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Post by havelock on Sept 6, 2010 18:47:28 GMT 1
My local Chinese Take-Away has stopped using foil cartons and has started using plastic ones.
I used to recycle the old foil ones and will put the plastic out for recycling too but it's made me curious as to which is the more environmentally polluting product*.
Clearly the original metal foil was mined somewhere - that's usually quite destructive - and then a whole load of processes were used before it became a food carton but now that it is one, it is actually very easy to recycle and reuse.
Plastic can now come from so many sources, including (I think) plant material that it may not have had such an impact on the planet when it was being formed but I think it is not quite so easy to recycle.
Anyone know a website with answers?
* In the northern town that I grew up in, you took a pudding basin to the chip shop if you were buying anything that didn't wrap in newspaper (peas, gravy, etc). Perhaps we should be taking a containers back to the shop to be refilled - bit like the old bottles with a deposit
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Post by kiteman on Sept 6, 2010 19:18:28 GMT 1
There should be a recycle logo on the cartons, with a number in the middle. That number tells you what sort of plastic it is.
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Post by rsmith7 on Sept 6, 2010 19:28:33 GMT 1
I particularly enjoy the story of glass re-cycling here in the Orkney Islands. At massive expence and to ameliorate the angst of hippies, the profusion of bottle banks are emptied into a skip, ground up and used for....wait for it....aggregate. The product of this eco-nonsense is used as very, very expensive stone substitute. Marvellous.
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Post by kiteman on Sept 6, 2010 20:07:18 GMT 1
Compare and contrast the effort/cost of breaking some bottles on-site and quarrying and transporting granite from the mainland?
I have seen a number of building projects using non-recyclable waste (including polystyrene) as the aggregate in concrete construction.
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Post by rsmith7 on Sept 6, 2010 20:12:47 GMT 1
Oh give over kiteman, aggregate is a few quid a tonne. Recycled bottles and the infrastructure required to collect them make them more expensive by a factor of hundreds, if not thousands.
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Post by kiteman on Sept 6, 2010 20:23:22 GMT 1
"Infrastructure required to collect them"?
A few lorries and a yard, as opposed to a quarry, blasting, digging, transport ...
You are aware that all quarries have limited lives? That most quarried materials, including sea-sand, are regarded as non-renewable resources?
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Post by rsmith7 on Sept 6, 2010 20:32:20 GMT 1
Oh dear, next you'll be telling me that oil is more expensive than renewable energy.
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Post by kiteman on Sept 6, 2010 20:33:40 GMT 1
What century are you posting from, Smith?
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Post by rsmith7 on Sept 6, 2010 20:40:56 GMT 1
Well since my time machine's in the shop......
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Post by havelock on Sept 7, 2010 9:37:32 GMT 1
There should be a recycle logo on the cartons, with a number in the middle. That number tells you what sort of plastic it is. Agreed - but that wasn't my question. I wondered if anyone had any opinions about the relative merits (from an environmental perspective) of using metal versus plastic containers, (a bit like the ground glass versus aggregate discussion). I know nothing about recycling plastics - how much energy it uses and how reusable the product actually is whereas I think metal is pretty easy to recycle and reuse.
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Post by lazarus on Sept 7, 2010 10:10:01 GMT 1
They should be able to be reused easily. We have several lunch box type containers form food deliveries and plastic soup pots that we use as storage containers for the freezer.
As to recycling PET, if that is what they are made from, is wildly recycled. I used to work for a soft drinks company who made their own plastic bottles and they regularly contained about 10% recycled PET.
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Post by StuartG on Sept 7, 2010 11:15:20 GMT 1
"whereas I think metal is pretty easy to recycle and reuse." I'd plumb for the 'tin can' option. Overall, it's easier to recycle steel sheet, in the 'melting pot', but even if dumped in land-fill or the ocean, it will decompose. Plastic 'hangs around'. A lot is produced with 'filler' to make it go further in the first place. Then in time that is recycled, by chopping it up into 'granules' like you would with a blender, then stuck with some more...and so on. In the end the oceans/land end up with 'inert rubbish'. Take the 'metal' option, it's easier to recycle. StuartG
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Post by havelock on Sept 7, 2010 12:00:05 GMT 1
Yes Stuart - that was my first thought
But (there's always a but)
I don't really understand why we don't go in for more re-use of stuff. I suppose the hassle of collecting, sorting, cleaning, etc is more expensive than using new (and possibly also more wasteful).
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Post by lazarus on Sept 7, 2010 12:35:58 GMT 1
I don't really understand why we don't go in for more re-use of stuff. I suppose the hassle of collecting, sorting, cleaning, etc is more expensive than using new (and possibly also more wasteful). It many cases the 'greenist' option may be to just incinerate it and use the energy for heating or power generation.
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Post by StuartG on Sept 7, 2010 15:22:06 GMT 1
Yes Stuart - that was my first thought But (there's always a but) I don't really understand why we don't go in for more re-use of stuff. I suppose the hassle of collecting, sorting, cleaning, etc is more expensive than using new (and possibly also more wasteful). Ideally, we should manufacture things to last. I doesn't work that way because each 'unit of manufacture' wants to produce more, [cashflow] , when a kid/teen I used to work for a plastics manufacturer. I'd noticed that appx. 9 tubs of raw plastic were mixed with 1 tub of 'filler' [chalky type substance at the time] and had casually asked about the 'filler' , the Chief Engr. replied that it made it go further [plastic] , didn't it make for a lesser washing up bowl? Yes, but then they buy another. One evening when it was quiet, I 'accidentally' forgot to put filler in the machine hopper and just used the 'raw' plastic. The bowls still came out OK, and I put one by for 'staff purchase'. I still have that bowl today, still green and in very good condition despite being used reqularly for 45 appx years. Others have been bought, and crack to leak. Hold one upto the Sun and see all the odds & sods in the moulding, they are badly mixed 'filler' or 'recycle stuff' slightly higher plastic point than the real stuff. That's the inbuilt weakness, that makes turnover and MONEY. StuartG modded 'than' the real stuff Added
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