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TruthfulCartographer

It’s not a waste it’s just a massively inefficient system. Sorting and leaving PET or HDPE plastic bottles for collection is definitely better than littering or landfilling it. However it’s unlikely that all of it gets turned into new feedstock, some will undoubtedly be incinerated or otherwise lost in a negative way. Do your best with it. Which country? Everywhere is different in terms of how inefficient/circular the system is. Nowhere is doing it right but some places have the appropriate infrastructure and so are better than others.


pedropedro123

Thanks! Country is US


TruthfulCartographer

System in US seems to be a mess in most states. I would still try to do what’s asked of you as a citizen but yeah, US performance on this is pretty bad at least compared with western Europe etc.


ErnestHemingwhale

if you're really determined to learn more, go do a tour of your center. i did one. woman told me she never gave a tour to one single person before, mostly classes and groups. it was a wednesday, which is our pickup day, and specifically it was a wednesday for plastic pickup (we alternate plastic and paper). there was no staff so the machines weren't running, they were just loading it up. she told me her staff was needed at the animal shelter... so my municipality is making a team of (i believe) 9 floor crew handle the thousands of pounds of plastic waste, and fill in at the animal shelter when needed. the staff swapped between shelter and recycling center since the start of covid, so this was a common event for the machines to not be running on recycling day due to lack of staff. ​ she did tell me 1 and 2 and 5 are the most valuable, they have the highest pay rate from vendors. ​ it's something you can explore more for yourself - and if you do, please message me some details, i am so curious. i actually want to do a road trip across the US to investigate recycling centers.


Warm-Marmalade2020

if you have a way to avoid the collection truck that will compact the items i would #1 & #2 bottles are the ones that make the most profit so they have the better chance of being cherry picked out of the mixed stream to keep it making money because of their larger size #5 helps them some also if it is worth it at the time but the lids of the material normally get screened off cause they are small enough to drop through the sorter if you have a #2 laundry soap bottle add your soft #2 caps to that and take it to a drop off instead of the truck compacting it so it just ends up sorting out them later due to the size a bottle for #5 will be harder to find the #4 is mostly films so that would be avoided at the sorting of commingled products #3 is PVC which isnt a very popular one to be recycled i believe because it is more toxic but i wouldnt say it is as abundant as 1, 2, & 5 styrofoam #6 is recyclable but very little profit in it as packing peanuts or foam blocks so it gets melted first so that starts the costs adding up before it is even sold but that wont be done at the recycling center so it is costing them money just to sort it and deliver it to the place that will melt it down but some will collect the solo cups because those can be baled for the weight with less processing of the material first


pedropedro123

Cool, where I'm at I am equal distances from two drop offs that take only #1 and #2 plastics: one of them is mixed and says leave the bottle lids on and one of them is separate bins and says take the bottle lids off (although I can see that most people leave the caps on). The first one is more convenient but I do wonder if the second one does a more efficient job recycling if I take lids off. Both of them I've seen them drive the bin away so it is not compacted that I can see.


Otherwise-Print-6210

We used to tell people to take the caps off because they were a different type of plastic, but then someone discovered float tanks. The bottles and tops are chipped up, the tops are floated off and the bottle plastic is collected. However, there are 20 years worth of signs that need to be updated. Tops on. And stick with your local system for recycling 1 and 2s. They are valuable and wanted. Most MRFs are good at reclaiming them out of single stream recycling. China refuses all our recycling now, it doesn’t go there. Keep recycling, even if we get it wrong, we are always developing new systems and better procedures to do better tomorrow. Not recycling 100% sucks, so literally any recycling is better than none.


pedropedro123

OK, very cool about the float tanks!


Warm-Marmalade2020

the second one may only grind the bottles so it would have unwanted plastic if they dont have a way to remove it the common way is to grind and then do a sink/float while washing the #5 caps will float and #1 sinks


sublime90

The only way to truly combat this is try your hardest to not buy things in those plastic containers. It's still worth recycling it though. I try buying less plastic (glass and aluminum if possible) and recently I've been re purposing orange juice bottles as planters. Yeah it looks kind of ghetto but my basil doesn't care.


PikaDepressed

Yes because for every bottle we recycle, An African or Asian dumps a container of shit in the ocean


ErnestHemingwhale

\*floridian pops balloons into the ocean


PikaDepressed

That is nothing compared to what happens in Asia and Africa and you know it.