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Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

Then the mindless obsession with "keeping plastics out of landfill" leads to the terrific sounding idea of putting waste plastic into roads.

Where it is ground down by cars and trucks into microplastics and enters waterways, the soil, animals, food, the air and people.

But hey, at least it's not in landfill, right?

This is a path that India has pushed down very hard, with lots of plastic roads "reducing pollution".

Many vested interests are astroturfing Twitter too, about how wonderful plastic roads are.

You can look forward to microplastics in absolutely everything courtesy of the road outside your house.

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The plastics need to be stopped at the source. The plastic recycling logo is a meme created by some PR geniuses trick us into accepting pollution and passing the problem down to the public.

No institution wants to tell you it's all a lie. My municipality pick up this trash under the name of 'recycling' meanwhile some naive people are busy washing out single use containers.

Decades ago when plastic was more expensive society did it right. For example Milk and beer was sold in glass bottles you'd return. Jack up the price of these nasty materials and suddenly the easiest thing to do is actually 'recycle'.

Exactly: plastics recycling is a genius jedi mind trick from the oil industry.

The penny dropped for me when taking the family plastics waste to our recycling drop off. There was a notice saying you couldn't put thermoformed pet items (Raspberry clamshells) because if that stuff was found in the 40' container the entire load has to be dumped in landfill. Thermoformed PET has the same number as molded PET (water bottles). I think "whaaaat are those symbols with numbers for then???" pulled out my phone, did some searching and discovered that the entire scheme is BS.

The problem with plastic recycling is not that it doesn't work. It doesn't, of course, but that's not the problem with it.

The problem with plastic is that it leaks into the environment. The only problem with a landfill solution for plastic is that not all of the plastic makes it into the landfill.

Wouldn't plasma gassification be a much better way to recycle plastic? In theory it might even give a way to recycle some of the metal that makes its way there.

That requires a lot more infrastructure than a hole in the ground.

Infrastructure creates jobs and inspires tech progress, and holes in the ground take up space

Yes, various types of burning with energy recovery are better than landfill on various metrics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_hierarchy

You can extract metals from the ashes as you mention.

For regularly used things like drink containers it's not quite as good as recycling them though.

And as more renewables enter the grid, theres less fossil fuel to displace but if the RDF (resource derived fuel) can be stored then it acts as a kind of storage.

The problem with glass bottles is that they're heavy so transporting them results in far higher carbon emissions than making the plastic bottle.

And you can't drop them, you can't crush them to make them take up less space in the rubbish... they are objectively worse in all regards I can think of

They don't go in the rubbish as they are completely recyclable

Imagine how bloody annoying it would be if we had to bring a bag full of empty glass bottles to the supermarket every time we wanted them refilled. Thank God for plastic

I mean you’re going to the supermarket anyways, what’s the problem with taking a few bottles along with you?

Carrying weight on the way to the supermarket is worse than carrying no weight on the way to the supermarket... plus everything I already said.

Ok but like you’re carrying weight right back. Is it really that hard to put a couple of bottles in your car or bike?

I walk. It's like 10 minutes to the supermarket. So I'd rather carry weight for 10 minutes, on my way back, instead of 20, both ways.

This discussion is a waste of time. There are two options. One is easier than the other. Like everyone else, I want to take the easier one. Period.

The easiest option of dealing with plastic waste is just throwing it out your window and letting the litter pile up. Obviously people don’t do this because it has negative externalities that are undesirable.

convenience has a price. it's worth considering what that price is, especially in aggregate.

Imagine living 5 minutes from the supermarket. Then you could walk 5 minutes one way, and 5 minutes the other, adding up to 10 minutes total. Problem solved.

Yeah but this doesn’t scale. Like, there’s an assumption in these conversations that okay — glass bottles are better, but does that mean that now I’m going to hold on to and reuse every single glass bottle I ever receive from now on? Realistically? Then extend that to everything you use.

I can imagine ending up with a house full of glass bottles. Where does it reasonably stop for the individual?

The conversation also highlights that our intuitions about what the most environmentally friendly thing is can’t be trusted.

Individuals can’t solve this, that’s for sure.

Back before plastics took over everything, not all products were packaged in glass containers. Many were packaged in metal, paper, or cardboard containers. Examples:

    Glass container (not reused): Ovaltine
    Paper container (not reused): Chips Ahoy cookies
    Cardboard container (not reused): washing detergent powder
    Metal container (not reused): Hershey's chocolate powder

I believe that the health and environmental issues caused by plastics are far more bloody annoying.

i do this and it is not as annoying as you're making it out to be. you get used to the process and, as a reward, you and your fellow earth inhabitants don't have to deal with all of the waste later.

Having to move and handle all that glass might be good physical exercise for many. So, it's even more of a win-win.

When I was a kid glass reuse was the norm. Yes, you take the large soda bottles back to the supermarket. Everyone did it and it wasn't a big deal.

Which might be solved with a switch to EV delivery vehicles

Not driving at all is better than driving an EV vehicle.

I just drove an EV from Palm Springs to Seattle without much issue. I actually really enjoyed it. Much better than an ICE road trip.

I was going to ask for a citation but a quick search gets me this:

https://theconversation.com/ranked-the-environmental-impact-...

I see in shops drinks bottled thousands miles away (cheap transportation and economy of scale makes it profitable). May be with the sift to glass production will be more distributed and close to consumers.

The road outside your house is probably the largest source of microplastics in your life already. Tires rubbing on them makes a staggering amount of microplastics! Production rates go up with weight, so these new BEV trucks and SUVs are an absolute horror show on that axis too.

How and why are you so angry about this?

Lifecycle analysis seem to show potential benefits but you seem bizarrely sure that it not only doesn't work, but it's some dark conspiracy to attack the noble landfill industry and poison our pristine roads.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343789799_Recycling...

It's not like standard asphalt is made of rainbows and sunshine:

> asphalt, black or brown petroleum-like material that has a consistency varying from viscous liquid to glassy solid. It is obtained either as a residue from the distillation of petroleum or from natural deposits. Asphalt consists of compounds of hydrogen and carbon with minor proportions of nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen.

Apparently this is what they do with wind turbines in Europe.

With what? I’m pretty sure they aren’t making alloy aluminum/plastics. So what parts do you mean?

When the turbine gets old they crush up the blades and put it in concrete for roads and bridges. They also make them into plastic pellets which get put into alloyed things like manhole covers, so you are wrong. Not sure why the downvotes and aggression.

Maybe referring to recycling blades[0], but that's not the same as taking random plastic waste and turning it into blades.

0: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/13/23594847/vestas-wind-ener...

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