Recycling πŸ“

πŸ“½οΈ Videos

Online shopping has shifted recycling responsibilities to consumers – The Verge

|

Online shopping has shifted recycling responsibilities to consumers – The Verge

The fate of cardboard boxes in the US rests in the hands of consumers more than it ever has been before. In the past, brick-and-mortar retailers handled much of the leftover packaging from shipments. Malls and grocery stores usually send big bales of used but relatively clean cardboard to recycling programs so that they can be made into new boxes. Now, the rise of e-commerce, which started before the pandemic, has shifted more responsibility onto shoppers to properly dispose of boxes so that they can be recycled. Boxes are piling up on residential curbsides instead of at retail stores.

Why it’s not worth recycling plastic | MoneyWeek

|

Why it’s not worth recycling plastic | MoneyWeek

Is it news that big business plays dirty? No, but the extent of the deception, and the planning behind it, is striking. And it lends credence to the view espoused by both environmental campaigners and neoliberal economists that “plastic recycling is largely a fraud,” as Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, an NGO that campaigns against the illegal waste trade, puts it. In reality, much recycling – and certainly the recycling of plastics – is an uneconomic activity that merely gives us “moral licence to pollute”, says Michael Munger of the American Institute for Economic Research. It’s akin to the “indulgences” sold by the pre-Reformation church to exculpate sins. Putting out your plastics for collection is not so much a rational economic act, more a “religious ceremony”.

To save recycling, look to the aluminum can | TheHill

|

To save recycling, look to the aluminum can | TheHill

On one hand, it found that the aluminum can continues to out-perform other packaging types on virtually every measure. The average new can produced in the U.S. was made of 73 percent recycled material, compared to less than 6 percent for the average plastic bottle. Further, aluminum cans are still the most recycled beverage container, with nearly 5 million cans recycled every hour in the U.S.

Unfortunately, our report also found that the aluminum can recycling rate among consumers fell almost 4 points to 46.1 percent, bringing it below its 20-year average of around 50 percent. We must reverse this trend so we can capture the value of aluminum rather than sending it to the landfill.

Solar panel recycling in the US β€” a looming issue that could harm industry growth and reputation – pv magazine USA

|

Solar panel recycling in the US β€” a looming issue that could harm industry growth and reputation – pv magazine USA

The downside is that solar panels have finite lifespans; are difficult and expensive to recycle; and are being decommissioned in increasingly large numbers. The United States lags behind Europe and other regions in its PV recycling programs and policy progress, with the majority of unusable solar panels ending up in landfill.