I’ve spoken to people involved in the recycling industry – including Terra Nova (ex RMF) in Christchurch.

None of the #1 and #2 collected curbside is used to make new beverage containers. Why ? In a nutshell, cost and contamination. Food grade containers require virgin resins (not hard to figure out why), and the recycled resins are used to manufacture things like carpets and fleecies. These do not get recycled – hence at most the resins have 2 trips through the system before arriving at a landfill.

And on a related note, what does the “T” in PET (#1) stand for ?

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explain?

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t94

Don’t kid yourself. We downcycle our plastic – we don’t recycle it.

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[...] frogblog: stupidity February 21st 2006 Posted to Blogs [...]

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I buy Kiwi Blue Still Spring Water. I live in Taupo, I can taste the difference in the water from the tap and the bottle. I prefer the water from the bottle. I dont mind paying a little something for it.

And I always recycle my bottles.

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I grew up with untreated drinking water and I really miss the taste. I also miss drinking from clear streams in native forest. Bottled water is the closest thing that I can find for the taste, and it really saddens me every time that I buy it. What have we done to this country? And more to the point, what can we do about it now?

Chlorination and fluoridation of our water supplies is bad enough, but the one that blew me away was the addition of aluminium chlorohydrate (to clump together stuff). All to make it “safe” to drink.

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There’s only two things I don’t pay for. One of them is water.

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aladin

Thanks for pointing that out !

eredwen

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… and evian (bottled water from France) is naive spelt backwards…

aladin

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Hi Stuey,

I’m not an expert here, but …

Shopping at places like Pico (one of Rod Donald’s legacies) and bulk vegetable etc markets, or the local dairy, I take my own containers and return egg cartons etc.
I agree that there is still an absolutely horrifying build up of overpackaging!

All plastic etc that I end up having to take home is washed and sorted as part of “doing the dishes” and goes in my bin from Hurunui Plastics (started by Andy Anderson et al from Amberley)… or is saved in bulk at this stage. (Not a totally tidy solution) Plastics into transport fuel is one of the aims there. (I can put you on to the people in the know).

My current efforts are in “time and motion” thinking, and how to encourage others (including”busy people”) to join in. I am cooperative but assertive at the checkout (and as more people are doing this the attitudes there are gradually changing.)

We gradually ended up where we are now. So (hopefully a lot faster than) gradually we HAVE TO turn the tide!

By the time the penny drops for the majority we need to have the “know how” and some good efficient solutions to make it easy for them!

eredwen

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Reject the toxic plague
http://www.energybulletin.net/3707.html

eredwen, I am interested to know what foodstuffs you do buy? I am unable to find much that is not over-packaged in plastic/single-use containers. This is made even worse by the knowledge from this thread that plastic containers are not actually recycled.

We are members of an organic shopping co-op where they buy in bulk and you take along your own containers and then fill them, and we certainly produce about a quarter of the waste of other houses in our street, but it seems impossible to get any better than that.

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AFAIK all food grade plastic must be virgin plastic for safety reasons. There are some multi-layer bottles with recycled plastic inside.

Here in the UK, plastic is not ‘recycled’ so it is burnt in an incinerator or landfilled I believe. I actually support the incineration process for three reasons:

‘Recycling’ is at the whim of the market, and more often than not it ends up being dumped in a landfill in the UK or in China (sad but true). Landfill is the worst process imaginable for the environment, and extremely wasteful in energy terms.

Incineration produces electricity from waste at high temperatures (much of which is paper and plastic anyway) which reduces demand for coal power stations and landfill space. It is also better on the environment because landfills give of large amounts of methane, a potent GHG.

And incineration also makes people more aware of the impacts of the throw-away society, because they are located near the towns/cities. You can visually see the chimney, whereas the shocking waste of landfill is hidden in a rural valley somewhere.

Interestingly, it is only since gas central heating came in that landfills have been necessary- apparently before that people would burn most household waste (paper etc) in their home fireplace.

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“REDUCE” “RECYCLE” “REUSE”

I’ve put out one rubbish bag in the last six months.

It really doesn’t take much extra time and effort to avoid most of the waste that my neighbours put out in their rubbish bags, recycling crates, or in the trailer loads they take to the dump, or the stuff that gets into the waste stream from the decisions they make.

However it does take some knowledge, forethought and organisation.

Being aware, realising that every little bit counts, and everyone’s behaviour including mine, counts … is the key.

This leads to organised shopping, taking ones own (or recycled) bags, avoiding one-use containers, refusing wrapping, choosing and buying products which have been manufactured (preferably locally) in a sustainable way and will last , and then only when needed (rather than “wanted”) simple composting, buying and selling (or giving away): “trade me”, giving to charities (but check out what they do with ithe stuff), “Supershed” in Christchurch … etc etc

It is a matter of attitude and realising and accepting that “what I do, and EVERYTHING I do (or don’t do) does matter”. We got ourselves into this mess. It follows that only we and not “they” can get us out of it.

Multiply this behaviour by several million and Aotearoa NZ could clean up its act fairly quickly!

“Pigs might fly”? … Kiwis used to do this within my lifetime, and it sure beats the alternative(s)!

eredwen

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I don’t think the next generation will be here.. the rate we our lot are going

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And on a related note, here’s a timely warning in todays Chch Press (not online) about the landfill in Kate Valley (50km north of Chch).
Designed as the “last” landfill needed for the region with a 35 year planned life, Kate Valley opened last year. With current rising levels of waste the landfill will be filled 10 years ahead of schedule, imposing severe economic and environmental costs of future generations of Cantabrians.
However, operator Transwaste are happy, raking in the extra cash with landfill fees at $75 per tonne.

More external costs that are not factored into current business decisions and profits. More warning signs that our environment is under stress are being ignored.

I hope the next generation have a well developed sense of humour and are not selfish and vindicative – otherwise our lot will be for the high jump.

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If I remember correctly, PET bottles often have a layer of recycled material inside two layers of new material. Reusing can cause the recycled material to contaminate the contents.

I also remember, as a kid, just going into shops and asking for water – getting a water bottle filled up. But you cannot do that now days.

I also remember, while cycling and walking around the South Island, being able to fill bottles of water from rivers at the side of the road. I would not want to do that now.

And – lastly – bottled water is Cambodia is about $2 /20 liter bottle, or 15US cents / 900 ml bottle. Better water is about 50US cents / 1.5 l bottle. Then you start getting into the Evian etc – which I have not bought.

BTW – we reuse the 20 l bottles

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when i was in NZ at Christmas, i couldn’t believe the price people paid for water. a 750ml bottle costs $2.50-$2.80. In Japan, a standard 500ml bottle is 105-120 yen ($1.30-$1.50). i find it unbelievable that things have got to this level. NZers seem to have a lot of money to throw away. PET bottles are a huge landfill problem now all over the world. i too buy them occasionally and keep refilling them, but there are lots of warnings about that they are not safe to be reused for too long. the best example is Japanese primary school pupils who all carry a thermos flask of water or barley water everyday in the summer. one decent sized thermos flask might set you back $40 but that’s only the equivalent of less than 15 bottles of water. get a water filter and reuse a flask for years!

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http://www.grist.org/advice/possessions/2004/05/04/mcrandle-bottled/index.html

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More bottled stupidity

What about all those idiots using water bottles, eh? As I said a few months back, “How dumb do you have to be to buy this stuff?” Oddly, the Green Party agrees:

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alistair

“- in France we use colossal quantities of them, but these days they are about 90% recycled (just about every municipality has recyclables collections, and people do it) ”

I’ll explode yet another myth about plastic bottles. The bottles that are collected are NOT recycled, they are DOWN cycled. Virtually all food grade containers are made from virgin resin (oil derived) due to contamination of the used containers.

See myth #2 at
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=335&journalID=57

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