And glass. And steel. And precious metals.
As for an honest society, do you have some historical reference point, or are you just aiming for utopia?
As for an honest society, do you have some historical reference point, or are you just aiming for utopia?
no. its not like we can really close the loop, but there are a lot of things that are perfectly viable to melt down and reuse.
in my shop, and quite a lot of others, we have a crucible and a rolling mill for metal scraps of any sufficiently valuable material.
Copper (all metal) yes. But reclaimed wood costs more than alternatives. I looked into it once - the premium I would have to pay to keep wood out of a landfill was just unrealistic.
Wood fiber is only worth it from industrial plants that create it in quantity, and without contaminants.
HDPE is not worth recycling - it costs more than just making it fresh.
I propose just burn it for energy (and thus reduce oil use). Then use that oil to make other HDPE. The lifecycle works out better that way.
Glass is so worthless for recycling, all they do with it is crush it and use it to cover landfill each night to keep down rodents and dust. That's considered "recycled".
> As for an honest society, do you have some historical reference point, or are you just aiming for utopia?
For some reason greenwashing is really prevalent among people who should know better (policy makers, scientists, environmentalists). And regular people desperately want recycling to be a real thing so that they feel better about themself.
It's a perfect match, leading to the situation we have now.
Only a very small percent of them. You are probably thinking of soda bottles, and yes, they used to do that. But today it's plastic bottles (and I'm glad for it!). Milk in glass bottles is all but dead.
Most glass these days is jars for olives, and salsa, and tomato sauce, and other random things, where there is just not scale to collect them. It's not anymore all uniform, every jar is a difference size.
Beer from the very largest companies might still work, although I think it's mostly cans now. But there are a lot of small producers, and routing the glass back to them would be too expensive.
We haven't even touched on how there is basically no point in doing it anyway. The entire crust of the planet is basically made of glass. We can't run out without dismantling (discrusting? :) the planet. It's also harmless to dispose of, just crush it first.
Recycle metal, burn plastic and paper (for energy!! not for disposal!!), crush and landfill glass and other organics. Those are the most environmentally friendly options.
The problem isn’t a lack of silica, it’s yet more waste of energy and pollution purely screwing is over.
There are a lot of subtleties to recycling, some in favor generally, environmentally, and economically... some not.
e.g. Here, http://uk.saint-gobain-glass.com/trade-customers/float-glass... : "SGG UK also utilises, on average, 30% recycled glass (cullet) in the batch, which has the additional benefit of lowering the melting point of the batch, resulting in a more efficient process."
A discussion of the problem of having too much of the wrong colour glass in UK wine bottles: https://www.glass-ts.com/userfiles/files/2005%20-%20WRAP%20-...