Anyone know about recyling non deposit plastics?

[and4rik]

Here in California it seems most yards are willing to take some non CRV like milk jugs, but anything else seems off limits. For example I have a large event sign that is marked #2 HDPE but no one will even take it from me. It weighs about 20 lbs. I am thinking maybe just cutting it to pieces and stuffing the beverage bottles with it although probably too much work. My laundry jugs are also not accepted, sticker shock for food prices have me scraping the barrel.

[redraspberry]

Recycling is really bad here in central Illinois. 20 miles for the nearest scrap yard and they won't take any paper, plastic or glass. There was a push for trash burning to electricity generation and I think there's one in western Indiana but Illinois won't do anything like that now.

[LeadHead]

We have a county-run recycling program where I live. The will take any plastics that are #1 or #2. I hate throwing the #5 -marked stuff in the trash, but they claim there is no market for it. They also take boxes, paper, tin cans, glass and other metals like aluminum (they ain't getting mine, though). It's not curb-side . . . you have to take it to the recycling center, and I don't know if the operation is profitable, but it feels better than throwing all that stuff in the landfill.

[redraspberry]

If reducing carbon in the environment is the goal then burying plastic in the landfill is the best solution.

[and4rik]

It amazes me how much recycle centers do not take, anything marked 1-7 is refused. Really all non deposit is taboo, total joke considering all the green voodoo that is going around. Last I checked they also stopped taking paper at my local yard, although they never did pay for it!
Newsome passed a law last summer doubling the price (i think) of deposit to help with covid or something. When I ask at the counter for the CRV bonus, they look stupid like they never heard of it, finally offered an extra .25 per lb or something ( not even close to full value) I just said fine whatever. Thinking these places doubled up on their CRV value last summer by the hundreds of tons, nice little scam there eh. Thanks Newsome. Don't even get me started on leaf blowers being the heaviest polluters.

[t00nces2]

They are all a lying bunch of ashholes. It turned out they were just combining the crap we sorted for them into a big pile and shipping it to China to be dumped into the sea. I don't give a crap anymore and make sure I put stuff in to snag and bind their equipment hoping they will just say to throw it all into the same bin.

[yellowsnow]

[and4rik]

That video is terrible. I don't believe anything that guy and his annoying voice says. No way every, single, city could not figure out where their "recycled" trash ends up because "lack of transparency". Total hogwash.

[and4rik]

Another example of California's ludicrous recycling infrastructure. I have a source of those large 5 gallon plastic water jugs the ones delivered for home use. They are marked #7 but no one pays for them. Of course they will take them for free.. I'm running out of room to store and I have not found a way to reseal them so I just keep 1 to water the plants with. Anyways I suppose something like Craigslist free would be a good place to repurpose them. Maybe fill another one up with copper pennies:)

[LongDonSilver]

I used to be in the plastics industry and using post consumer plastics was always an issue. Most common plastic to be recycled was PET bottles and most of that was sent off to China to be turned into polyester (The PE in PET) for clothes. But China isn't taking much, if any, plastics these days. There were US government grants offered to companies in the USA to make use of post consumer plastics and nursery "flower" pots (the black kind that come with most plants you buy) was one use for some of this stuff. Plastic oil cans, bleach bottles and whatever else was ground up and fed into injection molding or blow machine to make pots. Trouble was the leftover chemicals ate up the metal of the extruders, screws and other parts of the molding machines that came in contact with this type of unsorted stuff.

Burning is the solution in my county these days, but only via our trash companies. Trying to take your own household electronics or toxic chemical (metal paint cans etc) to the recycling center is by lottery offered only a few times a year. Otherwise, place your "recycling" into the weekly recycle trash can and hope that it isn't going into the ocean after a long trip to India or other places that "recycle". That is if it isn't just barged to out beyond Long Island and given a float test after being pushed off into international waters. However, electronics is a no-no in such recycling cans unless you can hide your old VCR and not get caught. Our Good Will won't take much of anything these days and so IMHO recycling is mostly a dream and not reality.

OBTW, PLA, PETG and other scrapped 3D printed parts could be recycled into new filament too, but the cost for the average home 3D printer user is way higher than can be justified. Plus for every Kg of new filament purchased to be used to print on these machines there's plastic (sometimes cardboard) spool that is thrown away when the filament is used up.