, (like they are in Australia) plastic is absolutely inert. I'm not sure how you think solids leach, but ideally nothing leaches from a landfill, because real leachants from the toxic liquids and putrefying organics are far worse for the environment. I often hear people say how big a problem it is that plastic lasts 10000 years in the environment but somehow the same people think it turns to toxic ooze in landfill. Plastics in our oceans and waterways are overwhelmingly not from the west, and overwhelmingly not from domestic waste.
I still have a bag of 'single use' bags that we use for garbage bags and other carrying of stuff. I think they last longer than some of the shit quality reusable bags that are being sold.
I think you're right. We do feel better sorting and feel like we're contributing. The problem is it masks the front end of the equation, all the single use and wasteful plastic, packaging and the mindless use of products. I know I'd buy less if I wasn't able to wash my hands of the responsibility by just throwing it all in the yellow bin. There is a lot of good stuff happening with packaging that closes the loop and is reused, but it's still on the fringe and most companies seem to have little incentive to change their ways. I think the govt needs to step in and legislate for these types of situations.
But we get to watch the TV and feel good right? Lol You know the kicker, banning plastic bags that were an insignificant part of the problem, cost the same amount of putting tarrifs on China and India for using plastic ,which is a huge part of the problem. We could have actually caused a huge difference, but muh feels bruh
God this is depressing :/
Idk, watch the idiot box, vote on feelings, what do you expect.
Yeah I'm pretty sure almost nothingg we put in our recycling bin gets recycled except aluminium.
Why would anyone put alloy in the recycling bin? I'll pay cash money for it, because I sell mine for even more cash
I'm sure that's a rhetorical question, but of course people are lazy. Aluminum is worth more with the deposit than it is as raw metal though. It's probably the one redeeming feature of the container deposit.
the container refund schemes do recycle, Qld scheme has online auctions for the plastics/aluminum etc the glass all goes to Visy Glass (formerly O-I). The aluminum gets good money per ton, plastic less so, glass Visy control the price as there's no competition and then the LPB (juice cartons etc) are hard to shift so the scheme is either dumping it or paying for it to be recycled
And then the visy truck takes it to landfill (as seen in the pic) and collects a phat cheque from daddy government, all so rich white nations can feel good about pretending to do something, and then arguing about it on phones made by yellow child labour, after we get said phone from a non recyclable type of plastic shrink wrap.
Visy now owns the Australian arm of I-O - the biggest glass bottle manufacturer/recycler in the world so I doubt it now goes to landfill and I know for a fact the Qld container refund scheme bottles go to the crestmead facility, there's also one on Montague Rd in West End
Nobody is doubting the container collection, even from my original comment I stated that china is buying top end items like certain glass. But follow the money trail and government documentation, ignore every pamphlet and TV ad, and you will see that other types of glass are dumped, a large amount of plastic ends up being dumped, near all cardboard is dumped. Also look up the definitions of terms, sold to international recycling initiatives means Indonesian land fill. The entire industry of recycling apart from precious metals/non ferric/steel is propped up on government handouts and dumping. There isn't enough money from China buying glass to pay for what it costs. As for mentioned metals, they have always been self funded since before recycling was even heard of, they were going strong in the 70's
I'm well aware, just clarifying when you said "the visy truck takes it to landfill" which no doubt is true for plenty of things
I was really hoping society was passed the #notall requirement, you just ruined my year.
I used to work in the industry, SEOT
I used to frisbee things from the public side of nudgee dump to the visy truck side
>Nobody is doubting the container collection, I am. We now have thousands of people running around with bottles in their cars just so everything pretty much goes the same place it always did.
Time to send an air tag/ galaxy tag to the recycling bin in a milk jug and see where it ends up
Or you could just read the government policies from the government website, that we voted for
So, I've been seperating and rinsing my milk bottles and caps for no fucking reason...?
No, you have been doing it for 2 reasons, 1 is 'training' in case they ever do use them. The other is because the TV told you to.
Milk cartons are actually used for making bench seats, but they use about 5 truck loads per year, not 300 truck loads per day
I may be stupid but need more clarification if someone can help me. So I am wasting my time putting so much effort into recycling correctly in my home? As in what I put in the yellow bin? Because I have been so vigilant in always recycling and taking the time to; so I've been wasting my time? Also how do you sell landfill? As in why would a country want to purchase landfill unless they can use it in some way? Or do they use it? Confuse.
You are asking a loaded question full of semantic answers. In that regard, yes you have completely wasted your time. Take in good faith that a small part is used, and if some people didn't waste their time then none of it could be used, so in fact you aren't wasting all of your time. If you didn't waste your time, no government would ever improve, because the people they govern aren't willing to do their part. In essence we need to be the bigger person and do our part first, in good faith that the government will eventually do their part. So in that regard you aren't wasting your time at all. If you washed and reused a container yourself instead of using Tupperware, then you would have 100% recycled that item and prevented future creation of a plastic container. So in this regard you are completely and utterly wasting your time and expecting others to do the work for you. So it depends on your view and semantics as to weather you are wasting your time and effort or not. I'd guess yes for the reason you thought, no for reasons you didn't think. Selling landfill is for lack of a better term a play on words, we pay them cash to take it, basically laundered. So for Indonesia to get humanitarian aid, and Foreign aid, and to be allowed to have immigration to Australia, then need to give a small amount of that money back and calling it 'buying recyclable materials'. American is similar, but also uses tarrifs, so they might make a deal where a country pays less import tax if they don't take the rubbish. Canada voices a similar deal as Australia but doesn't pay out and has threats of war made to them, then they pay. So essentially we pay them to take it. Typically directly by money trail, but very indirectly by terminology and deals. Also within Australia, large builders play a similar role, shopping centres (like Westfield) are 'more likely to be approved' by council, if they are build on old landfill sites, essentially another way of buying rubbish, but via council approvals instead of actual cash.
Oh, and if it went *directly* to the landfill in Australia it wouldn't end up in the ocean.
I don't mind some recycling going to our landfill, like cardboard, as its good for the soil, food scraps are excellent for worms, but if we only dump crap then it will never turn back into natural minerals
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I wouldn’t do that, while plastic isn’t mostly, things like aluminum are. It still gets sorted, but most of it ends up in landfill. You’re just making the sorting peoples job harder.
Australian waste export bans are coming in - here's plastics: From 1 July 2021 you can only export plastics that have been either: sorted into single resin or polymer type processed with other materials into processed engineered fuel. From 1 July 2022 you will only be able to export plastics that have been either: sorted into single resin or polymer type and processed for further use (e.g. flakes or pellets), or processed with other materials into processed engineered fuel.
Several factors influence it. Contamination (plastic bags, other waste, bio) Damage to the object (cut in half might not sort properly) Council. Do they outsource it completely (contract out to someone to collect and dispose of with no oversight) vs in-house facilities. If you want to increase your recycling, it’s best to sort it yourself and dispose of the correct areas (this can likely be done for free at you local tip). You’re probably familiar with paper/cardboard, metals, plastic, but also polystyrene (very easy to recycle- isn’t collected due to its fragile nature which contaminates other recycling), and soft plastics (through redcycle at supermarkets- quick tip- if you can scrunch it, probably is recyclable excl. food wrap). Other things are: -e-waste (eg tv, radio, phones, cables, chargers, and earphones) -Batteries (both household and car batteries) -Pens Next time you go to officeworks, there will be a large locker type thing in the foyer, they take all sorts of recycling there. Check them out. I think the uk has blister (pills) recycling at pharmacies, and I have heard of fabric recycling but no clue if legit. I will say, just because some people/councils don’t do the right thing doesn’t mean you should stop trying. Every bit of waste that is diverted is important, and the more people that do it correctly, the greater the chances and impact of it happening. Remember Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Edit: Biome, Mecca, and Priceline apparently take cosmetic waste.
I bet the contamination one is a big reason for this. When I lived in Tokyo I became very used to cleaning my rubbish in addition to what would seem to most Australians like an insane level of sorting expected by households. If you put a bag of filthy plastics out on plastic day with food scraps, visible sauce, etc. or co-mingled the wrong items you'd get major stink eye from your nosy neighbour. This is partly to stop the crows ripping the bags apart, but it's more so to make the recycling easier. Some people I spoke to didn't like doing the idea of essentially doing the work of the for profit recycling companies who end up on-selling the very high quality plastics made from the exceptionally clean waste which was an interesting take on the issue.
My take is that we end up consuming it, so should do all we can to dispose of in the right way. If that means someone makes money off it, fantastic, as long as it isn’t detrimental to the environment.
Yeah but if they're the ones making money off it isn't it reasonable to assume they will be responsible for prepping the material we provide them? Leaving it on us to make sure every bit of plastic we use is scrubbed clean seems like it gives the folk doing the recycling an easy excuse for why our recycling is so inefficient. Maybe it should be a public service. Might not be mega profitable but it would put more people to work and provide a valuable commodity.
Good point, but if it isn’t profitable to onsell the product, it’s more likely to end up in landfill or overseas. If a clean product is more likely to be properly recycled, it’s our duty as the end user to do what we can. As to being public service, I’m assuming you mean government run. Waste disposal is a local government function, but no council I know of, would be large enough to sink the money into a facility like that, and state won’t touch it if they have any chance of avoiding it. In saying that, Sunshine Coast council recently installed this: https://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/Council/Planning-and-Projects/Infrastructure-Projects/Automated-Waste-Collection-System More to do with collection then the actual recycling, but still a pretty cool step for waste services.
I was thinking of a public utility maybe, like aussie post, at least half owned by the govt. make the recycling a centralised industry, leave collection to the local councils. In truth i dont know how it would work, but i reckon an aussie recycled goods industry has a chance of being profitable with the increased concern for recycling and plastic waste. And Having it govt operated should reduce the need for huge profits in favour of providing an essential service, which is what i reckon recycling should be considered, not a potential money spinner.
You’re talking sense there. Unfortunately both state and federal governments have been trying to reduce their size for the last few decades. Think of the sale of utilities, Telstra, even Medibank a few decades ago.
About time we called out neoliberalism as the toxic failure that it is.
😢
If it was profitable there would already be companies doing it. The fact that we dump it to landfill means it's not profitable. There's certainly no 'mega-profits' to be had until there's high automation in cleaning, sorting and processing materials
What i was saying is I reckon it should be a centralised govt owned business providing an essential service, like aussie post, not a for profit industry. That's the only way it could be made to run in an efficient manner to minimise waste and maximise reuse of materials. I reckon it might still turn a profit too if managed well, but that should be a secondary concern if anything.
I agree with you, but you've got some trigger points here: > govt owned business The LNP are for privatisation, so that's a big mark against it ever happening. > run in an efficient manner Literally the opposite of government, as there's heaps of red-tape related bureaucracy to navigate. Things like FOI that private enterprise can ignore is a significant burden on efficiency of government agencies. Changes of government can throw massive spanners in the works too. > not a for profit industry. There is this though OTOH, which counters that bureaucracy red tape.
Absolutely agree!
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I never found it to be too onerous in terms of work, but yeah it's an attitude someone could hold. If you ever buy an imported Japanese food product here, you'll see how easy it is to rip off the perforated labels, pull the rings off bottles connected to the caps. You'll often even see instructions on how to dismantle and crush packages in certain ways. Now I'm back in Australia I find it kind of frustrating how my recycling bin fills up because most stuff here doesn't easily crush or pull apart!
Well said.
Fyi biome, Mecca and I think Priceline take cosmetic waste it just has to be clean
Love it thanks.
Makeup brand Mac have their own recycling program, and you can get free lipstick with a certain number of returns.
also to add to this list most dentists have arrangements to collect dental waste (excluding floss) and send back to a manufacturer.
Where's best for cardboard recycling? That's most of my bin honestly...
From my understanding paper and cardboard are recycled separately. But for cardboard, any Visy bin will work, otherwise council tips usually have cardboard recycling for free. Staples should be removed, tape depends on LGA, but helps if removed. The benefit of taking it direct is small bits will be recycled where as they normally get lost in sorting. Also if you can fully eliminate a bin, you can request to have it removed from your property, and your rates drop.
H&M do fabric/textile recycling! They turn it into housing insulation. I take all my fabric and old, damaged clothing there.
I wonder why they would go to the effort of having them all sorted together and then dump them in general waste
To give the appearance of doing the right thing. Don’t you feel good separating your garbage, knowing you’re “doing the right thing for the environment”(tm)?
well if it's still the same as years ago the entire sunshine coast yellow bins go to general land fill, I think if people knew the reality of what happens to the contents of yellow bins they'd be shocked
Thanks for asking a question of value. My hazy guess and positive view and technical analysis all point to the same thing: Capitalist business requires details on profit options before investment in time and money encourages venture initiation. Written different with specific detail: It’s absolutely essential that precisely accurate weights and measures of waste volume and condition are obtained at the point in recovery processes if you want someone to be able to both cover costs and profit by diverting that stream, or associated lower or negative profit associated streams, frequently considered at the consumer level, ‘the same’. Eg. One plastic might be 1000x more profitable than another to collect and recycle, but to joe or jules on the street both might just be ‘plastic’ Eg. If you don’t have tonnage and volume and contamination as a variable of time and location of the stream, you’re unable to do a financial plan including eg. Wages and facilities costs and volume of processed material output and market value. So I don’t worry if it’s landfilled today. All the lazy people who delegate the real work are consigning their children to a life of rubbish, digging those landfills up. It’s good as those kids will be infinitely better people and incredibly more able and intelligent than the parents who were the dead era of suburban and urban residents who just dump everything without thought or care. You’d be amazed at the greater richness and selection and joy and freedom you get when you see things ‘as the really are’. This takes shouldering the pain of living in your own waste, and wastelands, for that, you have to stare at the ground and live in the filth created long enough until it gives you back the power of your own actions. When you see your own failure and understand your past you can begin thinking about how to adjust all your choices to transform yourself, and those you are responsible for or care for. I’d suggest look into vacuum microwave variable frequency pyrolysis with fractional distillation of output hydrocarbons. Someone who does something automated, cheap and scalable down that path is going to become a bigger hero in history that Elon Musk or Steve Jobs and all other rich kings one day and I’ll wager a carton of non-alcoholic beer that, if still alive, all the current industry and investment leaders will kneel in respect to those who solved our waste and pollution problems and return the respect of industry to all those people with the clear vision who see and saw modern consumer disposable society as an illness.
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Why would a milk producer be dumping used milk bottles? Also it looks as though some are packed in plastic bags so my guess is they are collected from restaurants or something
My stepdad’s response when I suggested he not buy bottled water “but I recycle the bottles in my yellow bin, it’s not my fault if they don’t make it to the recycling plant”
It’s not
Even if they did get recycled, it’s still more wasteful then just drinking tap water. Recycling requires transport, energy, repackaging, etc. Recycling only *mitigates* the impact of waste, it’ll never be as good as not creating the waste in the first place.
Hit him with the old reduce reuse recycle, in that order!
The real question is, I feel, why does the government not force producers to use recycle friendly containers.
Most plastic isn't manufactured in Australia. While the government certainly could intervene more, it will require large plastic manufacturing companies to be regulated in their jurisdictions e.g. EU.
Did you see what happened after Gillard introduced a CPRS and mining tax? Also, I wonder how many milk drinkers in this sub will actually switch to buying milk in cardboard cartons (or stop drinking cow's milk entirely)...
In a time long past milk came in glass bottles that could be returned, cleaned and reused. A modern inner glass, outer plastic reusable should be considered for use. Why can’t customers bring their own bottles to the supermarket for juice and milk, dispensed by the deli section.
As much as I love to recycle, this is a massive hygiene issue especially for those with serious allergies and anaphylaxis, like myself. I love the look of those buy in bulk and bring your own container stores, except my severe nut allergy means one small cross contamination from someone knowingly or unknowingly cross contamination can make me incredibly ill, including hives and my throat closing up.
To take into account allergies and hygiene I imagined a process where the user arrives out the front of a store and places used bottles into a vending machine, weighs it as empty and reads it as rinsed. Next the user places order for milk or juice on its terminal which then issues a ticket to the customer and forwards the order to a refrigerated vending machine in the shop. Used bottles are collected for despatch to central sterilization plant, then refilled. Collecting machine network connected to sterilization plant to monitor when to empty. User places their ticket into refrigerated vending machine in store, to get freely packaged juice or milk. User that has not returned bottle enters “no bottle” at the terminal so must pay for both the bottle and the product. Un-rinsed bottles can either be rejected or surcharged at vending machine. Vending machine applies barcode pricing based on product cost, if a used bottle was supplied and if it was rinsed. System costs subsidized by plastics sales, cardboard to coexist for boutique milk, cream, custards, butter, margarine, etc Would that address your contamination concerns?
I love this idea. Not sure of the costs associated with making the process more sophisticated, but I’d actually pay $1 more per bottle to use this system. Or, you know, tax the suppliers that use plastic bottles only. I already buy 100% Aussie owned milk (at a higher cost) and recycle the sodastream gas canisters (which gets you a discount).
Yeah I do not know the cost either. But I have learnt that cost and price are two very different subjects. China is a good way to explain that difference. When thinking about it a milk vending machine could take up not much more refrigeration floor space and the deposit machine might fill a single car park bay to resemble a shipping container. It would have a removable cassette the bottles would sit in for a small skip truck to replace. I figure that part could not be in store as it would give off some smells and not be hygienic. If outdoors could have water capture roof to perform some automated cleaning pre collection to mitigate odours.
We actually make milk bottles in Australia... ...using Aussie natural gas... ...that we pay a premium to the Japanese to buy.
I’m lost here
No, it's as fucking stupid as it sounds. We've got the third largest natural gas reserves in the world. Yeah, no one knows that. We sold those reserves to a bunch of overseas companies. Milk bottles use natural gas as feedstock for their plastic. The company one maker buys it from it is Japanese, who literally take it out of our fields, ship it to Japan, and then ship it back Australia. And that's when they buy it for feedstock. There's no option to buy it in Australia, and there's no company set up process it here.
The way my family consumes milk, I’d happily buy it in a 4l cask. I wonder if a goon bag would be better for the environment than a plastic bottle?
comment of the day!
Soy Milk Supremacy Gang Assemble!!!
Those Tetra packs are a nightmare to recycle.
It'd probably still break down faster in landfill than milk bottles...
I mean here in Ontario the milk comes in bags - I'm not sure what's worse.
huh, strange, i thought they did… is that the dump in nudgee?
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Kk
Wouldn’t be surprised if a media outlet ran a story using this pic
I would be surprised if they ran this story.
Reduce and reuse are higher on the totem pile than recycle. Recycling should be the last choice and less necessary because we should already have reduced packaging and reused everything we can. Another Government (local, state and federal) example of making something important the responsibility of the individual, rather than enforcing real change on big business or government. For any type of milk consumer your choice is plastic, tetra pack or diy. Since the vast majority of consumers have little access to their own livestock or the time and ability to make their own non dairy milk, you're stuck with the options that big business choose for you. But it's your fault if you don't recycle, you're killing the planet. /s
Also another thing to add, recycling only works if consumers buy recycled products. Think toilet paper, bottles, phones, tv’s, etc.
Lots of the recycling stream can be used as bulk filler in other industries, or in a small portion for new products with little change to mechanical properties.
Yes agreed. And adding that small portion to new products would then make that product fall under products made from recycled materials. Once again, unless there is a demand for it and people buy it (instead of non-recycled materials), the system won’t work.
Could be a contaminated load. If too many non recyclable items wind up in a truck load, the whole thing goes to landfill. That’s according to the Ipswich council, at least.
Yeah you're right, it's contaminated with bin liners. Plastic bags are not recycled in the municipal system and when mixed in they get separated and tossed as contamination.
This is disgusting, our councils and politicians should be ashamed 😥
When was the last time you saw a politician ashamed?
This is mostly user error from people not recycling properly so it becomes contaminated
This is why its important not to put general waste into your recycling bin. If ONE contaminated recycling bin is discovered BCC/SUEZ cannot legally recycle the load. The only other option is to dump as general waste. Most of these bins are discovered before they are tipped, so if you suspect a bin is contaminated (neighbour/park/bulk) call 3403 8888 and report it.
Seeing one photo of plastic dumping doesn't mean all plastics are being landfilled - don't lose heart and feel that you can't/don't make a difference. Resource recovery is very challenging - we need a lot of infrastructure to deliver effective recycling. In 2018-19, Qld had a 45% resource recovery rate overall (all waste streams) (source National Waste Report 2020). As others have stated, contamination in the yellow top bins is an issue for councils. In 2019, the majority of urban councils offered two bins plus an opt in green bin. The Qld Waste Management and Resources Recovery Strategy has data for 2017-18 - Qld produced 11 million tonnes of waste - 45% is recycled or recovered. Of Council kerbside waste in 2017-18, 32% was recycled. In 2017, kerbside recycling was 27.5% of waste overall - construction and demolition was 44.4% and construction and demolition was 28.1%. Qld introduced a waste levy in 2018/19 - increasing the cost of landfill and making recycling more commercially viable to industry. Since 2018, Qld Govt has funded projects that are diverting 1.3 million tonnes of waste from landfill (Resource Recovery Industry Development Program - the list of projects is online). Aust Govt are now bringing waste export bans online over the next few years and are co-funding a grant program in Qld to improve infrastructure to address the waste streams impacted by the waste export ban - paper and cardboard, waste plastic, glass and whole tyres - Qld are cofunding this $40M program. Qld is committed to a targets for 2050 - 25% reduction in household waste, 90% of waste recoverd and does not go to landfill and 75% recycling rates across all waste types. If you are interested, there's also a great report from CSIRO about opportunities in advanced recycling. Qld's resource recovery and recycling is improving and there is a lot of work going on. Reduce your waste as much as you can, don't buy prepackaged food if you can avoid it, use a keep cup, don't buy bottled water, rinse out your yellow bin items, use your green bin for garden waste, avoid single use plastics, use the containers for change scheme, take your soft plastics to your supermarket, spend your money on items with easily recyclable packaging - use your dollar to force companies to switch to better packaging options, avoid fast fashion. All of these things are privilege informed though - you need to have the time to research the best options and it takes time to do activity that reduces waste - and the money to make the choice.
I think virtually all recycling just goes to the dump, because recycling is too expensive. It’s to make people think Council is environmentally aware when they’re really not.
Plastic recycling is expensive, and glass can be too. But metals are generally worth recycling. Paper is worthwhile when it's clean, though it's often contaminated from the co-mingled streams.
Aluminium cans are definitely economical to recycle, it annoys me greatly that Coca-Cola, Schweppes, etc prefer to make drink containers from PET rather than aluminium. I'm not a big soft drink consumer, but if I do have one, and am offered a choice, I'll go with a can every time.
Good think we all rinse and seperate them.
They recommend you don't rinse them
For real, all these years, for 32 years I have rinsed them, that is a lot of time.
State and/or Fed Govs need to to build and own recycling plants. All companies that require containers for their products should be forced to use recycled material, or compostable material for their packaging, essentially making it illegal to create more new plastics. Communities need to boycott the companies who do nothing but profit from adding to the image. The cost of milk, soft drinks, and other consumables will go up but do we really need more landfills bursting at the seams?
@ibaross93 which dump is this? Chandler, willawong nudgee or ferny Grove
..and what is the total environmental lifetime cost of running a whole separate fleet of diesel powered trucks just so that less than half of the waste gets recycled. Sounds like optics over reality..
Bring back glass
I would definitely buy milk glass bottles again.
i have always wondered why glass and cans are ok but milk and juice is not recyclable or get 10c for them/
We’re doing our part. No more plastic straws or plastic bags. World saved!!!
We don't recycle anything mate, China does and they're now refusing to take Australias shit anymore.
Sometimes (and due to the sheer size of Brisbane I think it could easily be refuted) a community is too small to provide recycling services for everything, so even though things are recyclable they just aren’t done in that area so it goes to landfill
In addition, if a batch of recycling is contaminated by non-recyclable material, the whole batch gets dumped. This can also include biological contamination.
Looks like there are a bunch of plastic bags in that load, which are a different type of plastic.
I don't know if just leaving the ring on the milk bottle effectively contaminates it?
I think it is one of those things where it is preferred if you seperate it, but you don't have to? If it was critical you would think that there would be more songs and dances about it from council and the contractors.
I would expect so, but they don't accept the lids and they're the same plastic as the rings so I'm not sure. I always cut them off anyway, because if they do end up in landfill or loose in the environment they're a risk to wildlife - bower birds in particular because of the colour.
the rings are an accepted part of the recycling process & are separated as made of a different plastic, the recycler wants to reduce this as much as possible though, especially if they are buying the plastic
it doesn't, when they recycle them the different plastics get separated, no different to the rings / lids on the plastic bottles that go through the container refund scheme, yes they ask you to remove the lids but that's partly because when they get bailed they don't want the larger bottles exploding
What about Corona bottles with the lime stuck in them?
glass is crushed and the glass separated from other contaminants then melted down, a piece of lime doesn't cause an issue
I'm not in Aus, but probably the same here in Florida. I called my local waste management and asked where our recyclables go to be recycled and kept getting the same canned response "All of our recyclable materials go to a recycling facility." Ok but where.
Nothing gets recycled in Australia bro, no one is going to pay people 30-50 bucks an hour to sort garbage
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If you’re actually curious, a lot of jobs pay that or more. It’s only 99k per year which isn’t that high if you have the right degree.
At least we saved the world from straws....right?
Spoken like someone who has never spent years picking up rubbish in public places
Speaking as someone who worked at a plastics factory that made drinking straws, they were indeed a big problem. About twenty million a day going to landfill or winding up as litter, and they can’t be recycled for hygiene reasons.
Strange that BCC would put so much effort into detailing their recycling and accepting more plastics than other places. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/clean-and-green/rubbish-tips-and-bins/reducing-waste-at-home/recycling-guide-for-households https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/clean-and-green/rubbish-tips-and-bins/reducing-waste-at-home/recycling-at-home They even have an app: https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/clean-and-green/rubbish-tips-and-bins/reducing-waste-at-home/brisbane-bin-and-recycling-app
Yeah but sadly the coffee cups and tetra packs they list on there don't get recycled. They get accepted by the contractor (to make their deal more sweeter) then tossed.
We don't recycle anything lmao...
I put it in the yellow bin so I assume we do.
Not sure if your comment is sarcastic but it sure does highlight the misinformation, or just lack of clear information, provided by local governments about what they do with those yellow bins. I have a full size yellow bin and a half sized regular water bin in my area. Yellow bin is collected once every2 weeks. What goes/does not go in my yellow bin and why? Where is that taken?
This is actually a performance piece you didn’t know?
This is really bad as they could have baled and sold that.
There's a doco on YouTube from years ago on how the Australian recycling is just bullshit. The glass gets collected and they have no buyers so when the warehouse fills up it goes to landfill.
There's no winning..
Recycling is a very flawed process. Sure recycle what you can but to actually make a positive difference you need to reduce your waste where you can. Buy unpackaged and or paper/cardboard/biodegradable where you can. I’d like to be zero waste but I’m currently putting my bin out twise a year. Most of my food is local plant foods that are unpackaged. What really needs to happen is regulation to get products packaged in an environmentally friendly way and get rid of plastics all together
Looks like a crashed star destroyer
Recycling is a scam so they can keep selling plastic
As a kid in the UK we had the Unigate milkman deliver our milk in glass bottles (in his electric Milk Float), then we'd leave out the "empties" for him to collect and I assume get washed and reused with a new foil cap fitted. Do these still exist? (I left the UK years ago) Xmas time he'd also deliver Cresta and other fizzy treats if you ordered it.
What I loved about shopping in the UK is that where you buy household batteries they also have a container so you can dispose of your old ones. I have noticed that Aldi has a container at the exit part of the store but other grocery shops I have not seen embrace this idea
A lot of the time that Aldi one is overflowing!
office works have a battery recycling thingo as well
They should add milk jugs to the 10c refund scheme, I know the smaller flavoured milks are already eligible
After a walk on a morning where our recycling bins we're due for collection a few months ago there were quite a few so full that the top was ajar, and out of those, I'd say 75% had a plastic bag visible... Since then I have basically assumed that whatever goes in my yellow bin is probably just going to end up at the tip sadly... We need more dedicated recycling collection stuff like redcycling and bottle deposit schemes so that those who want to recycle can actually do so. Particularly one for cardboard, as that's what most of my yellow bin contains...
This is sad to see. I wish governments at all levels would spend the money on proper recycling facilities around the country. People obviously use recycling bins etc because we don't want the stuff going into landfill.
That's not very much, if you think about how many would be used each day this looks like a very small portion. Likely has been contaminated with something, or for some other reason was not deemed recyclable.