DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

The grocery stores are not allowed to give out plastic bags at the checkout, but they can use the really thin plastic bags in the vegetable section. You sometimes have to double them to make them strong enough to hold your vegetables. But of course all that does is give you a collection of stuff in small bags, not really convenient for carrying. In CT, State Law requires them to charge $0.10 for a paper bag.

OTOH, Costco (and probably others) will gladly sell you a case of 1000 of those plastic bags the supermarket used to give away. Last time I bought a case it was $17 so it's cheaper than the paper bag from the grocery store. And I re-use them so the average cost is below a penny. Also useful to line trash cans (small ones, anyway). If you bring your own bags to the supermarket they will be happy to pack them for you. You can easily stuff about 10 of them in a pocket. A case of those bags lasts me more than two years.

When I ran a farm stand before all this nonsense, we used to collect used plastic bags from customers. They would leave us bags of bags all winter and we would provide them on the stand to recycle them. The customers would supply enough plastic bags to fill 5-6 20 gallon trash barrels (packed tight). It was never quite enough so we would buy a few thousand bags to fill out the season.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

And the soft drinks came in glass bottles with a two cent deposit. The large bottles had a five cent deposit. They got returned to the bottler, washed, and refilled.

Van Gogh Loc: Lansdale, Pa.

BebuLamar

I am a tree hugger as well as making a living making plastic bag. Ok with that said. I think the solution is not to use anything disposable. They talked about recycling but that to me is BS.

Stephan G

Just a side bar. Recycling is not BS. Where people fall flat is in making the recycling an actuality. In most cases, products are not "pure" for easy re-use.

paulrph1 Loc: Washington, Utah

Did you mention straws?

alamomike47 Loc: San Antonio, Texas

U got it!

bodiebill

recyclable also

BebuLamar

Recycling is very difficult and cost more than using virgin material. I feel really sorry for the people who have to work in recycling. Recycling defeat the very reason for having disposables. Convenience. You use disposables for convenience and yet it's so inconvenience to do the recycling. So much work for both the consumers and manufacturers.
Reusables packaging makes much more sense like glass bottles.

Stephan G

Actually, the glass bottles require more man-hours to scrub and sanitize to meet the criteria for human use. In other words, it is more expensive. Furthermore, the new processing equipment is not geared for using even recycled glass.

The idea was to convert the materials to something that can be reused with a zero cost. Manufacturers , for the most part, did not do their diligence to make the process work.

I participated in a commune where the goal was to work up a waste free system. But that was back in the 1960s.

bodiebill

It costs more to make virgin glass than recycling glass--the difference is in the mining of the raw materials.
see:
Quick Facts About Glass Recycling
Glass recycling facts you should know
BY RICK LEBLANC Updated on April 28, 2019
Glass recycling is a common practice, and many communities include glass bottle and container collection in curbside collection programs. Recycled glass is sought by the glass packaging industry as it requires less energy to process, and therefore is more cost effective than virgin glass.
However, when the glass is commingled with other materials in the recycling process, broken glass shards can result in contamination and safety concerns. Another consideration is that fewer and fewer glass containers are being purchased as consumers shift to plastic. As a result of such trends, some communities, including my local city, have phased out glass recycling at curbside. Even as some cities curtail curbside glass recycling, however, alternative recycling options may be made available for this material.
Glass Recycling Talking Points
When it comes to the importance of recycling glass, here are four compelling points to consider, offed by Pace Glass.
• Recycled glass can be used over and over: Very little waste is generated in the glass recycling and manufacturing process. Recycled glass can be used to produce the same product over and over.
• Lower carbon footprint: Glass packaging's carbon footprint can be dramatically reduced through the use of recycled glass. For every kg of recycled glass displaces the need to extract 1.2 kg of virgin raw materials. Every 10 percent of recycled glass or cullet used in production results in an approximate 5 percent reduction in carbon emissions and energy savings of about 3 percent.
• Efficiency improvements: Improvements are helping to improve the recovery and recycling of glass containers. For example, Pace Glass has developed ways to recycle glass that most others cannot such as colored or dirty glass. Another important trend has been the lightweighting of glass packaging. Such innovations have helped to divert glass from landfills (in the case of improved recovery of recycled glass) while reducing energy usage and global warming potential.
• Superior product preservation. Pace Glass notes that no other packaging material does a better job in preserving food and preventing penetration by contaminants. Glass containers can be easily resealed to help prolong freshness.
Other Glass Recycling Facts and Statistics
Here are some noteworthy facts and statistics about recycling glass:
1. "Cullet" is the industry term for furnace-ready recycled glass, material which is free of contaminants such as ceramics, metals, stones, or gravel, etc.
2. Bottles and jars made from glass are 100 percent recyclable and can be recycled endlessly without loss of quality.
3. Glass containers for food and beverages are totally recyclable. Other glass products such as windows, ovenware, Pyrex, crystal, etc. are manufactured differently. If such materials find their way into the glass container manufacturing process, they can result in production problems and defective containers.
4. If local markets for glass recycling are not available, or if the glass is not suitable for manufacturing new jars and bottles as a result of contamination or small size, it may be used for "secondary" applications. Such uses include sandblasting, concrete payment, tile, and filtration.
5. An estimated 80 percent of recovered glass containers are made into new glass bottles, and it can happen quickly. A glass container can go from a recycling bin to a store shelf in as little as 30 days.
6. Glass container manufacturers hope to achieve 50 percent recycled content in the manufacture of new glass bottles. This achievement would save enough energy to power 21,978 homes for one year and while removing over 181 tons of waste from landfills on a monthly basis. According to the Glass Packaging Institute, containers averaged 33% recycled content in 2013.
7. Energy costs drop about 2-3 percent for every 10 percent of cullet used in the manufacturing process.
8. For every six tons of recycled container glass employed in the production process, one ton of carbon dioxide creation is avoided.
9. Approximately 44 glass manufacturing plants operate in 21 states. According to the Glass Packaging Institute, 63 glass beneficiating facilities across the country. At these glass processing plants, recycled glass is cleaned and sorted, prior to being resold to glass container manufacturing companies for remelting into new food and beverage containers. On average, a typical glass processing facility can handle 20 tons of color-sorted glass per hour.
10. Over 41% of beer and soft drink bottles were recovered for recycling in 2013, according to the US EPA, along with 34.5% of wine and spirits bottles and 15% of other glass jars. Overall, 34% of glass containers were recycled. States with beverage return deposit legislation averaged a 63% return rate for glass beverage containers versus 24% in non-bottle bill states.
11. States using bottle bill programs, in conjunction with single stream (one-bin) programs, can increase the beverage container recycling rate by 11%, and the overall recycling rate by 162%.
For more information on glass recycling, check out my article on glass recycling facts and figures, as well as my coverage of the benefits of state bottle bills. Beverage bottle recycling bills are critical in the design of recycling programs which incentivize the diversion of beverage containers from landfills, including glass bottles.

Stephan G

One of the primary usage for old glass is in road paving. The glass is pulverized and mixed into the surfacing material for roads. One of the effects is the reflection of light at night.

The problem of course is that there are fewer products that use glass containers. Hence, the front end expense rises.

Not all products are "recyclable" because there is no available use for the materials. This was one of the issues that arose when the commune was in process of working their "system."

The one take-away is that we have to become more creative as to what to do with the materials to make recycling valuable. (One suggestion was made: Use the materials to make caskets. )

niteman3d Loc: South Central Pennsylvania, USA

The number of people being buried in the US is plummeting, so that may not be much of a hot new market to be opening at this point in time:

"According to the National Funeral Director’s Association, the percentage of people choosing cremation is expected to surpass 70% by the year 2040, while conventional burials will decrease to around 16%." Bing search result. (That's only a total of 86%. I wonder what they do with the remaining 14%?)

Us old farts tend to stay abreast of funeral costs.

As regards recycling in general, our community went with "single-stream" about three years ago and it works great. All recyclables go into one wheeled container and go out for weekly pickup the same as the garbage container(s)... no muss, no fuss. The renewal of the original three-year contract falls soon and I'm interested to see how that goes regarding any changes?

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

That's how ours works. They use to take glass, next contract they stopped. I was talking to the owner of the company and he said they stopped recycling glass long time ago because it cost them too much. They kept collecting it because it was in their contract. New contract I guess excludes glass, as glass is now in the list of things they don't want in the recycling bin. Surprised me because I always thought glass was one of the things worth recycling. Aluminum and glass, paper not so much. I guess things have changed.

fantom Loc: Colorado

Do you mean in or out of its container?