Recycling a whole new world as of Jan.1.18

[pepperj]

China has closed the door on accepting the recycled waste from the western world it seems. So what are we going to do, dump it back into the landfills or simply reduce? Recycling doesn't work really the experts say, but they say to recycle-seriously a mixed message we're getting. It's so hard to buy the simplest of items now without it being packaged in plastic, a battery even comes with the plastic wrap.
Many States and provinces have programs in place that folks are rewarded for bringing the recyclables, scrap metal, bottles, paper, plastic, and then there's huge gaps in the program. Some there's a payed deposit on things, here in Ontario we just had the deposit on wine & liquor implemented only a few yrs ago. Before that every bottle got tossed into the trash. We pay a penalty on plastic bags 5-10 cents is the cost of getting a plastic bag at the store. (I smell a money grab)

We're charged a penalty/deposit on all electronics set up to have the consumer pay for the recycling of electronics (Huge money grabbing scam)

So it seems if we consume we pay a tax/levy or deposit on the item to use it. Is there a better way?

It effects everyone that consumes this new policy and really I don't blame China for closing their door on our trash. See we ship them trash they make into more trash and we want so badly to buy cheap trash we jump on the ban wagon/ hamster wheel of generating trash.

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/09/568797388/recycling-chaos-in-u-s-as-china-bans-foreign-waste

Here is the filing with the WTO on what they're going to ban.

China Notifies WTO of Intent to Ban 24 Types of Solid Waste Imports | Waste360
http://www.waste360.com/business/what-operation-green-fence-has-meant-recycling

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[pepperj]

Having just reading the last link in the previous post it's amazing the amount of recycled trash that is sent EVERYDAY to China. 1500 containers each one holds approx. 20tons of material so that = 11 million tons of recycled waste a year from just the USA alone."More than 155,000 direct jobs are supported by the U.S. industry’s export activities, earning an average wage of almost $76,000 and contributing more than $3 billion to federal, state, and local taxes. A ban on imports of scrap commodities into China would be catastrophic to the recycling industry.”

The Chinese ban, which will be fully implemented early next year, affects an annual average of 619,000 tonnes of materials — worth $523 million — in Australia alone.

As China limits waste imports, recycling companies scramble to contain mountains of garbage | Financial Post

 

[against the wind]

Brass, copper, lead, aluminum. There has always been money waiting at the scrap yard for anyone who brings in those metals.
New York State was among the first state to offer a refund for bringing back your empty bottles, (plastic or glass) as well as aluminum cans back to the store of purchase or any store that sells that product. However, right across the state line, in Pennsylvania, there are no refunds. There are large dumpsters set up at township recycle centers for the disposal of these items but it is more of a convenience than an incentive.
For the disposal of old tires, you have to pay the local garage a fee of $3. per tire. I prefer that to digging a hole and burying them. Many rural areas across the U.S., allow Burn Barrels. They are usually used for the disposal of paper, cardboard, leaves and wood.
There are ways to avoid landfills, but it seems there have to be monetary incentives to get people to participate.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

We unbox all our groceries at Walmart and leave the trash there since we have no trash service. I don't care to take home all the fancy packaging and boxes but we burn everything else in a barrel that we do bring home. Most food packaging has at least two layers of wrapping and sometimes more.
When I was a kid wed fill trash bags with aluminum cans for some extra money but now they pay nothing....it's all donations I guess so I don't mess with it.
Most of our plastic is not recyclable and I try not to bring much home.
We can easily fill two Walmart trash cans out in the parking lot before we leave for home. Less to deal with and the packaging is ridiculous.

 

[trdking]

I am for the bans on most of the items listed. China does not process the materials in clean factories and it creates a hazardous polution to the point where you can't go outside in China on certain days. I worked the Olympics in Bejing for NBC. China shut down all of its factories 2 weeks before the Olympics so the air was clean and fired them back up after. It was really really nasty air. We share their air and these pollutants come back to us via the jet stream. This ban will force us to process these items into cleaner byproduct before it gets to China. It will cost us more money, will create more jobs and force our industry into dealing with our by product rather than taking the cheap non environmentally friendly exit to China.
Today, I own a recycling business We process PCB (printed circuit board) I would make almost double the margins if I chose to sell the PCB to China for processing. It is a huge amount of additional profit. We however process it in the USA and Canada under strict EPA regulations. None of the arsenic, mercury, heavy metals cadmium and the like are off gassed into our environment. In China they open air smelt it and it all goes up into the atmosphere and we get it all back eventually via the air or the ocean. I say Good! BTW PCB is extremely profitable and China has not banned this import. 90% of our PCBs go straight over there. Its tragic.

 

[trdking]

China has closed the door on accepting the recycled waste from the western world it seems. So what are we going to do, dump it back into the landfills or simply reduce? Recycling doesn't work really the experts say, but they say to recycle-seriously a mixed message we're getting. It's so hard to buy the simplest of items now without it being packaged in plastic, a battery even comes with the plastic wrap.
Many States and provinces have programs in place that folks are rewarded for bringing the recyclables, scrap metal, bottles, paper, plastic, and then there's huge gaps in the program. Some there's a payed deposit on things, here in Ontario we just had the deposit on wine & liquor implemented only a few yrs ago. Before that every bottle got tossed into the trash. We pay a penalty on plastic bags 5-10 cents is the cost of getting a plastic bag at the store. (I smell a money grab)

We're charged a penalty/deposit on all electronics set up to have the consumer pay for the recycling of electronics (Huge money grabbing scam)

So it seems if we consume we pay a tax/levy or deposit on the item to use it. Is there a better way?

It effects everyone that consumes this new policy and really I don't blame China for closing their door on our trash. See we ship them trash they make into more trash and we want so badly to buy cheap trash we jump on the ban wagon/ hamster wheel of generating trash.

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/09/568797388/recycling-chaos-in-u-s-as-china-bans-foreign-waste

Here is the filing with the WTO on what they're going to ban.

China Notifies WTO of Intent to Ban 24 Types of Solid Waste Imports | Waste360
What Operation Green Fence has Meant for Recycling | Waste360

Plastic bag fee. I agree, It is a money grab and is doing nothing to keep bags out of the oceans and landfills
Electronics Disposal fee I disagree. It costs more money to process the item than the value of the scrap. It is an incentive paid to the processors to encourage their recycling. Classic example is old televisions whose glass is loaded with lead. I know the largest processor in California and the only money they make on processing the millions of pounds of TV's is the state processing fee. It is good.
China has closed off items in the past and all it does is force us to clean it up before we send it to them. No one likes dealing with Arsenic Not us, Not them

 

[pepperj]

I am for the bans on most of the items listed. China does not process the materials in clean factories and it creates a hazardous polution to the point where you can't go outside in China on certain days. I worked the Olympics in Bejing for NBC. China shut down all of its factories 2 weeks before the Olympics so the air was clean and fired them back up after. It was really really nasty air. We share their air and these pollutants come back to us via the jet stream. This ban will force us to process these items into cleaner byproduct before it gets to China. It will cost us more money, will create more jobs and force our industry into dealing with our by product rather than taking the cheap non environmentally friendly exit to China.
Today, I own a recycling business We process PCB (printed circuit board) I would make almost double the margins if I chose to sell the PCB to China for processing. It is a huge amount of additional profit. We however process it in the USA and Canada under strict EPA regulations. None of the arsenic, mercury, heavy metals cadmium and the like are off gassed into our environment. In China they open air smelt it and it all goes up into the atmosphere and we get it all back eventually via the air or the ocean. I say Good! BTW PCB is extremely profitable and China has not banned this import. 90% of our PCBs go straight over there. Its tragic.

We have GEEP here in Canada the one stop shop for electronic recycling. It had 200+ employees a decade ago and was 50% silently owned by another company then it was bought by them around 2010. I could fill pages having dealt with this group. Even to the all familiar phrase "Well if you don't want to deal with us, we'll send the suites and ties to pay you a visit." Basically one doesn't want to be uprighted and placed in a 45 gallon drum. When challenged on the statement back to the owners the feedback was "Let's just say the conversation never happened".

The previous owner of GEEP put in a state of the art recycling system for recovering the semi/precious metals from electronics.

Home - GEEP

The guys that bought them out.

Board of Directors | About | Triple M Metal LP | Metal Recycling, North America

 

[pepperj]

I am for the bans on most of the items listed. China does not process the materials in clean factories and it creates a hazardous polution to the point where you can't go outside in China on certain days. I worked the Olympics in Bejing for NBC. China shut down all of its factories 2 weeks before the Olympics so the air was clean and fired them back up after. It was really really nasty air. We share their air and these pollutants come back to us via the jet stream. This ban will force us to process these items into cleaner byproduct before it gets to China. It will cost us more money, will create more jobs and force our industry into dealing with our by product rather than taking the cheap non environmentally friendly exit to China.
Today, I own a recycling business We process PCB (printed circuit board) I would make almost double the margins if I chose to sell the PCB to China for processing. It is a huge amount of additional profit. We however process it in the USA and Canada under strict EPA regulations. None of the arsenic, mercury, heavy metals cadmium and the like are off gassed into our environment. In China they open air smelt it and it all goes up into the atmosphere and we get it all back eventually via the air or the ocean. I say Good! BTW PCB is extremely profitable and China has not banned this import. 90% of our PCBs go straight over there. Its tragic.

Having sold my recycling operation(2006) to somebody that did majority of their business with China and was part owner of a smelting operation there also I learnt that the rules we play with and the rules that they played with was a little different. Over the years China has tightened the importation of non-ferrous metals, putting on tariffs on clean metals as copper/stainless/aluminum but still accepted dirty unprocessed scrap. The company had many containers dumped and inspected on the docks. Gaylords would split exposing the hidden Millberry under the low grade #2 insulated. Over time the exporting of the container scrap got to the point that it was cost thousands in fines.

 

[trdking]

Having sold my recycling operation(2006) to somebody that did majority of their business with China and was part owner of a smelting operation there also I learnt that the rules we play with and the rules that they played with was a little different. Over the years China has tightened the importation of non-ferrous metals, putting on tariffs on clean metals as copper/stainless/aluminum but still accepted dirty unprocessed scrap. The company had many containers dumped and inspected on the docks. Gaylords would split exposing the hidden Millberry under the low grade #2 insulated. Over time the exporting of the container scrap got to the point that it was cost thousands in fines.

I am Sure China did not appreciate the deception of hiding Millberry under dirty scrap to avoid the tariffs !

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Great post Jim, made me think about how we can all contribute to leaving a cleaner planet behind when we're pushing up daisy's.

Dave

 

[fuzzy535]

I worked at a landfill here in Cleveland for little over 8 years. I seen an amazing amount of trash and items just get thrown away because the next best thing has come out. Just our site alone servicing only greater Cleveland we were taking in 4500-5000 tons a day. Just from Cleveland! we ran two tippers and took in direct hauls. We had sites in Chicago that run 5 tippers. Now tippers are the machines that lift semi truck trailers and dump them. its more economical to short haul trash to a transfer station then reload it into a semi and haul it to a landfill. Our facility also had a recycling center which processed cardboard, glass, plastic and paper. Im all for recycling but from a corporate view its expensive to collect, process and store all the materials. If nobody is buying then you have to sit on it, but still have incurred all the cost of processing it. So it nobody is buying it then there is no money in it, and unfortunately business are running for profits. Its sad that we have become a disposable society. The world is trying to go greener and have less by-product and less waste. Sometimes i wonder how long our hobby in metal detecting will be around? i figure there's only so much change that has been lost and only so much ground left to search. Plus now more and more people use there CC or their phones to pay for stuff. less people carry actual money around. I myself don't carry change anymore and keep very little cash on me. I guess only time will tell. Sorry i know i kinda got into two different subjects here...

 

[pepperj]

Great post Jim, made me think about how we can all contribute to leaving a cleaner planet behind when we're pushing up daisy's.

Dave

I guess everyone can do their own little part in the world, to help, even though they don't think that it does make a difference it does. No one person can achieve this on their own, it takes everyones effort to start to do something.

 

[smokeythecat]

Johnnybravo, I'm not a huge consumer. Sometimes the packaging stays in the trash can at the store on the way out. I'm pretty good with the bottle and paper recycling. I think we do the paper recycling in this country but am no expert.

 

[pepperj]

I worked at a landfill here in Cleveland for little over 8 years. I seen an amazing amount of trash and items just get thrown away because the next best thing has come out. Just our site alone servicing only greater Cleveland we were taking in 4500-5000 tons a day. Just from Cleveland! we ran two tippers and took in direct hauls. We had sites in Chicago that run 5 tippers. Now tippers are the machines that lift semi truck trailers and dump them. its more economical to short haul trash to a transfer station then reload it into a semi and haul it to a landfill. Our facility also had a recycling center which processed cardboard, glass, plastic and paper. Im all for recycling but from a corporate view its expensive to collect, process and store all the materials. If nobody is buying then you have to sit on it, but still have incurred all the cost of processing it. So it nobody is buying it then there is no money in it, and unfortunately business are running for profits. Its sad that we have become a disposable society. The world is trying to go greener and have less by-product and less waste. Sometimes i wonder how long our hobby in metal detecting will be around? i figure there's only so much change that has been lost and only so much ground left to search. Plus now more and more people use there CC or their phones to pay for stuff. less people carry actual money around. I myself don't carry change anymore and keep very little cash on me. I guess only time will tell. Sorry i know i kinda got into two different subjects here...

It happens once a week where each household puts out the bag, container, of trash at the curb and it magically disappears. That's why we all pay our taxes right? No thought on where it goes or what happens to it, just as long it's gone. This happens millions of times a day, everyday, except Sunday maybe.

The thing is if China sticks to the closure of the ports to recycled goods that are basically garbage then the country of origin will have to deal with it. Some folks just generate huge amounts of trash and it amazes me to how they actually consume and throw that amount out every week.

The schools should all have environmental programs where it is part of the curriculum to visit a transfer station and landfill site to show them where it all goes. It might make a little difference to many and the voice of a child is often heard louder than the words of an adult.

We won't have to worry about things that lost in the ground, ( older/mature folks 50+) there will always be a place to hunt.

 

[pepperj]

We unbox all our groceries at Walmart and leave the trash there since we have no trash service. I don't care to take home all the fancy packaging and boxes but we burn everything else in a barrel that we do bring home. Most food packaging has at least two layers of wrapping and sometimes more.
When I was a kid wed fill trash bags with aluminum cans for some extra money but now they pay nothing....it's all donations I guess so I don't mess with it.
Most of our plastic is not recyclable and I try not to bring much home.
We can easily fill two Walmart trash cans out in the parking lot before we leave for home. Less to deal with and the packaging is ridiculous.

Huge Corps. should be the ones that should be held responsible for packaging and not the consumer of the product. Why does a food product even have to be packaged in the first place, let alone twice?

Convenience, handling, shelf space, advertising....

 

[pepperj]

Johnnybravo, I'm not a huge consumer. Sometimes the packaging stays in the trash can at the store on the way out. I'm pretty good with the bottle and paper recycling. I think we do the paper recycling in this country but am no expert.

WE put out a bag every 3 weeks, and that has been the norm for years. The ticket is $2.50 a bag-40 pound max. weight per bag. We have weekly free pick up of recycled goods, paper one week, and plastics/glass on the other. Most times I skip it and catch it every other pick up as we don't really have that much.

We don't burn anything as I believe burn barrels should be banned period. They would be ok if it was just paper/yard waste, but most times it's a catch all for anything that will burn and yes it will produce smoke and pollution. In the ground it garbage pollutes the area, possible it will get into the aquifer then we consume it through plant or water. In the air (burning it) we consume it through breathing it.
Last night I had to turn off the HRV air system of the house as it was a still night and the air was filled with smoke (I have lung issues) the nearest house is over 1/4 mile from me separated by ravines and heavy treed land. So when somebody puts the daily trash into the stove to start up the fire, it does effect the world around them.

 

[Dave Rishar]

So it seems if we consume we pay a tax/levy or deposit on the item to use it. Is there a better way?

Sure. Skip the tax and let the market figure it out. Financially, it doesn't make sense to recycle every material, in every area. There may come a day when recycling aluminum and glass is cheaper than extracting them from the environment, and when that day comes, we know just where to get a butt-ton of this stuff: those landfills that we filled and capped. It's not like it's all going to wander off when we're not looking.

How many Americans would still put out their recyclables if they were directly charged what it costs to recycle them (as opposed to simply dumping them in a landfill), rather than paying indirectly via taxes?

 

[ChampFerguson/TN]

Sure. Skip the tax and let the market figure it out. Financially, it doesn't make sense to recycle every material, in every area. There may come a day when recycling aluminum and glass is cheaper than extracting them from the environment, and when that day comes, we know just where to get a butt-ton of this stuff: those landfills that we filled and capped. It's not like it's all going to wander off when we're not looking.

How many Americans would still put out their recyclables if they were directly charged what it costs to recycle them (as opposed to simply dumping them in a landfill), rather than paying indirectly via taxes?

AMEN Brother Dave. Get the steenkin goobermint OUT of business and let the marketplace decide best practices. I predict that one day we'll be mining our dumps for materials. IF we can get past the stupid taxes (should that be one word?) and regulations designed to fill elected pockets.

 

[pepperj]

Sure. Skip the tax and let the market figure it out. Financially, it doesn't make sense to recycle every material, in every area. There may come a day when recycling aluminum and glass is cheaper than extracting them from the environment, and when that day comes, we know just where to get a butt-ton of this stuff: those landfills that we filled and capped. It's not like it's all going to wander off when we're not looking.

How many Americans would still put out their recyclables if they were directly charged what it costs to recycle them (as opposed to simply dumping them in a landfill), rather than paying indirectly via taxes?

"There may come a day when recycling aluminum and glass is cheaper than extracting them from the environment, and when that day comes, we know just where to get a butt-ton of this stuff"

The recycling of Aluminum has been well in place for decades and well documented that it only takes 5% of the energy to remelt than produce. So 95% of the energy is a net gain and that is a huge savings to the world. In the US alone alum. cans are the biggest source of recycled alum.

Glass facts:
[h=2]Glass Recycling Statistics[/h]

• Glass bottles and jars are 100% recyclable and can be recycled endlessly without any loss in purity or quality.
• The container and fiberglass industries collectively purchase 3 million tons of recycled glass annually, which is remelted and repurposed for use in the production of new containers and fiberglass products.
• Over a ton of natural resources are saved for every ton of glass recycled.
• Energy costs drop about 2-3% for every 10% cullet used in the manufacturing process.
• One ton of carbon dioxide is reduced for every six tons of recycled container glass used in the manufacturing process.
• There are 46 glass manufacturing plants operating in 22 states. 16 companies operate 51 glass beneficiating facilties (aka "glass processing" plants) in 27 states. At the glass processing plants, recycled glass is further cleaned and sorted to spec, then resold to the glass container manfuacturing companies for remelting into new food and beverage containers.

• In 2013, 41.3% of beer and soft drink bottles were recovered for recycling, according to the U.S. EPA. Another 34.5% of wine and liquor bottles and 15% of food and other glass jars were recycled. In total, 34% of all glass containers were recycled, equivalent to taking 210,000 cars off the road each year.
• States with container deposit legislation have an average glass container recycling rate of just over 63%, while non-deposit states only reach about 24%, according to the Container Recycling Institute.
• Beverage container deposit systems provide 11 to 38 times more direct jobs than curbside recycling systems for beverage containers. (Source: The Container Recycling Institute, "Returning to Work: Understanding the Jobs Impacts from Different Methods of Recycling Beveage Containers").
• About 18% of beverages are consumed on premise, like a bar, restaurant, or hotel. And glass makes up to about 80% of that container mix.
• In 2008, NC passed a law requiring all Alcohol Beverage Permit holders to recycle their beverage containers. Since then, they have boosted the amount of glass bottles recovered for recycling from about 45,000 tons/year before the ABC law to more than 86,000 tons in 2011.
• Glass bottles have been reduced in weight approximately 40% over the past 30 years.
• Recycled glass is substituted for up to 95% of raw materials.
• Manufacturers benefit from recycling in several ways—it reduces emissions and consumption of raw materials, extends the life of plant equipment, such as furnaces, and saves energy.
• An estimated 80% of all glass containers recovered for recycling are remelted in furnaces, and used in the manufacture of new glass containers. Source, Strategic Materials, Inc.
  
• Recycling 1,000 tons of glass creates slightly over 8 jobs. (Source: 2011 Container Recycling Institute).

 

[pepperj]

I predict that one day we'll be mining our dumps for materials.

It's new really the mining of landfill sites, but it exists. The concentration of aluminium in many landfills is higher than the concentration of aluminum in bauxite from which the metal is derived. There's at least 500,000 sites in Europe alone.

The EPA has collected and reported data on the generation and disposal of waste in the United States for more than 30 years.[SUP][1][/SUP] Recent estimates state that the amount of municipal waste disposed of in US landfills is about 265 million tonnes (261,000,000 long tons; 292,000,000 short tons) as of 2013.[SUP][13][/SUP]
Organic materials are estimated to be the largest component of MSW. Paper and paperboard account for 29% and yard trimmings and food scraps account for another 27%; plastics 12%; metals 9%, rubber, leather and textiles 8%; wood is approximately 6.4% and glass 5%. Other miscellaneous wastes make up approximately 3.4%.[SUP][1][/SUP]
In 2010, Americans recovered almost 65 million tons of MSW (excluding composting) through recycling.[SUP][1][/SUP]
Research has shown that leachate treatment facilities at modern landfills are capable of removing 100 percent of the trace organics and over 85 percent of the heavy metals.[SUP][3][/SUP]
The Puente Hills Landfill is the largest rubbish dump in America. Over 150 m (490 ft) of garbage has risen from the ground since the area became a designated dumping site in 1957.[SUP][14][/SUP]
In 1986, there were 7,683 dumps in the United States. By 2009, there were just 1,908 landfills nationwide: a 75 percent decline in disposal facilities in less than 25 years.[SUP][15][/SUP] However, this number is deceptive. Much of the decrease is due to consolidation of multiple landfills into a single, more efficient facility. Also technology has allowed for each acre of landfill to take 30% more waste. So during this time, the available landfill per person has increased by almost 30%.[SUP][16][/SUP][SUP][17][/SUP]