I’ve always wondered how legit recycling is and if it’s worth the effort to personally do it. (I live in a high-rise and I can toss my garbage down a chute on my floor, but have to bring my recycling down to the ground floor.) In college I literally saw them dump the recycling bin and trash bin into the same truck, but I know I see dedicated recycling trunks around.
I was told “soiled” recycling can’t be used i.e. greasy used pizza boxes, is that true? Recycling dumpsters are gross, isn’t everything soiled?
When companies sell a product that’s “made from recycled products” how truthful is that? Is it their own recycled products or do they source it?
Whats the deal with the recycling triangles and numbers on a product? If I recycle a number that I shouldn’t, does it ruin everything else in that dumpster?
How does any one/machine feasibly sort recycling? It seems like a herculean task.
Recycling, fact or fiction?
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>When companies sell a product that’s “made from recycled products” how truthful is that? Is it their own recycled products or do they source it?
Generally these are legit, but they may not be open up on how much of a % of the sourced materials are recycled and as folks generally pay a premium for such products this is trust companies will not want ot break.
>Whats the deal with the recycling triangles and numbers on a product? If I recycle a number that I shouldn’t, does it ruin everything else in that dumpster?
these are seen on plastics the concept being that you have a number of different types of plastics that will fall under one of 2 types:
Thermoplastics(ie PVC, PET) that can be molded upon aplication of heat: these are for most part very much recyclable and their indicatino of such is the trinagle symbol with the number denoting the type of Plastic(you care about these because during triage they get separated)
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THermosetting plastics, once heat is applied ot them once, they are hardlocked in their shape and cannot be molded further, these are NOT recyclable(but can be repurposed by shredding them and using the result in other manufacturing)
>How does any one/machine feasibly sort recycling? It seems like a herculean task.
often, it has to be done by hand with the crews working at recyclying centers, the triage we do ourselves is very much preliminary.
>Recycling, fact or fiction?
its a fact, but not all metrials are madeequally and not all nations that do it in scale have the funds or interest to overly invest in it, the most notable saving you can do by recyclying is aluminum, which is a bitch to make from raw materials(and limited since it has to be mined thru an energy intensive process), but notably easy ot recast from recycled waste.
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