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Sustainable living


wild_turkey

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9 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Expand on what you mean here.  Do you mean stuff like styrofoam and plastic packaging?  I think most of that gets filtered out, at least in Austin.  Not sure why it would be more harmful when it would end up in the landfill anyway.

The way most recycling works, is the "cleaner" the bundled recycling, post sort, the better the chance somebody will buy it.  Capturing Aluminum basically pays for everything else in the recycling process, especially since the Chinese no longer accept cardboard and paper.  So the price of the recaptured aluminum, to some degree, subsidizes everything else. 

With Plastics, only 1 & 2 are widely recycled (occasionally 5). so the first thing you want to do is never, ever, bother with 3,4, 6 or 7 (and probably 5).  Just don't. Throw that shit away. If the container isn't clearly marked, throw it away.  Separate the caps and toss them. Mixed materials are largely not recyclable.  Basically the more hourly workers have to hand sort that shit, likely the more expensive it is and the less somebody will want the post sort bale. Which means the landfill. 

Plastic bags are the fucking worse.  The absolutely gum up the machines in most facilities. Never, ever, ever, ever leave plastic bags in your single stream. Unless your community tells you to.  Most grocery stores will accept your bags.  But I encourage folks to get reusable bags and use them. Everytime. 

 

Edited by Bateshorn
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56 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

The way most recycling works, is the "cleaner" the bundled recycling, post sort, the better the chance somebody will buy it.  Capturing Aluminum basically pays for everything else in the recycling process, especially since the Chinese no longer accept cardboard and paper.  So the price of the recaptured aluminum, to some degree, subsidizes everything else. 

With Plastics, only 1 & 2 are widely recycled (occasionally 5). so the first thing you want to do is never, ever, bother with 3,4, 6 or 7 (and probably 5).  Just don't. Throw that shit away. If the container isn't clearly marked, throw it away.  Separate the caps and toss them. Mixed materials are largely not recyclable.  Basically the more hourly workers have to hand sort that shit, likely the more expensive it is and the less somebody will want the post sort bale. Which means the landfill. 

Plastic bags are the fucking worse.  The absolutely gum up the machines in most facilities. Never, ever, ever, ever leave plastic bags in your single stream. Unless your community tells you to.  Most grocery stores will accept your bags.  But I encourage folks to get reusable bags and use them. Everytime. 

 

Great info.  This should be plastered on top of the city recycling bins. 

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On 11/8/2023 at 10:53 PM, wild_turkey said:


Well that could be true, but to what extent do we know that to be true? I also think the concerns about battery production and mineral mining get a little bit overplayed by EV opponents, i.e. the O&G industry. However, there is little transparency on this point, so people are left to form their own opinions. If you have some good links, please share.

And FWIW, the Salton Sea in California apparently has enough lithium to produce millions of EVs. If that production becomes operational and gets scaled up, it could entirely eliminate our need to get lithium elsewhere.

 

On 11/8/2023 at 10:31 PM, Not that Bob said:

You hit on electric vehicles. It bugs me that people talk about electric vehicles as if they were charged by inexhaustible pixie dust. Power plants use resources and are messy. What's the balance?

ExxonMobil has entered the chat: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/13/exxon-to-produce-lithium-for-electric-vehicles-in-arkansas.html

Quote

 

Exxon Mobil aims to become a leading producer of lithium for electric vehicle batteries through a drilling operation the oil giant is launching in Arkansas, the company announced Monday.

Exxon earlier this year purchased 120,000 acres of a geological site in southern Arkansas called the Smackover Formation that is rich in lithium.

 

Interesting because Exxon isn't usually synonymous with sustainability or benevolent and voluntary ESG.

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49 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

 

ExxonMobil has entered the chat: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/13/exxon-to-produce-lithium-for-electric-vehicles-in-arkansas.html

Interesting because Exxon isn't usually synonymous with sustainability or benevolent and voluntary ESG.

Oil companies own quite a bit of IP on sustainability, the bulk of it in fact.   

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7 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Oil companies own quite a bit of IP on sustainability, the bulk of it in fact.   

Saying oil companies own IP on sustainability is like saying the Tobacco companies own[ed] the majority of consumer packaged food products. It's true (or at least, was in Big Tobacco's case in the 80/90's), but the influence and desired outcomes from their involvement are going to change the product.

The example above is that Exxon getting into the Lithium mining business is probably going to make EV's less sustainable in the net calculation of the value chain.

Hopefully not, but I guess we'll see.

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Well, and there is an entirely separate conversation about where we need to be putting our work on critical materials.  Lithium is important, because we will need a lot of it, but the two biggest lithium producers in the world are Chili and Australia, which are free trade partners. 

My bigger question is whether we really ran the life cycle math on whether an immediate transition to EV was the best move, versus a wholesale move into plug in hybrids. 

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58 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

And a lot clearer on plastic containers. 

My pet peeve is we get Pizza from a mom and pop. Their boxes say they are recyclable. City says no. so I guess there is no standard? 

They are compostable.  Any food stained paper can go in the green compost bins.  Assuming you are in Austin.

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2 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

That's another fun thing:  Industrial Compostable is very different from home compostable. 

Wait, man.....for all those paper products, it's like y'all never even heard of the Quick Cook grill!

 

It was endorsed and advertised by DICK FREAKIN' BUTKUS....although I can't find the ad that he was in.  I think it was on the beach.

ANYWAY.....don't try to recycle your pizza boxes and such, use them to grill delicious burgers that you can eat while wearing a neon swimsuit.

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22 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Wait, man.....for all those paper products, it's like y'all never even heard of the Quick Cook grill!

 

It was endorsed and advertised by DICK FREAKIN' BUTKUS....although I can't find the ad that he was in.  I think it was on the beach.

ANYWAY.....don't try to recycle your pizza boxes and such, use them to grill delicious burgers that you can eat while wearing a neon swimsuit.

Black Bikini at :15 is pretty nice to look at 

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18 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Wait, man.....for all those paper products, it's like y'all never even heard of the Quick Cook grill!

 

It was endorsed and advertised by DICK FREAKIN' BUTKUS....although I can't find the ad that he was in.  I think it was on the beach.

ANYWAY.....don't try to recycle your pizza boxes and such, use them to grill delicious burgers that you can eat while wearing a neon swimsuit.

Dumb question amnesty: Is it fine to eat food cooked over burning newspaper? No weirdness or carcinogens from the burnt ink and chemicals in the smoke or embers or anything? The idea seems less than ideal, compared to wood, but maybe it's on par with charcoal? As soon as I saw the selling point was "cook with burnt newspaper" I thought, what is this? Some kind of grill for hobos?

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46 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

Dumb question amnesty: Is it fine to eat food cooked over burning newspaper? No weirdness or carcinogens from the burnt ink and chemicals in the smoke or embers or anything? The idea seems less than ideal, compared to wood, but maybe it's on par with charcoal? As soon as I saw the selling point was "cook with burnt newspaper" I thought, what is this? Some kind of grill for hobos?

Hell, that's the question I had at the time.  But if you watch the very informative video, with high production values, you'll see that they don't recommend that you cook food directly on the grill.  Instead, you make it a foil "griddle," and cook the burgers on those.  So the newspaper is just fuel to heat up the foil griddle, you aren't cooking directly over the flame.

And yes, it's a total hobo stove.  But, since they advertised it with women in 80s bikinis and bitchin' sunglasses, it's actually cool.

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