Bishop Hill It's the environment, see?
Apr 30, 2015 Recycling For anybody who thinks about these things for longer than a couple of seconds, it's pretty much clear that recycling is something that should happen to scarce, valuable resources rather than cheap and readily available ones. This is because recycling itself uses resources, so you don't want to expend a load of time, money, effort and materials in order to get something that is not worth very much.
In the FT today, Pillita Clark notes that the collapse of oil prices has put plastic recyclers under a great deal of pressure, as container makers have started to prefer virgin material to recycled. Some companies in the trade have collapsed as a result. This is as it should be. The effort of collecting, sorting and then grinding up old plastic bottles is clearly too high when the product has a low value.
Moreover, according to Clark plastic bottles are relatively inert. This of course is a good thing, meaning that they are not much of a problem in landfill, so it looks very much as if there are no significant externalities that might lead us to the wrong result. (In fact, Clark presents the stability of the bottles as a problem - "[plastic] can take so long to decompose that it is a menace to the environment" - but I'm not sure she has thought it through: if they are not decomposing, they are not any kind of "menace".)
So, the market works its magic, seeking out and destroying the least-efficient ways of doing things, with the inevitable result that those whose ways and means have been made redundant scream for politicians to help them:
In the UK, the dilemma lower oil prices are posing for plastic recyclers has led to calls for more industry support.
Stuart Foster, chief executive officer Recoup, the industry support group, says surveys have shown consumers would support laws giving bottle manufacturers a responsibility to include recycled content in plastic milk bottles, even if that meant higher prices for consumers.
“The financial drivers need to exist for manufacturers to actually use recycled instead of virgin plastic in their products,” he adds.
There can be little doubt that the measures demanded will be implemented; either voluntarily or imposed upon us by the EU bureaucracy. Expect lots of money to be wasted on driving empty plastic bottles around the country and grinding them into pellets. Its the environment, see?
Reader Comments (67)
Plastics are rich in carbon and made (largely) from fossil fuels. Burying stable plastic items in landfill is therefore a cheap form of carbon sequestration. So you would think the greenies would be all in favour of it, but they are incapable of joined-up thinking.
James Evans et al
Let's get something clear.
The issue of correct disposal of rubbish to preserve the countryside, ocean life, etc etc, is independent of the issue of recycling stuff that is not worth recycling.
[BH adds: Wot Martin said]
My son and his business partner operate the fifth largest plastic recycling company in the US. Several years ago they built a plant in Alabama which recycles consumer plastic. They invested in the best equipment available: from Italy. They produce both post-consumer safe plastic flake and pellets. Their product has been approved now for several years as food safe by the FDA. They have contracts with several large soft drink companies and if you buy one of those companies' drinks, about ten percent of the bottle comes from their plant. They also have contracts with other plastic molding companies who manufacture packaging for products sold to companies like Walmart, which requires that their packaging is post- consumer safe. In the US the government requires that many such packaging be post-consumer safe.
He took me down a year ago to see the plant. They have a lot as big as a dozen football fields where the baled consumer plastic is stored. The day I was there, they had fifteen million pounds of consumer plastic waiting to be processed and more coming in all the time. Any of this stiff that's put in landfill will be there for two hundred years or more.
I just talked to him and he said that when the oil price goes down, the waste management companies who have contracts with municipalities are sensitive to the price fall and some smaller municipalities will simply stop collecting the stuff and put it in a landfill. But because of the requirements in the US, he doesn't see a massive abandonment of the practice of collection of consumer plastic.
Phil.
Phil Howerton: Whatever the situation may be in the US, and whatever the FDA may say, in Europe post-consumer plastic waste cannot be recycled into primary food contact products.
Looks like a tipping point?
:)
I'm interested in how/if the green blob are intending to recycle their 'renewable' solar and wind generators when they cease to be functional? There seems to be a lot of evidence that the life-span of wind turbines and PV panels, is a lot less than originally claimed (by around 5-10 years).
Were they ever designed with an intent to be recyclable, or was just a case of we'll let the old ones rot and grab more subsidies one new ones.
In the UK, under control of the EU, when a law places requirements on business have had as a result:
Wine lakes,
Butter mountains,
Fridge/Freezer mountains and so on.
I see no reason why a wind generator mountain and
a PV panel mountain are not just around the corner, waiting for ideas and technology on how to dispose of them.....
Jo Nova introduces us to Penn & Teller’s take on recycling, if you will pardon the rather, ermm, loose language.
James Evans: the litter you see is just that – litter. Most landfill sites I have seen are very well managed, with little waste despoiling the surrounding country, so, as often as not, it has little to do with landfill or recycling, other than blow-off from some less well tended sites. Most often the litter can be found around beauty spots, where the visitors have had their fill, and have not the wit to realise that their disposal might damage the view for others. A lot may have something to do with the education of the lower orders that The State will look after all things for them, so they have no need to bother thinking too hard, nor worry too much about any consequences of their actions.
In a way, you could look as landfill as recycling – after all, where did most of the products being disposed of originate? After a few million years, those despicable bottles, etc, might be the “fossil” fuels for our descendants – think to the cheeldren!!!
Steve Richards, 8:32pm:
My comment was a genuine question. Not a lead for you, or your namesake Stephen to indulge in more kipperballs propaganda. There is a vast amount of wind and solar 'technology' being constructed that will never last its life-expectancy and NO party including ukip has a current policy for cleaning up the mess, end of.
Steve Richards, Salopian
Renewables are not renewable. That is all part of the Green con trick. I have never attempted it, but I would wonder if wind turbines and solar panels could be disposed of in landfill sites.
Sweden has very few aluminium cans being kicked around the streets, because there has been a 'bounty' on recycling them.
The UK had mountains of old fridges and freezers, because the government banned their disposal, without having ensured there were any facilities to deal with them.
Certain countries in Europe dealt with unwanted fridges and freezers in a much simpler manner. They sold them to Poland, where many of them are probably still working away.
Landfill taxes were increased 12ish years ago. This encouraged flytipping, and made it much more expensive to clean up derelict land for housing, hence so many sites still lie derelict.
The law of unintended consequences, was not created by New Labour, so they plead ignorance.
That recyclers cannot operate profitably, is due to shale gas, and the crash in oil price. Shale gas has destroyed the Peak Oil argument, so beloved by Green Luvvies, Grauniad and the BBC. Peak Oil was such a lovely threat. You have to do it this way, because oil is about to run out, and is just going to get more expensive every day.
Rusbridger admits having a strategy meeting in January 2015 that produced 'Keep it in the Ground', when it should have been 'Keep fossil fuel shares in the Guardian'
It has all gone so wrong, and it could not have happened to a more deserving bunch of hippocritters.
Plastic burns well in a waste to energy incineration plant. Ah, the dioxins! Not a problem, lots more from the fireworks on New Year's Eve and Bonfire night.
Plastic burns well in a waste to energy incineration plant. Ah, the dioxins! Miniscule, not a problem, lots more from the fireworks on New Year's Eve and Bonfire night.
At least one low value product lends itself to profitable recycling : Murdoch Newspapers, witness this 100% recycled comment on the fact.
Incinerate - heat = generation power! Just don't live downwind.
@dennisa you don't get dioxins if the burn temperature is ultrahigh
As Martin A says there are two distinct issues, recycling and safe disposal. If the first is not financially viable then the second becomes more of an issue. You have to ask the question who creates the problem by not disposing of waste safely. For the UK it is the population of the UK who create the problem and judging by appearances, don't care what happens to their litter and waste and are prepared to scatter rubbish all over the countryside rather than deal with it themselves.
Penn & Teller put recycling to the bunsen burner ... beware foul language.
https://youtu.be/rExEVZlQia4