Plastic Rubbish
Discussion
baptistsan said:
So is there any reason that more plastics aren't plant based and therefore by their nature biodegradable? How much more expensive are they? Think my cup worked out at about 10 pence which I don't think is unreasonable.
PLA Plastic or Corn Starch plastic. In theory - it solves everything. But.....To replace even a small proportion of petrochemical plastic with corn starch plastic would require massive tracts of farm land to move from growing food to growing crops for plastic manufacture. Plus the crops that are used to make the plastic are genetically modified which tends to rattle the sandal wearers a bit.
So, we'd have biodegradable plastic food trays but no food to put in them.
And at the moment, they are actually a problem as they cannot be composted with other green organic waste is it makes the resulting compost too acidic. They need separate facilities which requires investment and infrastructure.
But it is an area that needs more research and investigation.
Edited by StevieBee on Friday 12th January 11:30
baptistsan said:
So is there any reason that more plastics aren't plant based and therefore by their nature biodegradable? How much more expensive are they? Think my cup worked out at about 10 pence which I don't think is unreasonable.
Dead right - it's not unreasonable - but that's to you. There should be a concerted move towards less packaging & better designed/more responsible packaging. Unfortunately however the good citizen like yourself who recognises the issue is in a tiny minority & equally the manufacturers (and/or politicians) are neither sufficiently incentivised to change, nor sufficiently penalised for perpetuating a damaging status quo.Even if the additional cost per 10,000 cups is a single solitary quid, people have to be persuaded it's a good idea & that means accountants, production managers, directors, shareholders, pensions funds etc.
Campaigns like Hugh Fearnley Wittingstalls (which I admit I initially criticised, but now see as a valid start to the debate) on used coffee cups, are a good thing & should be encouraged/extended into other areas, to the point where it's too uncomfortable for politicians & producers to resist.
CardinalFang said:
The mechanics of this model are incredibly conflicted. On the one hand, there are councils, who want to fix budgets, for several years in advance, so when they sub contract out to your household collectors (The Viridor's Veolia's, AmeyCespas of this world, & hundreds of smaller companies up & down the country) it will, in all likelihood be at a fixed rate per tonne, or at a rate subject to, maybe yearly review. (StevieBee, fell free to contradict here - I don't deal with the public sector end of things). The collector will be running a potentially huge operation & has a fixed cost per tonne to collect, clean, sort, store, bale etc. But...on the other hand, the collector has to sell to people like me,
Yep - you are quite right, but it gets trickier than that.Many waste contractors sell their service in at below the cost to deliver it but they 'own' the recycling and base their model on being able to extract the deficit and make a profit from it's sale.
In theory this is sound as it avoids the council from exposure to a variable market and the risk this creates and they get a service delivered at less cost.
Where it breaks down is that the value of recycling has never reached the value levels many the companies predicted. The result is that there are many a waste company out there operating lengthy contracts at a huge loss but would cost them even more to extract from the contract early.
Halb said:
Because corporations are greedy beyond Croesus and capitalism today wants to squeeze as much as possible out of something rather than providing decent service/product.
I'm a right of centre, free market economics, capitalism over communism type of guy....but having dealt with around 140 councils over the years. I have come to see that the most efficient waste operations or those provided directly by the council rather than contracted out. There are a few exceptions on both sides but not many.StevieBee said:
I'm a right of centre, free market economics, capitalism over communism type of guy....but having dealt with around 140 councils over the years. I have come to see that the most efficient waste operations or those provided directly by the council rather than contracted out. There are a few exceptions on both sides but not many.
Likewise & I feel the same looking at it from the perspective of an exporter/brokerjet_noise said:
On a very specific portion of this topic:
McDonalds plastic straws.
One of my more excitable friends is getting into a lather about these hurting turtles(!).
Is it really an issue or is this another frightening example of the green Taliban's ever pervasive power?
Well, yes. They are a problem; not just for turtles. They're plastic and and many are used and discarded. Because they are very light, they easily get blown all over even if properly thrown away or put in the recycling.McDonalds plastic straws.
One of my more excitable friends is getting into a lather about these hurting turtles(!).
Is it really an issue or is this another frightening example of the green Taliban's ever pervasive power?
"Green Taliban" ....don't get sucked into the thinking that this all some conspiracy by the Swampy, Lentil Eating types. Waste, recycling, etc..is driven by logistics, economics, politics...environment is an important part of course but 'practical, considered and scientific' based environmentalism.
jet_noise said:
On a very specific portion of this topic:
McDonalds plastic straws.
One of my more excitable friends is getting into a lather about these hurting turtles(!).
Is it really an issue or is this another frightening example of the green Taliban's ever pervasive power?
They probably aren't helping much, let's put it that way. The straws, I mean...McDonalds plastic straws.
One of my more excitable friends is getting into a lather about these hurting turtles(!).
Is it really an issue or is this another frightening example of the green Taliban's ever pervasive power?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/22/plastic...
Owww..that bl**dy smarts.
Is it an epidemic though? How do we stop it? Who knows? Not me, but how do we feel about the fact that we have created a situation where it could happen? Me - not great - which is why I work in recycling. Will it guarantee me a glorious ascent to heaven upon my departure, or even an OBE, or powerfully built statue in the town square? Er, no, but I'm an ex City salesman & investment banker, so I had to start my path to redemption somewhere...
Thumbs up chaps! Very interesting thread. Long may it continue. 
I think there’s a good deal of growth to be done in recycling yet, interesting times ahead.
While I don’t have any specific topics to question you on (just about exhausted my knowledge with the plastic bottle stuff), It’s great seeing a thread in NP&E that isn’t acrimonious too!
(wait for it - incoming....)
I think there’s a good deal of growth to be done in recycling yet, interesting times ahead.
While I don’t have any specific topics to question you on (just about exhausted my knowledge with the plastic bottle stuff), It’s great seeing a thread in NP&E that isn’t acrimonious too!
(wait for it - incoming....)
StevieBee said:
Halb said:
Because corporations are greedy beyond Croesus and capitalism today wants to squeeze as much as possible out of something rather than providing decent service/product.
I'm a right of centre, free market economics, capitalism over communism type of guy....but having dealt with around 140 councils over the years. I have come to see that the most efficient waste operations or those provided directly by the council rather than contracted out. There are a few exceptions on both sides but not many.AMG Merc said:
SteveiBee, there was a report a while back about UK collected recycling waste ending up being mixed back together in landfill in The Netherlands. Obviously this is a big disincentive to recycling. Can you comment on where our waste goes and what happens to it?
Broadly speaking the vast majority of our domestic waste is exported for re-use. The main items (by volume) are paper, cardboard, plastics (bottles & film) & metals (steel & alu cans) - the contents of your household bin. (And we're talking millions of tonnes to China alone, before you add in the fact that almost every other developed economy is involved). This trend has been growing for years, as (e.g.) on the one hand our domestic consumption and production of newspapers has fallen (see Aylesford Newsprint) and, at the same time, the packaging production industry has moved to less costly areas eastwards (again, broadly speaking). The rise of online shopping is a contributory factor. We used to wander down to Books etc & pocket a paperback. Now we buy it on Amazon & it arrives in a cardboard wrapper. Similarly, domestic appliance manufacturing has migrated eastwards - which also drives the packaging suppliers to move towards their clients.Other big markets are India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia etc (but they are a fraction of the size of China)
The same is true of cleaner (non food/household contaminated) commercial waste from distributors, warehouses, retailers, supermarkets & printers (again, an industry which has suffered decline over here, probably linked to the growth of electronic media & decline of print). Again, in broad terms, higher grade materials - unused newspapers, clean printers & office waste, stay closer to home. In Europe there are still, for example, newspaper & tissue mills. These operations want used newspapers & Office paper, respectively, but are in decline, see UPM & Kimberly Clarke.
Generally, your waste paper goes to make things like http://www.dssmith.com/paper/offering/products/rcc... Low grade grey "filler" you'd see if you tore a ready meal or similar logo'd paper/card wrapper.
& your cardboard goes to make...more cardboard.
It's not infinite though - the more times you re-pulp paper & cardboard, the weaker the fibres get, until, after around 7 cycles the cellulose is destroyed & you have to do something else with it. At the bottom of the paper league table is the grey crud used to make egg boxes & bed pans.
Plastic bottles are cleaned, shredded, pelletised & re-made - the difficulty is in separating the polymers consistently. You can't use a Coke bottle to make a milk bottle or vice versa
Same for metals (not something I'm hugely involved in). Steel cans are smelted & go to make...er I dunno, but a colleague of mine does trade steel cans & they stay in in the UK. Alu cans can be almost infinitely recycled. The one's I sell go into Auto production in Japan.
Film goes for re-use if it's clean (-------there's a decent market in Pakistan for plastic packaging film - eg the plastic bag your loo rolls come in & Easter Europe is growing too - sorry forgot about that - long week--------) & power stations & cement burners if it's not.
Her's how the grading & standards work for buyers & sellers https://www.letsrecycle.com/prices/waste-paper/pap... but guess what? There's no fully adopted international standard. Yet...
The standards for plastics & metals are more internationally recognised & in the case of metals, can be benchmarked & hedged on exchanges like the LME. There's no real equivalent for paper or cardboard.
The mechanism is simple in theory: the huge Chinese cardboard mills have their own in house UK agents who buy country-wide from the Collectors/Recyclers. The rest employ people like us to do the same - trade and broker the material. Sometimes the collectors/recyclers have their own direct relationships with the mills, to spread their counterparty risk. So, we build the relationships on both sides - with the UK suppliers & the agents in India (in my case) who handle the local relationships (dockyards, inspection agencies, customs, trucking, mills etc). We organise inspections on the ground, collections & manage all that when it goes wrong...which it does. Mostly we'd want to control the shipping too, because I pay the supplier & if my buyer sends in the containers - he's got the goods & I've shelled out the cash. Gulp. Sometimes though, we have sufficient levels of trust to let the agent in Asia handle the shipping.
The financing is a high wire act, to put it mildly. Most of the time, the supplier wants cash up front, but the agent on the ground in Asia gets paid on a letter of credit.....in 180, sometimes 360 days, is the norm in India. So when do we get paid? It's an interesting conundrum, but generally, in full shortly after the ship sails. So you can see it doesn't take much of a hiccup along the way for the whole house of cards to come crashing down. You can see how the Asian agent needs to have YOOGE cashflow to hand if he's selling thousands of tonnes per month & it takes 6 weeks to arrive, be inspected & passed/accepted, well in advance of him getting paid.
Here's an example. China closes the door on some product or other (which they have just done with most plastic waste, but it has happened before with paper). Hundreds of containers are turned away from Chinese ports & people like us have to find homes for them in other countries. For free? Don't be daft - someones just taken several hundred containers out of circulation when they should've been on their way to (I dunno) San Fran, not Ho Chi Min City. A gigantic multi million dollar bill is winging its way & people like us (The "Shipper") or our clients are the first names on the paperwork. Oh. Sh*t. The punitive charges made by Shipping companies would make Colombian Cartels weep with envy.
Very little of what you bin goes into holes in the ground. We've run out of them, we don't want them at the end of our road & as StevieBee says, the costs are (rightly) punitive & rising. Organic (ie food) waste is increasingly composted over here, but not so much that landfill is completely avoidable & really low grade dirty plastics go into either cement or Electricity production. Not so much in the UK though - this is mostly going into Europe at the moment, but when we open more refuse fuelled power stations here, the situation should change.
It's a huge global industry, as you can imagine & very little of it's size & impact is widely known. It's easy to think that what you throw goes straight into the Ganges, or an abandoned Kenyan gold mine but it really doesn't. Honest guv!
Edited by CardinalFang on Friday 12th January 15:20
Edited by CardinalFang on Friday 12th January 16:11
StevieBee said:
I'm a right of centre, free market economics, capitalism over communism type of guy....but having dealt with around 140 councils over the years. I have come to see that the most efficient waste operations or those provided directly by the council rather than contracted out. There are a few exceptions on both sides but not many.
I myself am not tied to any sort of 'ism' in particular, because the world is a hotpotch mix of churn, with sprinkles of crazy, so free market is great for some things, heavy control/regulation/government is great for other things. Problems arise when those who are led by ideology force that onto something. It's sad to see crony capitalism and 'profit-above-all' become a greater force, than back in the days of family owned businesses.I drove to the supermarket today, through a few villages, and this topic was in my head, I took a country lane route I use 1 in 10, and the sheer amount of crap and disgusting white plastic and s
te on both sides, on this country lane between villages was vile. I may not have given it a second thought, I have become accustomed to it, but this thread made wonder at the kind of unthinking scum we have here, and the attitude of most modern brits to to their environment.CardinalFang said:
It's a huge global industry, as you can imagine & very little of it's size & impact is widely known. It's easy to think that what you throw goes straight into the Ganges, or an abandoned Kenyan gold mine but it really doesn't. Honest guv!
Thank you for that hugely interesting post. 
One of my businesses is involved in recycling, but it's a lot more simple; we build the things that crush rubble into re-usable aggregate. Recycling in general is something we've all got a responsibility to consider IMHO.
The Mad Monk said:
The hot topic at the moment seems to be plastic rubbish.
bottles and other plastic rubbish on our beaches, in our beauty spots, in the rivers.
Link to the good old Daily Mail. The Daily Mail will never let you down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5130731/Be...
Piece on BBC1 Breakfast show this morning about the rubbish on beaches in Dorset and Weston super Mare(sp?)
Well don't stand there staring at it! Pick it up! Put it in the rubbish bin!
If everyone who got their phone out and took a photo of a plastic bottle had taken ten seconds to pick it up, it wouldn't be there for someone to tutt over tomorrow.
Don't gawp at it - pick it up!
With you 100%, problem is deeper than this though. Our Government need to grow some and pile some pressure on all consumer product packaging in all industries. We don’t need this excessive packaging and people do not want it.bottles and other plastic rubbish on our beaches, in our beauty spots, in the rivers.
Link to the good old Daily Mail. The Daily Mail will never let you down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5130731/Be...
Piece on BBC1 Breakfast show this morning about the rubbish on beaches in Dorset and Weston super Mare(sp?)
Well don't stand there staring at it! Pick it up! Put it in the rubbish bin!
If everyone who got their phone out and took a photo of a plastic bottle had taken ten seconds to pick it up, it wouldn't be there for someone to tutt over tomorrow.
Don't gawp at it - pick it up!
brrapp said:
Why don't we just bury every scrap of plastic we can? Secret is don't call it landfill, call it carbon capture, then everyone will be happy.
This was the point I was going to make.The problem isn't the plastic as such, it's what we do with anything we as a society no longer need.
Yes, we produce a lot a waste that we don't need and we should look to reduce that to reduce the whole process of waste collection and disposal, however:- We dig lots and lots of very big holes here in the UK to extract all the minerals and stone we need for construction and highway building so rather than landfill being seen as a negative, see it as a way of replacing those materials previously extracted.
Waste going to landfill is waste which is controlled, encapsulated and will eventually (after a century of so) become 'clean'. With a little careful planning we could even use the resulting methane for localised power generation.
Why is landfill seen as being such a bad answer?
brrapp said:
Why don't we just bury every scrap of plastic we can? Secret is don't call it landfill, call it carbon capture, then everyone will be happy.
that's been tried, but unfortunately the Environment Agency will now use Proceeds Of Crime prosecutions & confiscate your assets - up to & including your house, car, sex pond & purple neon lit corner bar...Not that, for a moment I'm suggesting you're a consumer of such, but you get my point - they now view dumping the same as narcotics crime. Seriously. Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff