The Old Coal Miner

Looks at

Recycling

I think I understand the impetus for recycling:

 The environmental situation is so dire and so big the individual is helpless.  We have to keep driving our cars until the government, which created the current infrastructure, creates a new one.  There are just too many roads,  too many entrenched industries, and  too many deniers. The individual is not to be blamed for feeling helpless.

If we cannot control what we consume, at least we can control what we throw away.  The obsessive-compulsive rituals begin:  recycle this, but not that;  those are good bottle caps for some reason;  these are bad; this is killing the seals;  that is destroying the tree frogs; electronics bad;  scratchy woolen underwear, good; we need to save piles of this in our garage until some time in the future when it may be recycled (I don’t want to go into which acquaintance  of mine does this--in the old days it would be hoarding, now it is “activist recycling”).

Recycling gives us a tiny corner of the world where we feel we can make a small difference--where there is some tiny measure of control.  Never mind if that measure of control exists more in illusion than reality.

Here I want to investigate recycled materials and practices in some depth in order to understand that difference a little better.

Re-use

I think none can deny that the best form of recycling is re-use.  If something can be used over again, no energy is required to keep using it,  no ships are carrying it across the ocean, and no industry is involved in figuring out what to do with it.

In the computer world, for example, it is the case that almost every computer ever sold would still be working if the software could support that.  The chips don’t wear out.  Fans, hard drives, keyboards and other mechanical parts could be replaced over and over (or--gasp--built to last).

The software makers, in conjunction with the system builders, work against this at every stage.  A computer of 1995 did most of the tasks a computer of 2015 did ( with the likely exceptions of making videos, streaming Youtube and downloading 4k pornography).  In the Linux world, the computer of 1995 will probably still work--virus free.

Does the Iphone six ( or seven, eight, or fifteen) really do something different (and is it really easier to call or text with a phone the size of a dinner plate)?  Is thinner really better? Was 1080p really so bad we had to quadruple the file sizes for no discernible difference (most people are still watching 640 by 480, even if they don’t realize it)?

Easy recycling

Steel--pick mild steel up with a magnet and save almost half the energy of making new.

Aluminum--separate by density and save 95 percent of the energy of making new.

Paper with proper inks--grind, clean, and make new paper.

Kitchen waste--compost.

White polyethylene--grind, melt and re-mold (think plastic milk jug).

Copper--put some visibly in the back of your pickup and  recyclers will chase you down for it.

Hard recycling

Anything colored.

Electronics ( hopefully solid state drives will be multi-terabyte by the time we’ve dumped all the samarium cobalt on the beaches in Africa).

Anything pretty (do we really need to read our magazines on clay impregnated slick paper, and is cute toilet paper really softer?)

Anything clear (do we really need to see the pretty yellow dye in our mango kombucha drink?).  It is arguable that clear polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the evil heart of the plastics mess (don’t we love that bottled water--so clear! So clean and with plasticizers, too!)....

Batteries.

Glass.

Construction materials (where do all the asphalt shingles go to die and why do people still think they make sense for roofing?)

Tires

Final observations

It is my understanding that China’s opening salvo in the current ridiculous trade war has been to stop accepting recycling--no more getting stuff from them and sending the trash back. More of it will be dumped on the beaches of Bangladesh and Africa, I suppose.

If you want to be a true activist in the recycling world,  support and use Linux.  Fight the Borg! Free software forever!  Re-use all those computers!  Uhuru na umoja!