Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

DelcoWolv t1_ixugdqq wrote

Metal and glass are worth recycling.

Plastics should be collected and incinerated to keep them out of the ocean.

39

JIMMYJAWN t1_ixux296 wrote

Glass bottles should be sanitized and returned to the bottling plants. Used to be common in America, is still practiced in many places.

11

inthegarden5 t1_ixv09um wrote

The gas needed to drive the bottles back to the plant costs more than making new bottles. Another problem is sorting nearly identical but slightly different shapes and shades of green or brown glass.

8

JIMMYJAWN t1_ixv1t9l wrote

Picture this scenario:

You buy a case of beer. They charge you $15 for the beer, $5 deposit for the bottles. You drink the beer, put the empties back in the case as you drink them. You finish said case and want to purchase another. You take the empties with you to the store and the retailer only charges you $15 for the new case because you are responsible and brought your bottles back instead of breaking them in the parking lot or throwing them in the park or whatever.

You were going to the beer distributor anyway so no wasted energy there.

The beer supplier drops off new cases of beer to the store and picks up the old bottles. He has room on the truck because he unloaded new stock first.

He was going to the beer distributor anyway so no wasted energy there.

I could go on but you get the idea by now hopefully.

This is how it worked for a long time and we need to force businesses to be responsible for the waste their products created. Consumers need to play a small part in the process as well.

22

inthegarden5 t1_ixw4ufy wrote

You are right that it would work at the consumer level. I can even see businesses set up to handle all the returns instead of the individual retailers. I was referring to doing it at the recycling company level - they aren't equipped to separate all the different products.

3

cstar3388 t1_ixusa0w wrote

And paper/cardboard, it's one of the easiest to keep from not dropping down a quality level when recycled. The only problem with paper is slick ads, plastic tape and food contamination. Plastic, like you said, is a joke.

10