Not this one, every one. The only difference is that they bother to put this info on the label.
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Mildly Infuriating
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Nearly all containers (glass or plastic) need to have their label removed to recycle properly. And you must rinse them out, too.
Some can be recycled with the label on, but only if the plastic used is the type that can be recycled. Confusing and frustrating, yes.
The crappy thing is that some labels really don't come off easily because they've been glued in place... those are awful to recycle because it requires quite a bit of extra effort, soaking, adhesive remover, etc... π
And you must rinse them out, too.
This step right here has to end. Recycling facilities should have cycling filtered graywater loops to do the rinsing. Using clean drinking water to rinse out containers is an absolute waste.
I work for a plastic recycling plant manufacturer, specifically for the sorting, shredding, cleaning and drying steps of plastic recycling (after that you usually have melting and extrusion before ending up with small plastic pellets that can be used to make other stuff).
I can confirm you, we have "cycling filtered grey water" cleaning. You don't need to clean up your plastic containers, just empty them. Also various chemicals will be used in the process, when necessary.
We also make de-labelers to remove the labels from plastic bottles, although this kind of label in the picture is extremely hard to remove and, afaik, either requires human labor (aka poor countries with labor conditions you don't want to think about) or just becomes waste. So yeah, this is some of the worst shit.
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I agree, but rinsing at home addresses multiple concerns.
I think the issue is that some people throw out containers with their lids on and completely covered in food matter.
a) it makes it difficult/impossible to actually recycle when it finally gets there. b) it attracts wildlife to your recycling bins.
It's just best practice, really.
it attracts wildlife to your recycling bins
I'd argue this point is nullified given recycling and trash live next to each other for pick-up (at least in the US). If your bins don't seal to keep scent away, they'll be targeting the trash cans anyways.
In parts of the world where clean drinking water is at a premium and increasingly more so, (like the western half and soon 2/3 of the US) it definitely matters to conserve the water we need to live whenever possible.
This brings up another good point though, packaging design should be changed to ensure the maximum amount of purchased product can be removed for use as easily as possible. So many containers today are designed to be sold as "this has 20oz in it!" and only 18oz is accessible. They then have tiny necks or convoluted lips or shapes to make reaching into the container with tools to remove the rest of the product difficult. The companies don't care about the loss of product as the extra 2oz costs them essentially nothing. Even though that added weight is wasting energy being transported at every single stage of the supply chain to be thrown away at the end, they got the sale because it said 20 instead of 18 on the bottle and they could mark up the price accordingly!
tl;dr on the last paragraph: If the container is designed to start its recycling journey as devoid of product as possible, the whole process will have less cleanup and energy/water use, whatever the process is.
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It would be so much easier if drink companies just used standardized containers instead of making their own homemade special designs to try and look fancy.
Orange juice was fine in a 2L cardboard box. We just recently got a jug of Tropicana or some shit and it's some fancy moulded pitcher shape with a spout and flip up plastic lid. That just makes everything more difficult, especially recycling because it will be a pain to rinse out I bet.
I'd be 100% ok if all containers were mason jars. Most of the time, I can't even reuse glass jars because of their stupid, non-standard lids!
Cereal should just come in a biodegradable plastic, no box.
But standardize everything. Never mind hassling consumers not to use plastic bags when companies are putting layer upon layer of plastic on their products. If a manufacturer can't use a standardized package, they shouldn't be allowed to sell the product without a massive environmental tax added onto their product.
Some can be recycled with the label on, but only if the plastic used is the type that can be recycled
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that only true if the plastic uses for the label is in the same category (same recycling symbol) as the bottle?
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Oh I'm so fucking sorry this manufacturer gave you clear instructions on how to recycle properly
Your life must be truly horrible π
Nah, get the fuck outta here with that bullshit.
Ignoring the fact that hardly any plastic is actually recyclable in the first place, your argument is that conscious consumers should accept additional responsibilities on the off chance that it MIGHT actually get recycled?
We figured out how to print on basically any surface a long time ago. How about we hold companies to a standard of responsible packaging, instead of yet again passing the buck to the end user.
We need both. We need companies to do more to make things out of easier to recycle or compost materials, and we need consumers to do more to separate things to make them easier to recycle. It's far too late to push responsibilities around, we all need to be responsible.
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You need to separate most materials in order to recycle them. The plastic of a lid is different from that of a bottle which are both different from a wrapping. Separating materials is key to successful recycling. A lot of times stuff can't get recyled because people don't separate it before throwing it away.
Or you could just use, you know, reusable materials.
Separation requirements vary. In the UK, plastic bottle caps are generally tethered to the bottle now to prevent people from separating them.
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You mean you have to remove the plastic label before you throw the bottle into a recycling bin which gets dumped into a landfill never to be seen again.
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Okay. So they do this in Japan. The plastic used in the wrapper is different than the plastic in the bottle. They require different processes to recycle. Itβs also far more efficient for regular people to just rip it off and throw one in one bin and the other in another bin in their own homes than it is for a sorting facility to go through mountains of this stuff trying to get it right every single time. Frankly I wish more places did it this way.
I hope this explanation will make things even less infuriating.
Recycling in Japan is a very involved process. You end up with like, 4 different bags of recyclable types, depending. I appreciate it.
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It's like this in Europe too, it's just one, ahem, country that's a decade behind everyone, every time
I don't have different plastic recycling bins, but only one.
Where in Europe do you have different ones?
Never have encountered those, at least I didn't realize it (in Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland - although with some countries I'm maybe not completely up to date)
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It all gets dumped in the ocean
This brand is all cartons where I am, more efficient and environmentallly friendly.
Cartons have plastic too, yeah? Cause plain cardboard isn't staying mess free for long if you fill it with milk. That said, it's probably less plastic, though this is also less plastic than just making the whole jug non-recyclable. Why they don't just make the label recyclable too is beyond me.
The problem is plastic is great for food safety. The way it makes air and water-tight seals, that can easily be broken, is hard to replicate. If cans could open, on their own, the way sealed plastic bottles do, then we could have easier recycling via metal containers. But the self-open cans make sharp edges and nobody's invented a way around that yet.
Incredible idea, LISTEN TO THIS:
Reusable glass bottles with metal caps.
They also make Aluminum "Bottles". There's going to be a plastic gasket on the metal cap, but that's magnitude less plastic then a whole bottle and I already know what salad dressing looks like. Lighter to transport then glass as well. If the supply chain is short, glass can work, but the longer it is, the more sense aluminum is.
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So we have all this plastic waste because people can't be bothered to operate a can opener?
Basically. Convenience pushes most, if not all, of the packaging changes we see. Plastic has been very good at accomplishing the things people want to be done with packaging at a low, immediate cost to the user. Turns out the long term cost is much more drastic.
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Which once removed and put into the recycling, the plastic bottle will then go live a long life in the landfill.
They should teach AI how to sort garbage and do it for us instead of making it create videos of pirate ships in a cup of coffee
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Milk should come in bags, there I said it
CANADIAN
We used to get it in glass bottles, and the bottles would be reused (not melted down).
Just a shame getting it that way costs about 3-4 times as much as a big four pint plastic jug from Tesco.
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2 different kinds of plastic.
Not all plastic is recyclable. John Oliver (nsfw) has a good bit on it here:
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Plastic is better off just going in the trash. The ability to recycle it is largely a lie. Especially plastic that touched food as it needs to be clean to recycle.
It could be recycled, itβs just that the world is too cheap to bother with it.
Recycling only works when the price of the material is high enough to justify the reclamation process. It doesn't work for plastic because of the insane subsidies given to the petroleum industry. If we had a significant enough carbon tax, you'd start seeing more actual plastic recycling.
Recycling has always been a lie to make you feel good about consumption. If itβs not a valuable commodity, it just goes to the dump anyways.
It can be IF its
- clean
- dry
- its the same type of plastic
- its not a bag/foil/film
- all the other materials are clean and dry in the same lot.
Even after all that, it's really only useful in downcycling.
This is absolute nonsense.
In Germany, between 38-48% of plastic is recycled (source). Sure, thatβs far from all of it, but still far, far better than nothing.
The recycling rate might be lower in other countries, but just giving up and putting everything in the regular trash is probably the worst thing you could do.
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Imagine the massive inconvenience of separating your plastics so that your recycling facility can actually recycle more plastic waste instead of if ending up in a landfill π€¦
Imagine the massive inconvenience of having to separate plastics to recycle when you literally work at a plastic recycling plan.
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Do people not enjoy ripping the paper off of plastic water bottles? This looks like the same kind of fun to me.
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