Materials and Waste

New efforts to put the genie back in the bottle | Waste Dive

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PFAS: New efforts to put the genie back in the bottle | Waste Dive

Because PFAS variants are found in a variety of common products, which can end up in landfills when disposed, low concentrations are consistently appearing in leachate as chemicals are released from naturally degrading material. Landfill leachate is collected and treated to remove regulated contaminants, but most wastewater treatment plants do not remove PFAS. Wastewater biosolids are often testing positive for PFAS, prompting changes in their use as a soil amendment, so continued landfilling remains one of the primary options. Additionally, U.S. compost facilities have found PFAS in soil products due to contamination in the material stream. MRFs are also sorting through materials containing PFAS on a daily basis – including paper, plastics and other coated products.

I wonder if Six Mile Waterworks has PFAS in it? I bet that is question that City of Albany hopes is never asked. They really should think about banning PFAS in all uses -- because if you put that chemical in products, it's going to be out there in environment.

Plastic vs. Glass vs. Aluminum | Earth911.com

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Beverage Container Showdown: Plastic vs. Glass vs. Aluminum | Earth911.com

I am opposed to glass bottles, because they frequently break and leave shards in the woods, potentially for a long period of times. Broken glass easily cuts hands and feet, punctures tires, and lead to severe injury. Not to mention that they are heavy. Aluminum (which is actually plastic coated with BPA or similiar less toxic resin to protect flavor), is probably my second favorite, especially with the bottle deposit laws taking back the cans. Aluminum also stays pretty cold in the coolers and is quite lightweight, although sometimes punctures and can tear and be a safety hazard with sharp edges. Aluminum cans can also last in the woods a long time. Plastic bottles I think get a bit of an unfair reputation -- they don't last as long in the woods as glass or metal, they aren't likely to cause cuts or injury (even if swallowed compared to metal or glass), they can be burned, and they are also recycable. Sure, plastic doesn't work for beer and certain other beverages, but it's the lightest, safest material out there.

Shots – Health News : NPR

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EPA Watchdog Says Agency Isn’t Enforcing Lead Paint Rules : Shots – Health News : NPR

Lead-based paint was extremely popular in the early and mid-20th century — used in an estimated 38 million homes across the U.S. before it was banned for residential use in 1978.

The risk didn't stop with the ban. Today, when older homes are renovated or repaired, contractors are required to take special precautions to avoid exposing residents to lead-laden dust and paint chips that are dangerous, especially to children and pregnant women. It's part of a broader set of environmental regulations meant to protect young people from lead exposure.

But an internal investigation by the federal watchdog for the Environmental Protection Agency finds that the EPA is not enforcing many of those requirements adequately.

It’s raining plastic!

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It’s raining plastic!

It’s in our oceans and streams, it’s in our air and water. Plastic is everywhere.

Plastic is everywhere because it’s a co-product of fossil fuel production. Plastic exists because we use oil and gas to power urban civilization, it’s a product that exists because of the other – the more fossil energy we produce the more plastic we produce. Fracking, which has lowered the price of gas and made a bumper crop of plastic. New plastics plants are going to mean even more plastic will be produced in the coming years.

Plastic is a wonderful and nasty substance at the same time. It’s cheap, it’s durable and is provides many functions with minimal material. Compared to glass or metal its remarkably lightweight, saving fuel in its transport and limiting space needed for its disposal. Plastic resists biodegradation but for the most part is combustible. Without heat and fire though, it’s long chains of carbon stay together, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces in the environment.

Ask any country boy with burn barrel, and they’ll tell you plastic burns but some of it can sure be noxious and smells really bad. A hotter fire helps break the chains down to carbon dioxide and water but there are still often nasty chemicals like lead and cadmium used to color and soften the plastic. Chemicals that might be temporarily detained in a landfill but will eventually leach out into the water and the environment. The amounts of lead, cadmium and other metals might be low in any specific plastic but put together, over the years in a mass burn incinerator or landfill and they add up. All landfills ultimately leak to boot.

That said, chances are a discarded glass bottle or tin can is going to last a lot longer in the environment than a plastic bottle. The combustible nature of plastic does mean it can break down in the environment with fire – such as wildfire, a burn barrel or pit, a campfire. So less of it sticks around in the woods. Even the remaining toxic compounds are absorbed and broken down into the environment eventually. The same can’t be said about broken glass bottles or cans in the farm dump.

Plastics can be recycled or combusted for energy but more needs to be done to make them less toxic and more standardized for recycling. More needs to be done to encourage recycling and consideration of biodegradable alternatives when practical. But compared to the cans and glass they often replace, in many ways plastic is vastly superior.

Plastic Bags

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Today catching the bus home, out in front of the Alfred E Smith Building, I saw yet another plastic shopping bag flapping around the trees. In the morning, I pulled one from the woods. As convenient as disposable plastic shopping bags are, they really have become a menace when they end up in the woods as litter.

NPR

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U.S. Recycling Industry Is Struggling To Figure Out A Future Without China : NPR

John Caturano of Nestle Waters North America, which makes bottled water, said plastic is getting a bad reputation. "The water bottle has in some ways become the mink coat or the pack of cigarettes. It's socially not very acceptable to the young folks, and that scares me," he said during a panel called Life After National Sword.

Sunil Bagaria, who runs recycling company GDB International, took his colleagues to task. "Forever, we have depended on shipping our scrap overseas," he bemoaned. "Let's stop that." European countries, he added, "are recycling 35% to 40% [of their plastic waste]. The U.S. only recycles 10%. How tragic is that?" 

After a couple of days of this, a woman named Kara Pochiro from the Association of Plastic Recyclers stood up and said not to panic. "Plastic recycling isn't dead, and it works, and it's important to protecting our environment, and it's essential to the circular economy," she reassured.

"Circular economy" is now a catchphrase that some say is a way out of the plastic mess. The idea is essentially this: Society needs plastic, but people need to recycle a lot more of it and use it again and again and again. That will eliminate a lot of waste and cut down on the avalanche of new plastic made every year.