What do you think the way forward for plastic and recycling is? The first 100 people to use code UNDECIDED at the link below will get 20% off of Incogni: incogni.com/undecided If you liked this, check out The Truth About 3D Printed Homes kzread.info/dash/bejne/n2hqs8ekdNCWn7w.html

@wyattnoise

2 жыл бұрын

MATT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE TALK ABOUT PLASMA ARC GASIFICATION

@highlander723

2 жыл бұрын

I have a question why do you call it undecided your opinions pretty clear.

@WindoWarrior

2 жыл бұрын

I think using plastic bottles filled with plastic trash (bottle bricks)would a good choice for bringing costs down along with recycled styrofoam concrete non load bearing walls. I'm building an enclosed deck I almost gave it up but I think it is my best choice.

@vasukinagabhushan

2 жыл бұрын

It is best to enforce the plastic industry to pay to convert the waste plastic into oil.

@pumpkinhead456

2 жыл бұрын

I'd love to see a video on clothes. 2/3rds of PET is produced for clothing and can't be recycled, however many cotton products are also very bad for the environment. Tricky one...

I am old enough to remember when liquids of any kind were sold only in glass or metal containers and when you bought them in quantity, they were packaged in cardboard. No food products you bought at the grocery store came packaged in plastic. People used wax paper instead of plastic wrap. All shopping bags were only made of paper. Paper straws were the norm. There were no plastic bags for storage. Again, you used some sort of container, either of glass, metal, or cardboard for storage. You get the idea. We managed fine

@aitorbleda8267

2 жыл бұрын

Glass is in many ways worse. Using plastic and burning it would use way less energy and leave no residue. Ideally that plastic would come from renewable sources

@mjc0961

2 жыл бұрын

@@aitorbleda8267 "Glass is in many ways worse." Citation needed. Other than it breaks if you're careless with it (which is easily avoid if you're not careless), what ways is it worse? You should back that up with some claims at least. You seem to be implying something about glass using more energy to make than plastic, BUT have you factored in that glass is reusable? You might have to use your glass bottle, I dunno since you gave no numbers or stats or anything, but let's say 5 times for it to become greener than a single plastic bottle. Okay, no problem - _reuse the glass bottle 5 times!_ Even more! I've seen the same thing for bags, it takes more energy to make paper bags or reusable nylon bags than single use plastic bags. But okay, after I reuse my bags several times, I've offset their higher up-front cost with the cost of all the plastic bags I didn't use, and now I'm net green. Same thing with electric cars - haters love to harp on how much more emissions are needed to manufacture and electric car instead of a gas powered car, but always want to leave out how if you use said electric car for years, it will catch up and become greener from the far fewer emissions needed to create its fuel and 0 emissions created when actually driving it. Point is - reusable things are reusable, so reuse them and they're much greener than single use crap. And don't forget, the 3 R's are "reduce, reuse, recycle" and they're in that order because that's the order of impactfulness. Recycling is supposed to be the last resort, not the only thing we do.

@MichaelZenkay

2 жыл бұрын

@@mjc0961 citation is the price of gas and the weight difference between a case of glass bottles vs pet bottles multiplied by cost per moving a unit of weight from the factory to the store shelf weighted by breakage loss

@Winnetou17

2 жыл бұрын

@@MichaelZenkay That is a good argument, but the numbers still matter a lot. Using more energy for something does, in the end, mean more pollution, since the energy itself, even if solar or wind, pollutes (from manufacturing, repairing and then replacing). But how much more pollution is to be seen. Like mjc0961 said, the difference might be easily offset by simply reusing the bottle. If it's something like reusing 2, 3, 5 or 10 times, then I'd say it's the better option. 10 to 20 I'd say it's questionable, and it would depend on context if it's feasible or not. Higher need of reusing means that yes, just using plastic is actually better (and also more convenient)

@JanjayTrollface

2 жыл бұрын

But glass can cut a child's feet! If we just keep soaking ourselves in plastics for a couple more generations, then we won't be able to have children anymore. All these problems solved!

This is why I hate the whole "blame the consumer" attitude to saving the environment. The problem is that the externalities aren't priced into the manufacture of plastic, so you end up with this situation where everything is plastic, companies get to say they're encouraging recycling and we all end up using more plastic, some of which can't be truly recycled. The current state of things is a mess and needs to change, good work on highlighting this in your video.

@AndrewMeyer

2 жыл бұрын

I don't think it makes sense to price the externalities into the _production_ of plastic, since most of the externalities associated with plastic seem to be from how it's disposed of, not how it's produced. Plastic manufacturing companies don't have any control over whether I recycle my plastic bottle, incinerate it, or throw it in a river, but the externalities associated with each of those three choices are very different.

@ProgrammerInProgress

2 жыл бұрын

​@@AndrewMeyer I think there's definitely different ways you can tackle it, none of which are simple and probably won't work on their own.

@AndrewMeyer

2 жыл бұрын

@HoboGardenerBen If you choose to purchase plastic bottles then it's your responsibility to figure out how to dispose of them, "the bottle manufacturer made me do it" is a foolish excuse. Advertising is not mind control. If you're a "sheep that's easily led", that's your problem, not the bottle companies. To the extent that current labeling practices are misleading, I agree those practices should be changed. More information is almost always a good thing. That's not an argument for making innocent third parties (like those who properly dispose of their plastic waste) pay for your mistakes via increased costs to future plastic products.

@torinnbalasar6774

2 жыл бұрын

@@AndrewMeyer that is exactly the argument that lead to the existing issues. It's not the consumer's fault that they can't effectively recycle a product, it's the result of the manufacturer's decision to make it out of a material that couldn't be easily recycled. Consumers also only have a limited number of options in many cases on what products to choose when they are in need of a particular use case, either because of market share and availability or because the bad practices are the standard because it's cheaper.

@benjammin7469

2 жыл бұрын

@Andrew Meyer Real and impactful change can only occur when the market forces (ie. cost to consumer) changes. Plastic is way too damn cheap! I disagree with the idea that we should all become some ideal consumer enlightened to the realities of environmental externalities and recycling scams. The system needs to be redesigned to account for the stupid nature of people as the rash and careless consumers that we so obviously are. Educating the masses has failed. We shouldn't keep putting our eggs into the same broken basket.

My biggest issue is being required to buy products packaged in plastic. First of all a person can have a horrible time trying to open the thing. Second, the packaging is three times bigger than what I bought. And you’re right about the labeling system and people not knowing what to recycle. It’s very confusing to the average person.

@jackli6592

Жыл бұрын

you sound like someone prefer all products wrapped in a metal can. well have fun opening all the metals

@ZeeCaptainRon

Жыл бұрын

Simple, don't buy the product. Who says that you are "required" to buy any products?

@beebob1279

Жыл бұрын

@@ZeeCaptainRon Good luck looking for things not in plastic

@cmansour

9 ай бұрын

With the economy the way it is right now, not many people have the cash to pay for products that are more environmentally friendly because they are siimply more expensive. Everyone wants to be more green, but people want to eat and pay their utilities too. One Native deodorant costs $11 if you subscribe whereas a two pack of degree deodorant costs just over $6. Another option I'd love to see is to be able to go to a store I currently visit regularly to refill my laundry detergent or any other detergent in concentrated form. Then I can use the container I have at home to dilute with water. That is a simple solution that should be able to be implemented rather easily.

As a composter, I can't think of a more satisfying thing than to receive a package and throwing all the material that protected it into the compost bin. Plus I imagine many of those fungus sheets will be excellent seedling beds.

This really frustrates me... the amount of time I wasted rinsing and sorting plastic thinking I was doing something good. And I'm very guilty of Wishcycling

@circuitdotlt

2 жыл бұрын

before rinsing anything I always think about the impact of rinsing itself, being water and energy used, and my time, which is also not free.

@lancelotlake7609

2 жыл бұрын

"the impact of rinsing"... is considerably LESS than disposal into the environment untreated... so it's not much of a calculation.

@dentatusdentatus1592

2 жыл бұрын

I knew recycling was a scam from the start. That's why I always put my plastic waste and my regular trash in the same garbage bags.

@FR4M3Sharma

2 жыл бұрын

@@dentatusdentatus1592 Fuckin' Genius.

@TheSteinbitt

Жыл бұрын

@@FR4M3Sharma It wasn’t a secret, lots of documentaries about this, also public studies done in Norway at least. I never recycled plastics either.

Great video matt. I must say, it's refreshing to see you take such a strong, clear position on an important issue. You cover a lot of "jury's out" topics, but it's great that you are also capable of reaching an unequivocal conclusion when the evidence is clear and overwhelming. Would love to see more like this.

@Based_Is_Best

2 жыл бұрын

Agreed So long as it also doesn’t preclude and forego individual critical thought. We don’t need any more NPCs. When it comes to the topic of plastic, recycling it, and embracing endeavors striving to eliminate its impacts on the environment, there’s no strong counterargument. Great video.

@UndecidedMF

2 жыл бұрын

Appreciate that feedback. I'll probably be working in more of my stronger opinions from time to time.

@Daekar3

2 жыл бұрын

As long as he doesn't fall into the trap of techno-cultural imperialism, decreeing one position as the only civilized possibility and declaring those who disagree as unsophisticated barbarians. There is enough of that on Twitter.

@Diana1000Smiles

2 жыл бұрын

I find this "information" decades old. Plastic particulates are wrecking Humans' respiratory systems.

@granddadjad2892

2 жыл бұрын

@@Daekar3 you sound like one of those filthy plastic users. Off with his head!! /s

I've always thought that with clean energy we should go back to glass whenever possible. I remember them re-using bottles and eventually breaking them down to be remade into bottles again. I know that breakage and cost would be a thing but I feel it's worth it.

@cbmech2563

Жыл бұрын

What clean energy? If you think solar or wind is clean energy you need to to dig a little deeper.

@QAlba1074

Жыл бұрын

@@cbmech2563 "Clean energy" is an oxymoron.

@cbmech2563

Жыл бұрын

@@QAlba1074 truth

@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont

10 ай бұрын

The problem with glass is that it is VERY heavy, and it costs a lot to transport it. An old eight-ounce Coca-Cola bottle (full) probably weighs as much as a full plastic 16.9 ounce bottle. Of course, if we switched back to less product in glass, it could work wonders on another "weight problem."

Plastic recycling is not the only scam going on. There are even bigger ones that good, trusting people are misled by. Pay attention and they're not hard to find. The hallmarks are: A few make a lot of money but everyone else pays, they sound almost too good to be true, and they over-promise and under-deliver. Thanks, Matt, this needed to be exposed.

rethink > refuse > reduce > reuse > refurbish > repair > repurpose > recycle rethink - your choices refuse - single use reduce - waste reuse - everything refurbish - old stuff repair - before you replace repurpose - be creative recycle - last option

In UK most plastic that is supposed to be recycled is shipped off to other countries where about 95% of that plastic is burned for energy !! these countries have cheap labor and UK follows "Not in my backyard" policy for almost anything that does not look good.

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. We made good money collecting glass pop bottles. People brought empties back to the store or paid extra as a deposit on the glass bottles. In my days, things were wrapped in paper, not plastic. Your groceries were put in paper bags and cardboard boxes, not plastic bags. The good ole days. 😎

@robinmorales4241

Жыл бұрын

they need to bring it back

@lddcavalry

Жыл бұрын

Plastic make’s products cheaper.

@CajunWolffe

Жыл бұрын

@@lddcavalry So What? That in no way makes them better.

@QAlba1074

Жыл бұрын

Now we're all eating plastic! Wonderful! What could possibly go wrong!

@mikhailhunter5277

Жыл бұрын

So what had happened was the Climate Activist back then said, we were killing trees, that is why we moved to plastic packaging, then they said we were polluting the environment, so we bought into the recycling lie, and now there's a push to use reusable bags, and bring back paper bags. There's also a push to reuse containers.

I saw this trend years ago, on some other video on KZread. I realized quickly how difficult it was to live without plastic, trying to buy food, containers, products without, proved almost impossible. It made me wonder how we ever lived without..

@delta-KaeBee

Жыл бұрын

Like many others said: the oldies-but-goodies, glass bottles or jars, paper (cardboard, butcher wrap, paper bags), and metal cans. All easily recyclable, even at a local/ community/ household level. With just a little bit of knowledge and some inexpensive supplies, we can reuse or recycle/upcycle many of the old container materials WITHOUT said item ever leaving your driveway!

@cw4608

11 ай бұрын

We did, it was not difficult at all. Different yes, but not difficult.

@Claude1Rochon

Ай бұрын

we lived without easily until Food Marts were invented after WWII and then shopping Malls followed suit...because back then you went to the Baker...to the Butcher...to the Fruit and Vegetable store...and nobody drank bottled water and nobody bought plastic toys. All medecine was sold in glass bottles and jars. Food Marts changed all that. After the War...America went into a Modernity craze...and people started buying Cars. That's when things got really perverted. Highways, Suburbs, more Highways MORE SUBURBS. No more Butcher, no more Baker... everything got BIG and bad.

I live in a mini hi-rise, when I take my carefully compiled recycling down and lift the lid on the communal bin my eyes are met with trash that is not suitable for local recycling. Right from the get-go my careful recycling is a complete waste of time. I tried highlighting this problem but that was also a waste of time. It's hard to be positive under these circumstances.

@BernardLS

Жыл бұрын

Change your community? The folk you live with are the problem so beat some sense into to them or move on (assuming either is possible)

You know Matt is serious when he produces a video with little to no puns. Great video Matt. Very sobering information.

@dann5480

2 жыл бұрын

Yes I was drunk and now I'm collecting plastic bags, very sobering indeed.

@youtube7076

2 жыл бұрын

i noticed this also, heartening indeed

@jamesbizs

2 жыл бұрын

He punned in the first 20 seconds

@realitypoet

2 жыл бұрын

There were some mushroom and algae puns in the second half.

@johntomko2946

2 жыл бұрын

Very OLD information

The problem is its. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. But every company just screams about recycling. Apple releases a new phone every year, makes repair almost impossible for 70% of the components and then offers free recycling.

Matt -- You are an inspiration. Education is power. May we all endeavour to take back more of it. Your Plastic Recycling scam expose must be shared. Thanks for your noble efforts!

@UndecidedMF

2 жыл бұрын

Wow, thank you!

I worked at a plastic factory where we would take old plastic, ground it down and melted it again to make sheets of plastic for injection molding. PET and PVC were the 2 plastics we did this with. So you should also include PVC as a recyclable plastic not just PET and HDPE.

@f7ipper

2 жыл бұрын

I currently work in a facility that recycles PP, LDPE and PS - Matt is either misinformed or lying like click bait.

@santiagodraco

2 жыл бұрын

But that would impact the video's attempt to sell the "scam" concept. Can't have that.

@tenchuu007

2 жыл бұрын

I wondered about this as well. It's 1,2, and 3 that are actually recyclable, 4 sometimes and 5 and 6 are a total joke, right?

@packagingscientist9530

2 жыл бұрын

@@tenchuu007 It isn't just the recycle code numbers that matter. It is the form as well. Rigid plastics #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) are accepted in most places. Make sure to leave the HDPE closures on the bottles so they don't get lost in sorting. Rigid #3 (PVC) is accepted in some places, but not widely. Rigid #5 (PP) is accepted in some places, but not widely.. though there are many efforts to improve collection availability. Rigid #6 (PS) aren't widely accepted. Flexible packaging made from ONLY #2 and #4 (LDPE) are accepted via store front drop off if they are clean and dry. Curbside recycling of Flexibles is at least a few years away because the sortation tech to sort flexibles isn't available nation-wide. Plastic recycling is very complicated in comparison with metals, glass, and paper. Plastic recycling is getting better, but it isn't moving fast enough.

@markmurray406

2 жыл бұрын

I think there is a difference between recyclable and recycling. There's a great book by Tom Szaky called the future of packaging. Most plastics are recyclable however the demand for most recycled plastics is not very large yet and the cost to recycle them are much higher than the virgin plastic. As a result most plastics are usually not worth recycling. The reason he mentions PET and HDPE is that most single use consumer packaging is made from these 2 material. Because they are usually single material products it's easier to separate them and Industry has made a point of buying much more rPET and rHDPE therefore the demand has increased sufficiently so MRFs to collect and recycle it. Your above points are very valid and would highly recommend the book I mentioned.

Always trying to use less and less single plastic use items but so many things come that way it's difficult to avoid.

@Toastmaster_5000

2 жыл бұрын

I agree. Sometimes it's not even a matter of cost, but literally the only available option.

@mjc0961

2 жыл бұрын

And even if you avoid it, you're simply not seeing the plastic used to get it to wherever you bought it in the first place. Example, I've seen people talk up how they go to grocery stores to get fruits and veg as needed, they bring their own bag so no plastic waste! Yeah that's great, except they oughta get a job working in the back of the grocery store and see all the plastic waste involved between the store receiving it and it being put out in the produce section for them to pick it up and put it in their reusable bag. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for each person doing their part to reduce their own plastic waste. But the vast majority of plastic waste comes from corporations and until something is done to stop then, we're really not making any meaningful progress towards resolving the problem.

@Greg-yu4ij

2 жыл бұрын

@@mjc0961 oh no, the big bad corporations again! Let’s sic the regulations on ‘em, the dirty polluters they are! Cap’n’trade needed now! 🤨 Here we go. There is only one use for most plastic: incinerator. Plastic is a nice long hydrocarbon, perfect for generation of electricity. However that doesn’t put money in anyones pocket, so we will always be duped by another lie, thanks to the useful idiots in the virtue signaling environmental movement.

@JustaGuy_Gaming

2 жыл бұрын

@@mjc0961 Yeah it's actually pretty bad right now in my area. They banned plastic shopping bags, plastic carts and many other customer related things on the plastic chain. Yet the companies still ship all their products in thousands of feet of plastic wrap when on the pallets. Each soda still has plastic rings holding it together. Simply put they are forcing customers to pay more and get less convenience while the companies still drop thousands of pounds of plastic into the landfill each month in just shipping and packaging alone..

@kaitlyn__L

2 жыл бұрын

@@JustaGuy_Gaming what bothers me the most is how that’s part of the wider systemic issue where most of the public’s attention is focused on the most-visible examples of a problem, rather than based on assessment of the wider causality chain. This extends beyond materials usage, such as deciding which particular labour issues gain traction while others are allowed to languish sight unseen so gain no wider public opinion or public pressure.

I've been bingeing similar recycling videos on youtube lately, this is by far one the most comprehensive videos on what's really going on and why.

I don’t think my solution to the plastic waste stream nightmare is THE solution as it’s probably not scaleable, but it is a solution that provides the individual with a lot more control over their own waste. Some years back I decided it was crazy that I throw out all of this packaging only to go out and purchase more plastic containers for storing and organizing my stuff. So I decided to use the packaging of my consumables to make containers for housing my stuff. There are three secrets to making this work: 1) a rotary tool to cut and shape plastic, 2) papier-mâché that uses plastic packaging as armature 3) patience. Upside is my organization containers are totally custom to my stuff and my space and my taste. And it’s cheaper in general depending on how fancy I get with decorations. For example all of my pegboard bins were made out of berry baskets, paper grocery sacks, and junk mail. I used whatever wire and paint I had on hand for other projects so technically I didn’t spend any extra money on my pegboard organization system. I even bought used pegboard at a going-out-of -business sale so 120 square feet of pegboard cost me $20. I still haven’t come up with a reasonable replacement for big plastic tubs, but I have drawer organization down. I also don’t have a grand solution for plastic bags. I can say that shredding bags and using them for outdoor pillow stuffing did not work. Plastic bags can be bound and shaped for armature but the best way I have found to do that is tape and hot glue both of which are made from plastic. It’s far from perfect but it is something. I figure more experienced makers and better designers will have even better ideas.

Here where I live (Quebec, Canada), consumers pay a 5c fee for every plastic bottle (except water) they buy. There is a similar thing for beer bottles and soda cans. That fee called "consignement" is then given back to consumers when they return the empty containers. Every groceries store have "Reverse vending machines". They say they get back around 70% of them back. Is that not a thing in the US?

@bocadelcieloplaya3852

2 жыл бұрын

It should be. We had doposits on glass bottles as a kid. 5cent, 10 cent . Bring that system back for plastic bottles.

@billy-go9kx

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah we have that crap too. I doubt the 70% number though because it is a pain. I used to recycle my soda cans but half the time they were broken or full. I think glass is better than plastic. Simpler recycling?

@archstanton3931

2 жыл бұрын

It varies by state. California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont each have some bottle / can redemption system in place. Living in Massachusetts, I can tell you still see plenty of empty bottles and cans on the side of the road, but you most commonly see nip bottles (usually fireball) which don't have any deposit.

@troyclayton

2 жыл бұрын

It's state by state. We have a "bottle bill" here in Maine which covers plastic, glass, and metal cans less than 4 gallons for redemption. Hi, neighbor!

@zutrong

2 жыл бұрын

@@billy-go9kx Yeah, those numbers are provided by a government organization Recyc-Quebec so we never know

Many communities have banned single-use plastic shopping bags. I carry my own bags at the grocery store (including produce bags) because for many years I would leave the store shaking my head as the baggers would frequently place only two or three items in a bag. At that point, why not just attach a handle to every product and be done with it?

@waqasahmed939

2 жыл бұрын

You can't even get those bags in the supermarkets in a lot of European countries

@stapleman007

2 жыл бұрын

Funny side effect of banning single-use plastic bags. Sales of plastic bags goes up to compensate. Single use plastic bags actually get used multiple times.

Excellent video. This issue is extremely frustrating. We're the most advanced country in the world yet we don't have a uniform recycling system that is effective. There needs to be some kind of cooperation between commercial manufacturing and recycling advocates. This mass of plastic growing in the Pacific is tragic. I visited Guatemala and went to a remote lake, one of the volunteer activities was collecting plastic out of the lake. So sad. We must solve this.

@osco4311

Жыл бұрын

Most plastic in the ocean comes from..7 rivers in SE Asia and Africa.

I was an employee of the worlds 2nd largest plastic manufacturer for 8 years. Previously I had worked offshore and in pristine North Pacific and Bering seas. Plastic and Fossil Fuels were the sole cause of any ugliness I experienced in my life up there. There was so much of it, it made me ill. The Irony that I had to take a job in that in plastics to survive, (2010), learning less than 10 percent could ever be recycled- Killed me. Everything I had left over from my paychecks went to buying TSLA shares.

@stapleman007

2 жыл бұрын

Sounds like you have a good idea of the magnitude of the machine. In the end you just do what everyone else does: bend the knee to the powers that be, and wish someone else will fix the problem.

I work in the packaging industry, and one of the side effects of reducing plastics is an increase in the use of cardboard (wich has a suprisingly high carbon fooprint). There is currently a worldwide shortage of pulp and paper products

@KalebPeters99

2 жыл бұрын

Interesting! I hadn't heard of the pulp shortage. I would imagine that cardboards footprint is still less than plastics though right? And it's much more biodegradable at least.

@tenchuu007

2 жыл бұрын

The pulp shortage has more to do with the shipping crisis, doesn't it?

@packagingscientist9530

2 жыл бұрын

@@tenchuu007 The pulp shortage is a combination of many things. One huge factor is the explosion of e-commerce shipments during the pandemic. The supply chain just couldn't keep up. Additionally, recycling rates for corrugated cardboard went down because people couldn't / wouldn't recycle everything that was going to their homes.

@packagingscientist9530

2 жыл бұрын

There is also a huge shortage of aluminum cans.

@snowgods2195

2 жыл бұрын

@@KalebPeters99 Actually I think it's got a higher carbon footprint, as it's quite energy intensive, and produces methane when it degrades, where plastic locks the carbon up (Ok it's locked up inside birds and fish), Higher carbon footprint but lower environmental impact

We could go back to glass bottles, but the plastic industry has made sure they do not get pushed out. We used to use glass bottles and we used to recycle them, we were already environmentally friendly.

@rockys7726

2 жыл бұрын

Glass is much heavier and will increase the cost of transportation by multiples. Besides the fact that we are running out of sand to make glass from.

@chow-chihuang4903

2 жыл бұрын

@@rockys7726 Glass can be made from smooth sand there’s still plenty of. That’s the type typically found in deserts. The sand that’s getting scarce is coarse sand, usually sourced from river beds and deltas. Its rough texture increases the strength of concrete.

@rockys7726

2 жыл бұрын

@@chow-chihuang4903 If that's true then why are there shortages everywhere? btw I used to work for a glass manufacturing company.

I remember learning about the glass recycling on Vancouver Island being shipped to Edmonton Alberta. At that point I was wondering if we were further behind by the end of the journey for it to even be worth the trip and get recycled? I live in Uganda now and there's a ton of plastic containers here but there's also a HUGE supply of glass bottles for beer and soda. There's a 15 cent (approx) deposit on the glass and those things get recycled as there's a good incentive to have them returned. The plastic bottles give no deposit.

Thanks Matt, great information.I have an ider for plastic's, sometime now. Now that I know it's not really recycled , more shipped ABROAD.Hopefuly their is hope for my ider.Continue to up date us.Great job.

I work in an E waste recycling factory(although, we are the first station, we just disassemble and sort) but i know a bit more about what goes where and let me tell you, anything non metal usually goes straight to landfills(kind of like music, i guess). It's really a money laundering shitshow which is fueled by EU and our county's government subsidies

@waqasahmed939

2 жыл бұрын

We do end up exporting a lot of our emissions and then pretend we're amazing

@stapleman007

2 жыл бұрын

Recycling container deposits is also a scam, just like government run lotteries. The ignorant masses get what they deserve.

I am a Packaging Engineer meaning I design all that trash. I have way more to say than could ever fit in one comment. But I will say one thing. The number of times I have been told be execs that "our customers don't care about sustainability" is way way way too damn high. You going on twitter, youtube, facebook or the product reviews and mentioning that the packaging sucks, or is unsustainable makes a MASSIVE difference. It gives the packaging team a stronger leg to stand on. We are constantly told to chose the cheapest option. But if they know the customers care that conversation changes.

@SunnyNatividad

2 жыл бұрын

Wow, thanks for sharing!

@chow-chihuang4903

2 жыл бұрын

It’s like a mantra they learn in manager training. I was in the same boat as you. The guilt eats at me often. They continue to make things worse, by either wrapping a PETE or HDPE bottle (by themselves, often the most-recycled plastics) in a full-height shrink sleeve, which makes correct optical sorting at an MRF impossible, or making packs out of different plastics in a way that is impossible to separate from each other easily or affordable. Think snack bags, toothpaste tubes, sachets, drink and food pouches, aerosol vessels. All these are single use. Pumps and sprayers are also complex composites, but at least you can refill and reuse those many times before something fails and you have to trash it. Take care what refill you buy. They claim refills in bags are more sustainable than ones in PET bottles, due to the smaller amount of total plastic. However, those bags (usually a multi-layer monstrous composite of different plastics) are not recyclable in almost all places, but the clear PET bottle is recyclable most places. One the one hand, they sell the concept of recycling, but on the other sell the bagged refill as if none of the packaging is ever recycled.

@packagingscientist9530

2 жыл бұрын

Hello Fellow Packaging Engineer/Scientist! What type of work do you do in the industry? Sounds like you work at a brand owner / brand?

@TheJttv

2 жыл бұрын

@@packagingscientist9530 I like to do design + sustainability work so I tend to stick to consumer product brands.

@packagingscientist9530

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheJttv That's cool. Did you study packaging in school or wind up in the field from a different path?

The only way to recycle effectively is to sort waste on a consumer level. The main costs have always been contamination at the recycling plant. If you follow Japan's technique, having 6 - 20 separate recycling bins and a communal drop areas, you'll have much more valuable recyclable waste.

Thanks, Matt, for making videos like this. It gives me hope for the future!

Also, it's time to end this blame shifting onto consumers, and change the laws. Initiate the transition away from this scam, and punish all responsible. It's the same as leaded petrol. Something that had an awful impact on humanity, and remained a part of our lives for decades just because of insane profits.

@ToriZealot

2 жыл бұрын

name one awful impact on humanity due to plastics ... oh nothing

@chow-chihuang4903

2 жыл бұрын

@@ToriZealot Bisphenols, PFAS & PFOA, plasticizers, flame retardant additives messing with our health in known (cancers, mimicking function of some hormones, etc.) and currently undiscovered ways. Plenty more beyond these. Never mind trashing the place in general.

@ToriZealot

2 жыл бұрын

@@chow-chihuang4903 Yosef, many problematic substances that are mostly banned meanwhile. But what is your point? Food contact materials do not contain these substances. Some jewelers contains 90% Cadmium, not very healthy either. It is about controlling unwanted substances not about demonizing plastics that is free of all that.

@chow-chihuang4903

2 жыл бұрын

@@ToriZealot Whataboutism at its finest! 🤣🤣🤣

@ToriZealot

2 жыл бұрын

@@chow-chihuang4903huharhar, what is your point? Some plastic can be dangerous? Sure, Luke many other things.

I go into grocery stores now and I am appalled by all the food packaged into that clear & black plastic of which can't or won't be recycles even if its washed out. I also think about how many toothbrushes end up landfills and they're not accepted at all for being recyclable. Excellent video, Matt !

@i00lo60

Жыл бұрын

Meal worms might be a solution.

One technology you didn’t cover that I think could help is plastic pyrolysis. This is essentially turning plastic back into oil, which can then be turned into products like cleaner diesel fuel, kerosene, gasoline, parrifin wax, etc. The best part is that it can use most plastics (except pvc and the “other” category I think) and requires little to no sorting. A few plants like this are starting to spring up. I don’t know, this could be helpful.

@chuckles1808

Жыл бұрын

In addition to returning it to oil, pyrolysis also produces combustible gases that can be fuels themselves, adding more energy to the mix. It's cool stuff.

@deangoddley2061

Жыл бұрын

Basically selling garbage back as fuel.

@kevinsmall5919

Жыл бұрын

Licella, an Australian Company uses the Thermal Reactor which boils plastic using hot water. They can even use the recycled plastic as Virgin Plastic.

@sharit7970

Жыл бұрын

Cool!

@RNGPlastics-ns6cr

2 ай бұрын

Huge toxicity issues. Banned in many states. Enormous energy consumption as well. Worse for the environment...

A buddy of mine made a still in his backyard and uses it to turn plastic into deisel and gas. He runs his vehicles and lawnmower off what he makes almost exclusively. He actually goes to the dump and takes plastic from the recycling area. Also, why is no one in the US melting down plastic into garden pavers, retaining wall bricks, even building blocks for people to make sheds and such out of? They are doing this in South America and Africa, why aren't we? I'd love to buy a few pallets of garden pavers and building bricks so I can cheaply make my raised garden beds. and walkways.

In my mind the best way forward would be to go backwards, when I was a child there was a lot less plastic around drinks came in glass bottles that you would take back to the shop and get a small amount refunded back to you, milk was in glass bottle not in cartons or plastic bottles. The amount of silver foiled plastic in food items seems totally unnecessary does it really make thing last longer? Do we really need it to last longer?

@ehrichsj

2 жыл бұрын

Unfortunately studies have shown that going to glass packaging for things like milk causes more pollution due to the additional energy inputs, manufacturing and transportation costs of the additional weight. Now that might be a CO2 worse, but less plastic better kinda thing, so as we improve our energy creation methodologies, those negatives will go down.

@debbiehenri345

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, and we had so many more products wrapped in paper or card, tin or glass. It was a far cleaner world back then. At one time, I lived in a large town in my childhood, and it was far cleaner then than the very rural area I live in now. These days I (and a few other older locals) regularly go litter-picking to collect discarded plastic drinks bottles, plastic sweet wrappers, plastic snack/pastry trays, and report regular incidents of fly-tipping. The local council can't afford to do the litter-picking themselves. It's endless and has worsened significantly since the start of the pandemic. It's like many more people just don't care any more.

@gaborbakos7058

2 жыл бұрын

In Europe most of the beers and wines are sold in refundable glass bottles. I was very surprised when I had learned that in the US the people just throw the glass bottles into the trash, beacuse they are not refundable. Here in Hungary 90% of the glass bottles are refundable, you pay a little extra price (in USD about 10 cents) and in any shop in the whole country where the shop is selling drinks in that kind off glass bottle you can refund it and they pay back it in cash. At bigger places you can refund the plastic bottles and tha alu cans as well. In some countries you can refund glass bottles but only in that shop where you bought that and you need the original receipt about it as well. Which is ridicolous, because who keeps all the shop receipt for months. The glass bottles must be refundable in any shop. This works only. Here the people leave the refundable bottles next to the trashcans for leting the poor and homeless people to collect them who take them back to the shops and they recieve cash for that. Good for everyone.

@stapleman007

2 жыл бұрын

The recycling container deposit is a scam. You get charged $0.15 (varies), which the government collects and spends on whatever gets the incumbent politicians re-elected. Then, there is no place to return the container to in order to be refunded the deposit and recycle the container. No one cares.

@Lawrence330

2 жыл бұрын

I don't agree with the bottle fee, on account of curbside recycling these days, but otherwise, yeah. Let's go back to glass. It's stable, doesn't taint the taste, and can be infinitely recycled.

One legislative change I think that would make a difference would be to force the plastic industry to change their PRI codes on plastic items. Let them keep 1 & 2 the way they are but change all the others to a symbol that clearly indicates that the plastic is non-recyclable.

@mjc0961

2 жыл бұрын

Rather than make them clearly indicate it's not recyclable, let's just outlaw the crap as much as practically possible. Use recyclable plastic or use a different material.

@janwillemkers2923

2 жыл бұрын

@@mjc0961 but recycled plastic is non- or at least hardly recyclable. But I see what you mean;)

In Denmark we have since 1942 had a system for recycling beverage bottles. Initially this was only for the most common types of glass bottles. The way it works is that people who buy a beverage in these bottles are charged an extra amount for the bottle. But the shops selling these beverages are also required to buy back the empty bottles at the same price as the extra charge, and the bottle charge is high enough that people want to collect their empty bottles and return them to the shop. For glass bottles the glass is not really recycled. Instead the empty bottles go back to the bottling plants where they are rinsed before being reused. When plastic bottles became common this system was expanded to the most common types of plastic bottles. When I buy a 2 liter bottle of drinking water I pay an extra charge of around USD 0.50 for the plastic bottle which I get back when I return the empty bottle to the shop. All grocery shops have a machine where you can put in your empty bottles. It counts them and identifies which kind of bottle it is (and what was previously stored in the bottle) from bar codes on the bottles, and sorts them accordingly. At the end you push a button to receive a receipt you bring to the cash register. The plastic bottles are not reused, so the machine immediately shreds them for recycling into the correct bin, depending on the type of plastic and what was previously stored in the plastic bottle. Because the sorting is so precise the shredded plastic bottles have a high resale value for recycling. Here in Denmark bringing your empty bottles to the store is a common part of going grocery shopping. And you rarely see empty bottles in the streets. If empty bottles are left around people pick them up so they can bring them to the shop to get money for them next time they go shopping. If you saw half a dollar on the sidewalk, wouldn't you pick it up?

Great concise video that tells the story as it is. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to know about plastic recycling. One note: Reduce, reuse, recycle has always been intended as 3 lines of defense, in order. First, reduce how much packaging and product you use to a minimum; Second, reuse or repurpose everything that you can; and only if the first two steps didn't claim or eliminate an item should we recycle it. Sadly, many people today are too busy to care or just more comfortable with themselves believing the happy lie of recycling.

A project that's interested me in this area has been the open-source Precious Plastic community. They've been designing and building workshop-scale recycling machines, with the aim of reinventing plastics recycling for small businesses. It seems like they've had some success, especially in the developing world. It doesn't change a lot of the underlying economics, but it opens up a pathway for local and community recycling ecosystems rather than the big industrial method.

@sigalsmadar4547

2 жыл бұрын

Yep, that's a good start. A *person* may be interested in recyling but the person has to rely on an *industrial sized beast* to actually accomplish that. No matter how good our intentions are, we can't get the job done.

@dansw0rkshop

2 жыл бұрын

We have to humble ourselves to putz around with that stuff. That's probably the hardest part. We want to be the developed world, not the developing one.

Whenever I see something about recycling, I always want to mention plasma gasification. Look it up, but this is a procedure where they use a plasma furnace instead of a simple fire furnace. The result is that any waste that’s put in the system is either turned into synth gas, or inert slag that can be used as a construction material. The biggest benefit is that this system can take anything that would go into a landfill and turn it into something it’s potentially useful. The slag, which is sort of a glass compound can be used for construction or infill for various tasks. The synth gas is basically natural gas that can be used to both fuel the gasification plant, and potentially provide excess power. The biggest benefit, besides not having to sort the materials, is that any biohazard waste is completely broken down. This is the technique that they’ve landed on, but when I originally saw this technology being proposed, it also included separating out various types of materials and elements. I suspect that that version wasn’t cost-effective, and I’m not sure if some current versions can also sort out the metals from the waste feedstock. With a big take away from this is that on like a regular furnace, which gives off noxious fumes, the system, as I understand it, only gives off 99% useful waste.

@jperin001

2 жыл бұрын

Thermal depolymerization is an option. High temperature, high pressure, water, and catalysts can break down plastic into polymers and oil. It is beset with financial and technical hurdles. At the end of the day there really don't seem to be any profitable solutions that would really tackle the problem at scale. Realistically our best hope is for economical alternative materials that can out compete plastic on price.

I live in Cheyenne Wyoming, but out in the county. There’s pretty much no recycling for us. My wife wanted to recycle so we used to drive to the next state where a state drive up facility took plastics, glass, and paper/cardboard. When I worked out the cost of driving the 100mi round trip to recycle, as well as the recycling efficiency, I realized we were doing more damage recycling than dumping. We will now reduce as much as possible. For instance, even though soda in aluminum cans is usually more expensive per ounce than plastic bottles, aluminum is highly recyclable and the return offsets the extra cost by a little.

great video as always. ensuring that the cost goes back to the producer will be the fastest way to cut plastic use. Trying to buy plastic-free is nearly impossible and is reduced to a "oh that's nice" when you get your item in the mail / dropped off.

@robertmartin6800

2 жыл бұрын

Any increase in the cost of production will lead to an increase in the cost to the end user, it seems like getting rid of plastics will inevitably lead to increasing the cost of stuff.

Had a pretty informative discussion about this with an old co-worker. Basically a foreshadow of watching this video. Thanks for doing the research and confirming this... really irritating fact.

Can you do a dedicated video on “The History of Incineration” maybe? Could go from open burning, to incinerators with some pollution control, to waste-to-energy / “Refuse Derived Fuel” + “Tire Derived Fuel” plants, to even the most modern techniques like “Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle” and “Plasma Gasification” (i think “plasmarok” is a company? Essentially makes glass like slag via plasma instead of ash)

@dansw0rkshop

2 жыл бұрын

+ This. While I agree that open burning is a risk of furans and dioxins -- open burning is rarely, if ever, a method of incineration on any legitimate scale. Search "municipal waste incineration" -- it is a process that usually involves gasification in oxygen-free and high temperature environments. Gasification produces some basics like H2, CO, CH4 that can be used as fuel, and is probably what the enzymes make at a much lower pace.

Thank you for spreading awareness of this pressing issue

Messaged a tea company awhile ago about the use of plastic lining the bags of the product. They expressed they wanted to change to a better alternative however they've done research and want to the product to have a longer shelf life. I think this topic is more nuanced then I realized at the start.

I've abandoned hope for plastic recycling, and I'm simply reducing the plastic I choose to buy. There are weird things that happen with some of my choices, such as buying bamboo toothbrushes from amazon and having them shipped to me in a plastic envelope. Or try buying cheese or tortillas without plastic wrappers at the grocery. I bought a box of rubberbands which has reduced the number of plastic bags I need to use to keep cheese fresh.

@waqasahmed939

2 жыл бұрын

Consider vacuum sealing too, though look if it's safe to do so given certain bacteria loved that It does unfortunately require plastic, however it is washable plastic and it means you can still keep your food fresh

Believe me, the consumer still pays for the cost of plastic. Payment may have shifted onto the manufacturer but I see that reflected with an increased product price Great video as always! Love your channel

@TheMyrkiriad

2 жыл бұрын

Correct but the difference is that there is an incentive to lower the cost through competition if the cost is paid by the companies. If the regulation is well thought, cost reduction should mean less plastic thus be good for the environment.

@eaaeeeea

2 жыл бұрын

It has been so long due to start including the environmental cost to everything we buy. We can't live like kings if it means we destroy the only planet we have.

@Joe-Dead

2 жыл бұрын

@@rogerstarkey5390 welcome to greed and price gouging along with lack of regulation. capitalism has nothing to do with it...but hey, name any system that can't be gamed by greedy humans...i'll wait...as humans have been waiting for centuries for this magical system.

@Shrouded_reaper

2 жыл бұрын

@@rogerstarkey5390 Well you see, the vast majority of the reason of inflated price of goods stems directly from the government endlessly printing absurd amounts of money and has little to do with the economic system my commie friend.

@Breadnought_

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheMyrkiriad well thought out regulation? keep dreaming

Great work. Would love to see a video on whether plastic bag bans actually work - experience suggests that they just end up using plastic that is harder to recycle instead... The future lies in making plastic products recyclable. There are very few alternatives that are not worse - glass bottles for drinks for instance are heavy and energy intensive. Safety prohibits easy re-use so they have to be crushed and re-used. The policies in Maine that you describe are the next step whilst we wait to see what new technology brings. I would also add a tax on all plastic that pays for the recycling, thus ensuring that recycling is sufficiently profitable to ensure people actively want to collect waste rather than leaving it.

Great video. My wife has learned from myself, the impact of compost waste recycling. She and I currently produce 1.5, 13 gallon bags, of discarded waste a week. (While living in an apartment) I have been seeking ways to greatly reduce that output.

Thanks for this video Matt. I think those of us concerned for the environment fixate too much on CO2 sometimes. While that is important, if we forget that we are impacting the world in other harmful ways too then we are simply going to bounce from one disaster to the next. Plastics in particular are simply physical components of the same carbon problem…

@bocadelcieloplaya3852

2 жыл бұрын

Plastic pollution is actually far more important than CO2, the chemicals in plastics interferes with biogical processes in organisms. This is a real issue.

@scientificapproach6578

2 жыл бұрын

Cleaning up plastic pollution is also a non-partisan issue.

@MattyEngland

2 жыл бұрын

We've been trying to tell you that your CO2 obsession is counterproductive. The whole thing is a psy-op to have people afraid of their own breath

@MattyEngland

2 жыл бұрын

When it comes to plastic in the ocean, 99% of it comes from developing countries. 2 billion people in the world don't have a refuse collection, and a large proportion of their waste ends up in rivers and then floats out to sea. The usual gutless NPCs don't have the nuts to call it out, for fear of being 'racist'!! It's pathetic.

@mjc0961

2 жыл бұрын

@@scientificapproach6578 It _should_ be a non partisan issue, but here in America there are plenty of clowns on both sides that will find ways to make it partisan.

I feel the best path is to use substitutes of plastic in areas where there are it's bio-degradable substitutes no matter the cost. Like in India Bubble-wrap is replaced with a poofy paper and use of cardboard boxes is being standardized. And to minimise use of plastic in areas where substitutes aren't available as of yet. A little hard work now would prevent our children from facing the wrath of climate change.

@gregbailey45

2 жыл бұрын

Except plastic doesn't cause climate change. It's aside effect of overuse of fossil fuels.

@redrock425

2 жыл бұрын

Whilst I agree with your other points the climate will change regardless. We need to spend more money learning to adapt whilst reducing pollution.

@KalebPeters99

2 жыл бұрын

@@redrock425 of course the climate will change. But I think @GamerLifeOn is clearly advocating for *minimisation* of temperature increase. Which reducing plastic use will certainly help.

@glhfggwp6232

2 жыл бұрын

Engineering enzymes: PETase

@marcd6897

2 жыл бұрын

@@glhfggwp6232 This will only have the greedy plastic industry to produce even more.

Thanks for new insight on this matter!

Thank you so much! This information needs to be spread far and wide!

Along with reducing usage, I think there's a couple of significant changes that could be legislated. Since clear plastics are the most valuable for recycling, I would like to see a council including manufacturers and recyclers to determine which resins are the most recyclable and require that to be used in clear for as many products as possible. Labels can be used to change color for marketing, or for protection of UV sensitive items. A second change would be to require one type of adhesive for all labels, consulting the recyclers for what is the most practical (cost, less toxicity) so one solution could bath remove all labels (no shrink labels that have to be cut off, would be required to have an overlap with the specified adhesive). These changes wouldn't solve the issue by any means, but could possibly raise the % that gets recycled by quite a bit.

@ddhdk5414

2 жыл бұрын

@@AngryAmericanWizard skip the tax credits. The producers can swallow the cost of recycling. Worst case scenario we will have less “liquid diabetes” peddled to us when it comes to bottles and cans. Rewarding them with tax credits is just rewarding bad behavior. There was always a better option but corporate execs chose to maximize profits.

@joewwilliams

2 жыл бұрын

@@ddhdk5414 "...but corporate execs chose to maximize profits." This is why we'll always be the ones to "swallow the cost of recycling".

@wades623

2 жыл бұрын

@@AngryAmericanWizard glass isn't preferred because it is heavy and it breaks. that is the biggest issue with glass coming back

@Real_MisterSir

2 жыл бұрын

Take a look at the Nordic recycling system called "Pant". It's been in use for a century and is pretty much dealing with exactly this issue. The system requires that all recyclable bottles (plastic and glass included) have a letter marking (A, B, or C). The letter indicates the recycling value of the bottle. At every grocery store it is mandated to have a bottle sorting/recycling machine, works like a reverse vending machine. You feed it your used bottles, and it hands you a receipt for their recycling value. This receipt can then be used to pay with inside the grocery store you just recycled at. Basically this system introduces a small upfront recycle tax on bottles (15-40 cents depending on bottle size), and this tax is then refunded to you when you recycle your bottles. So essentially it comes at no overall cost to the consumer, and it greatly incentivizes people to recycle their high value plastic like this. Furthermore it completely removes the requirement to sort the high value plastic and glass at a sorting facility, there is no manual labor involved, the recycling machine does the job for you locally, and packages the recycled bottles on easy-to-transport pallets. It ensures a 100% perfectly sorted recycling system with no manual labor and without large sorting plants involved. And after having existed for over 100 years since its origin (1922), it's a tried and proven system that simply just works. More countries should look into this, as a start.

@notreallyme425

2 жыл бұрын

I work in the biz (won’t say who or I’ll get death threats) and I agree. Our life would be a lot easier if we could make all our products in the same color or clear. PS in white foam, PET and PP in clear, and a standard color for HDPE. The last one is what your detergent and Clorox bottles are made of. I say make them all in white and Tide can glue a red label on the bottle. It’s still Tide. Standardizing would increase recycling, reduce the cost to sort and process, and lower costs for producers and consumers. But a big part of the packaging is the marketing, and believe me it helps sell products. Our efforts to standardize go on deaf ears especially when the “other side” just wants us to go out of business. There’s a compromise in there that we can live with if people are willing to look for it.

One good way to recycle is to use an item again for another use rather than throwing it away. I buy Arizona tea mainly because the plastic bottles that it comes in are durable. I reuse them as water bottles, and I can keep using them for months. If manufacturers intentionally designed their packaging to be easy to reuse, this could significantly reduce the Amazon amount of plastic that gets thrown out.

@procrastinator41

2 жыл бұрын

The good news about plastic just keeps coming: I did that as well until I read that the light-weight plastic used for disposable plastic bottles is prone to growing microbes. It’s advised not to re-use them more than once or twice for that reason. Plastic is Poison.

@janami-dharmam

2 жыл бұрын

but that will be bad business; they want you to buy more and more items.

@Nasrudith

Жыл бұрын

@@janami-dharmam There is no 'they' for there to be a single bad business. Plastic is an expense to the manufacturer and payment to the plastic manufacturer. If food producers could do something impossible and bad sci-fi like create holographic forcefield bottles for far cheaper they would.

Just my 10 cents: 1. To reduce our waste of plastic, we must see the material as special, not common. Refill your plastic bottles with water and use them. The more you use them, the more value you’ll begin to feel that they have, and the more ridiculous it will seem to buy them all of the time. I learned this from living in Africa where people could afford a coke once in a year for a wedding. They used the bottles again and again for just about anything. 2. Although I’m an artist, the topic of recycling materials makes me despise creativity. When there is uniformity in materials used by design, systems for separation become simplified and then more efficiently upcycled. Example: Labeling on bottles. Why do they all use different materials for labels and also completely different adhesives? In Japan there is a regulation that requires all disposable bottles to have a plastic label with a rip tab on it. No glue. The more we begin simplifying our design and making those designs standard in our production of plastics, the more quickly we will realize that the solution is about simplifying, not reinventing the wheel.

This video should be watched by all the people. Thank you from Romania

Back in my Mother's day, they had Paper, Wax Paper and Glass Bottles. Wax Paper could be reused multiple times and Glass Bottles kept for Years and could easily be reused and recycled. Big Plastic didn't want to spend money on Glass because of pricing, but I feel like it could have easily help avoid micro-plastics from getting into our bodies and our oceans

@gordonstewart5774

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly! These are a few of my favorite things.

@JPEight

2 жыл бұрын

@@gordonstewart5774 As long as that string isn't synthetic!

@MichaelZenkay

2 жыл бұрын

Food for thought , glass is significantly more fragile and heavy than plastics. For transporting liquids, plastics are probably orders of magnitude more efficient.

I love the fact based delivery, keep the emotion out and logic prevails... I am slightly concerned though that not differentiating the fool hardiness of most plastic recycling from the huge resources benefits of aluminum, glass, paper recycling might mislead some. ie "plastic recycling is pretty stupid but make sure you recycle that beer can please!" might be a better delivery? Keep up the great work!

thank you for the episode it was amazing that plastic eating plastic is a real game changer I really hope scaling it up actually works and that algae and mushrooms solution is very awesome as will it will really make a difference i think if it is implemented right

Thank you for the video, great information on a subject that needs to have more resources to fix

@UndecidedMF

2 жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

Love to see that my state is no longer a follow everyone else kind of government but is now also taking the lead with Renewable energy being 40+%, Plastic bans, Plastic taxes on companies, and currently actively fighting to get money in citizen hands to combat these awful gas prices

@stapleman007

2 жыл бұрын

Just so you know, "awful gas prices" are part of the plan, not some unfortunate side effect. Take a look at a historical chart of gas prices, and overlay it with US incumbent presidents, and let me know if you see a pattern.

@DisloyalGaming

2 жыл бұрын

@@stapleman007 government doesnt control gas prices. The federal government as a whole effects less then 10 percent of price. The artificial inflation from gas companies acting like russia is our number one resorce for oil despite only effecting 8% of the total us market. Also news flash prices have been on the rise since 2019 before current administration.

This is why I'm starting a local plastic recycling center that processes used plastic into 3d printer filament. If every town has at least one small scale recycling center like this there would be less carbon used in transportation as well as a direct product being put back into the community.

@eirinthemedicgf3962

2 жыл бұрын

This is so cool

I live in a condominium complex for over-55 people and the wish-cycling is very heavy. Lots of us old folks think that packing foam is readily recycled rather than seldom, despite signs next to and on the bins explicitly rejecting foam.

In my home town if about 25,000 people, my uncle has been the landfill supervisor for 20 years. They implemented the blue bin recycle program about 10 years ago and apparently 100% of collected waste, wether recycling or not, goes in the same pile at the landfill. Wasting millions on the program for nothing.

This is going sounds really stupid so I'm sorry, however, why doesn't the government ban single use plastic bottles, we already have an alternative, glass bottles and cans?

@nemesis1588

2 жыл бұрын

Glass is brittle and breaks easily, so you need a lot of it to make a sturdy bottle, as such glass bottles are very expensive to transport because they weigh so much. most glass waste gets put in landfills because it is not economical to transport it for recycling. i remember when SoBe and Snapple stopped using glass bottles. it just made them seam cheaper (and affected the taste as well imo). and metal is already relatively expensive. if you suddenly decided to switch everything even to the cheapest available metals the price of that metal would soar due to the sheer increase in demand. It all boils down to money. nobody wants to actually spend the money to build the necessary sorting facilities and properly pay workers to staff them, because raw polymers are orders of magnitude cheaper.

@brad9529

2 жыл бұрын

@@tracejohnson6611 It need only apply to the bottled drink industry for say anything less than 1.25 litres/42oz. Big bottle packaging generally uses the same amount of plastic as a small bottle (they often use the same Blank and expand it bigger) so start there for now and work up to bigger later. This alone would stop most of the plastic problem. (Problem of floating ocean plastic, from what I've seen a big chunk is coke bottles)

@brad9529

2 жыл бұрын

@@nemesis1588 Everything you said is as the mouthpiece for the plastic industry, I assume you are playing devils advocate. It would cause disruption of course, but that was the system once apon a time and it worked just fine, even if glass and aluminum isn't recycled and ends up in land fill it doesn't matter, both are natural materials, or at least not harmful, they are both the ultimate packaging material, that and the beverages tastes much better. I always buy coke in glass bottles when I can, its worth the extra cost for the taste, I'm not a hippie and use lots of plastic, but if I had no choice, then so be it.

@nemesis1588

2 жыл бұрын

@@brad9529 I'm not saying we shouldn't do something about I was just giving the reasons we don't. Transporting glass is expensive because all that extra weight requires additional energy to transport, which equals an increase in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Glass is not the perfect packaging material unless all of our transportation is fusion powered..

@brad9529

2 жыл бұрын

@@nemesis1588 yeah I agree nothing is perfect, only humans disappearing from the planet would be close to perfect, but even with the disadvantages of glass, weight, cost, footprint, its still a better option. It would get cheaper to produce again once they ramp up production. Electric trucks in the future would offset some footprint. Encourage the use of aluminium bottle like they have in Japan, a can with a screw top lid.

Step one: reduce use. Step two: recycle what you can and improve on those processes, try to develop as many new ways to recycle previously un-recyclable plastics as possible, accept that not everything can be recycled and repurpose that trash for road-resurfacing.

@KalebPeters99

2 жыл бұрын

Don't forget reuse! Sometimes hard with the chemical leeching from single use bottles and such, but an important step to keep in mind nonetheless!

@Cythil

Жыл бұрын

There is a reason why the Mantra goes: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Not Recycle, Reuse and Reduce. Recycling is the last option. The thing you do when you can not do the other Rs. Even with the extent list of Rs, recycle is always the last. And all recycling is not equal, either. So when it is best to do, compared to simply burning the stuff, depends. And we generally see burning stuff or just putting it in long term storage (what land general are) as so bad options that we generally do not mention those options. But in certain situation both can be preferable over recycling. There is a lot one can do. Both with recycling and related repurposing. But it all depends on the material. Good paper fibres can be recycled several times, especially if the print on it is non-toxic. (Which it should be, but not always is). Poor paper fibres can't be recycled in an environmental fashion (but may be repurposed). And this is simply down to what material you have. Here society need to take a responsibility since a consumer can not alone be able to determine how to handle this waste.

@mahavati3696

Жыл бұрын

There could be a hidden problem with using it in road resurfacing - the production of micro-plastics through the wear and tear of tyres on roads. Microplastics could become the big problem for humanity as they get into the lungs, blood and vital organs.

The amount of "recycled" plastic that gets landfilled blew my mind when I first heard about it a couple years ago. Backstory, I work at a company that a few decades ago was one of the world's leading producers of PET. Nowadays, there are collection bins around the plant that accept plastic (#1 and #2, like in your video) from employees and other sources, which we break down into molecular components and upcycle into all kinds of other materials. Feels good to actually know where my plastic is going (even got to help engineer some of the equipment for the recycling plant!).

Great video! I always try to explain these things to people, but most don't believe it. Surprised you didn't mention the company UBQ, which can recycle many materials into a multi-use filament. Lots of potential there.

My original degree is in Plastics Engineering. Honestly, we just need to get rid of 80% of single use plastics and then use better recycling systems for the remaining amount. But that’s going to be hard as long as we keep drilling for fossil fuels since plastic is essentially made from the by product of oil drilling. So we have to stop harvesting fossil fuels at the same time!

I share your anger at the state of recycling (and waste as a whole). It seems the majority of people see it as someone else's problem and refuse to take the time to do even the smallest of things to help. I look forward to seeing some of these new methods make a real change on our planet. Thanks for great research!

Very informative video Matt - thanks for sharing

One thing that I’ve seen only in Germany. In the store there is for each bottle of plastic and some of glass a surcharge. The customer receives it back when he/she brings the bottle back. The stores have machines which automatically recognize the type of bottles and routes them to the relevant container. Non-reusable plastic bottles are compacted in the machine. Some bottles for mineral water are made of thicker PET and are reused. I find this system excellent, some people collect bottles from outside and come to the store to get money for them. You can even leave bottles on the sidewalk (in a busier part of the city) and people would take them to the store.

1st, recycling goes against the planned obsolescence philosophy of our corporate oligarchy. 2nd, the petroleum industry wants us reliant on petroleum plastics as it’s a huge part of their income. The real solution is to replace non-biodegradable petroleum plastic with biodegradable plastic, which actually exists.

@BlueFrenzy

2 жыл бұрын

Be careful with your last sentence. Not all biodegradable plastic is bioplastic. Biodegradable plastics comming from oil are actually a much bigger problem than regular plastic. When plastic degrades it ultimately becomes methane and CO2. We are kind of "lucky" that plastic is not so much of a biodegradable material because else, all those plastics would be right now in the atmosphere aggravating an even worse problem which is global warming. Even some bioplastics use petroil derivatives to feed the plants and bacteria to create it. In order to make it sustainable bioplastic needs to be produced without petroil derivatives. Else we are changing one problem by a bigger one.

Quite informative, thanks. Feels like our rowboat is taking on a gallon of water in the time we can remove a quart or two😔 What are the chances that we can turn this around? Perhaps that is too scary a question.

Very helpful video. I will share this with others. Can't believe that only 1-2 are actually able to be recycled. Need to get the word out on this to clean up or recycle bins of the wish cycle garbage. Thanks you!!

Very informative episode. I've had suspicions for decades. Would be interested in the implications of recycling (or not recycling) other materials labeled as recyclable. You touched on cardboard, but how effective is that? And how effective are other materials such as glass, batteries, and electronics. Thanks!

When the only way forward is to choose non-plastic products, it's a dire situation. There's almost no way for most people to avoid it.

I'm glad you raised the China-dumping thing. It is an ugly fact that this happened, and there are many other examples of rich countries using poorer countries as their dump yards. In order to ask poorer countries to be more responsible with their waste, carbon plastic or otherwise, we have to demonstrate that we practice what we preach.

I've been recycling for years. The products came out of the ground so I put them back in the ground. Seriously though I'm not entirely sure that we aren't using more energy to sort, recycle, and transport some of this stuff than we are saving. For example, if we have to run 2 garbage trucks over the same route, one for waste and one for recyclables its possible we are using more energy than just using one truck to take to the landfill. I think we should do as much waste to energy as we can figure out how to do efficiently

Like Like Like 10,000 times! Excellent. One thing I observed during Covid was that "Reduce" went out the window. The bans on plastic bags and take-out containers seemed to vanish and I feel we took a big step back.

Pyrolysis and/or Gasification for “Chemical Recycling” once “direct recycling” of thermoplastics (just melting down the plastic regrind instead of using virgin plastic pellets etc) is no longer effective (i guess in the 4th time then?) is neat too Works well for thermosets too. And i think Glass Reinforced Plastic would produce glass slag letting you recycle things like wind turbine blades? May have some ash/char inclusion that would need refined out idk.

Something tells me that once companies are made to actually cover the cost of the plastic waste they produce, they'll be all for recycling it!

@tomaszszupryczynski5453

Жыл бұрын

sure imbecile, they will put that into price of product you buy. they always do

@xxsnow_angelxx3953

Жыл бұрын

LMFAO aunty even gov demands people to pay, they blame us when they lied to us.

@ThundaAaAaAaAaAh

Жыл бұрын

You are the one that will be paying for it, not companies

Thank you for making us informed about this.. thanks a lot

I think the most effective way to improve the situation is to inform consumers directly of the impact of their purchase choices, then let the market drive reform. To do that, I suggest the following: 1. Change the regulations so that only truly recyclable materials are labeled as such. From the video I think that was just types 1 and 2. This applies not just to plastics, but to other materials as well (I'm thinking of glass and paper products, for example}. 2. The regulations above could be expanded as well to require that package labeling include information about the recyclability of the product and packaging. For example, it's volume in landfill, biodegradation life, etc. This will put market pressure on businesses that choose non-recyclable materials for products and packaging. 3. Change rules for blue barrels used for recyclable pickups to comply with the new definitions in 1, above. This will keep non-recyclables out of the system to reduce wasteful cost of sorting. 4. Let consumers put market pressure on products and packaging that's non-recyclable.

Something that can only be recycled 3 times isn't a recyclable material. End of story. Single use plastic needs to go away big time.

Even as a child I always felt there was no way it was as easy as they were telling us it was

@stapleman007

2 жыл бұрын

Congratulations on taking your first red pill. Keep investigating, you will find out 50% of what you consider factual norms are just fabricated lies to deflect reality. Special interest NGO (nonprofits are a dirty word now), governments, and corporations are the peddlers of lies.

@MrKangdon

Жыл бұрын

I bet you were told to be quiet and respect your elders.

The sad part about the plastic recycling controversy, is that in popular culture many people make the mistake of judging with broad brush, and apply it to everything that goes into the "Blue bin". This includes aluminum cans. As someone that has work in metal fabrication, I can tell you that unlike plastic, metal recycling is a very profitable business. Metal recycling is so profitable, that the crimes involving metal recycling, involve stealing metal items still in use. This includes catalytic converters, Copper wire & pipes in vacant houses, and aluminum window & door frames, from those same vacant houses. We use to make money selling our leftover scrap. The scrappers came to us. This include scrap steal, too. Making "new metal", from mined ore, is very energy intensive, while scrap takes only a fraction of that energy. With current gas prices, that energy cost has gone up, even more.

Awesome work! Keep it up!

Great episode. Seems there is one thing for sure; pretty much anytime money is being made or lost, the process is based on lies. Damn lies. Lots of lies.

Very interesting video, as usual. The way forward is bifold: firstly, the investment in the packaging you have shown that is biodegradable and environmentally friendly combined with reducing the use by consumers; secondly, regulations around the world that will ban any product that cannot be fully recycled (and I mean, safe methods of breaking it down and recycling into new products, not requiring more than 10% of virgin materials thereafter). I should not forget the the most important part - education must be from young age on the subject, best start in schools.

@kapytanhook

2 жыл бұрын

Indoctrination, there is nothing wrong about just burying plastic. It came out the ground we used it and out it back in. Plastic straws rule compared to paper ones. There will be no issues if we just stop shipping it to places that end up letting it into the environment. Everytime you see plastic waste in nature some asshole put it there. Your regulations will not go over well with people that like plastic. People switched to plastic packaging not because they were dicks but because it is light, cheap and helps food last longer. Using the law to take that away will hurt us all.

The best path forward I've found @op, is circulen plastics. Particularly, to be able to take plastic and return it, not only to reusable PCR resin, but to feedstock, so that virgin resin can be made from the converted waste. To make it economically viable to take waste plastics, and then remake them into virgin polymer. The only way forward IMO (considering the amount of infrastructure already in place to process plastics that would likely need to be changed/retooled to work with other biological substitutes), is to make an economic incentive to recycling, and from what I've read circulen (at least, circulen revive) does that.

People push us to purchase glass products instead of plastic, but many places no longer recycle glass. I have a box full of bottles and jars that I have been trying to find where to recycle.

Why don't we just use more glass? Another person mentioned waxed paper. These things are still just as good as they ever were.

@packagingscientist9530

2 жыл бұрын

Glass recycling rates are very similar to PET containers and HDPE containers at around 30%. The main reason is that glass is super heavy and shipping it multiple times is a huge carbon footprint impact. There aren't enough glass recycling facilities distributed across the US to reduce the shipping impacts. We need more glass recyclers!

Make glass great again! I miss getting glass bottle of soda.

@MattyEngland

2 жыл бұрын

Yes! We never should have stopped using it in the first place.

Amazing video, thank you for that!