this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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Sadly, recycling isn't as effective as one might think. For example, only a small subset of the plastic you put in the plastic recycling bin will actually be recycled.
Does this mean you shouldn't bother? No, but it gives all the more reason to try to use less plastic to begin with.
Most places are at least burying the streams still sorted. The idea is that if we find a lucrative use for shitty plastic, we could mine it back out of the landfills.
Cans and glass are infinitely recyclable. Recycling aluminum saves 96% of the energy of producing new.
Paper is semi recyclable, but it degrades, so it can only go through the process a certain number of times.
Plastic is marginally recyclable. Only about 10% of plastic that goes into a recycling bin gets recycled. It was a hoax by petro-chem to make plastic seem more sustainable than it is.
That 10% is going to be country specific, much higher plastic recycle rates are possible and are already happening in some countries.
In the eu about 40% of plastic packaging waste gets recycled, but with significant differences per country: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20181212STO21610/plastic-waste-and-recycling-in-the-eu-facts-and-figures
Slovakia and Belgium are/were the eu's best performers in 2022. When looking for more general figures for Belgium, instead of only packaging, I found that 38.6% of plastic waste was recycled and 59.8% was used for energy generation, while the rest ended up in a landfill. https://plasticseurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CircularEconomy_nationalinfographics_2024.pdf
Recycling aluminum saves 96% of the energy of producing new.
I believe that Iceland is home to some incredible geothermal networks, and thus they can produce aluminum at a volume and rate that outstrips any other nation by a mile.
That said, I'm curious how the electricity would be transferred from Iceland's geothermal plants with maximum fidelity. Follow-up, if that number changes, so should the "96%", correct? I'm no engineer, barely an oneironaut, so I'm just throwing it out there, in case anyone can break that down? 🤓
Based on this Ontario and Quebec should be pretty good at recycling aluminium as well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_recycling
Aluminium recycling is the process in which secondary commercial aluminium is created from scrap or other forms of end-of-life or otherwise unusable aluminium.[1] It involves re-melting the metal, which is cheaper and more energy-efficient than the production of virgin aluminium by electrolysis of alumina (Al2O3) refined from raw bauxite by use of the Bayer and Hall–Héroult processes.
Recycling scrap aluminium requires only 5% of the energy used to make new aluminium from the raw ore.[2]
Care to take a swing at the other points I brought up? Thanks for the silent clarification via wiki, though. That's a step.
I'm not really sure what you're asking or getting at. Could you be more explicit?
Cans and glass are infinitely recyclable. Recycling aluminum saves 96% of the energy of producing new.
oh wow thats much better than I thought!
I am more or less neutral on most recycling. Separating metals is a good idea, glass pretty neutral (it's basically a rock and expensive to crush and recycle - much better to reuse). Separating plastics is probably worse than useless.
Separating organics, however, has immediate benefits. It's so nice having trash that doesn't stink to high heaven, and it almost eliminates the raccoon and rat problem. Municipal compost is one of the best public investments imo. Yes, it can be gross, but it concentrates the gross and makes it much simpler to deal with.
Municipal compost is one of the best waste solutions society has ever implemented. It saves space in landfills, cuts down on odors, and it reduces fire and explosion risks. On top of that, the organic waste becomes compost that can be used locally. Most recyclables have to be shipped far distances before they can be reused but most municipalities can process their own organics into compost. The gardens in your city are proably nourished by the cities organic waste.
I've had coworkers try to say that the organics bin is some woke media conspiracy about control or something and I just don't understand what their problem is.
"Exerting control" or "getting you cknditioned to follow orders" is the default motive for conspiracy theories that people cant think of a good motive for. I heard it a lot about using masks during covid.
It saves space in landfills.
This can't be stressed enough... a huge proportion of landfills volume is material that otherwise could have been composted.
Does the trash can contain the Shield Hero?