added by sari · updated 9mo ago
What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong
- Reusable straws and bags are often more resource intensive than single-use ones. Ever noticed that plastic bags and straws are both incredibly thin and incredibly cheap? Almost no resources go into making each one. It’s really kind of amazing.
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago
- By contrast, reusable metal straws and canvas bags require something like 10-100x the energy and materials to manufacture, and need regular cleaning so they don’t spread diseases. So unless you use them many times, they end up being worse for the environment.
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago
- If we bury metals, we can just mine more aluminium, tin, or iron — we’re not close to running out of any of these. But recycling metals is a good idea, as it’s cheaper and much more environmentally friendly than mining.
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago
- We can already make plastic from plants and by then we’ll be much better at doing that. Most oil is used for fuel — just 4–8% goes towards making plastics anyway
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago
- Analysing the total life-cycle cost of recycling vs making new items is very complicated and depends on the specific context.
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago
- We aren’t anywhere near running out of space for landfill. The Earth is huge and we are good at digging deep holes. Space will never be a meaningful constraint.
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago
- Almost all of the litter that escapes into nature, especially the sea, comes from fishing ships or poorer riverine countries with bad rubbish collection practices, such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Rich countries like the UK or US have rubbish collection rates approaching 100% and are responsible for little new waste reaching the oceans... See more
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago
- Recycling can be worse for the environment too. By the time someone has picked up that plastic container of peanut butter, driven it to a recycling facility, separated it into its plastic type, taken off the lid, fully washed it out in hot water, and melted it down in a specialised facility, we might have used less energy and produced less pollutio... See more
from What You Think About Landfill and Recycling Is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin
sari added 3y ago