Recycling - tin cans or trays

[JessUK98]

I feed my dog Wainwrights grain free wet food. I usually buy the multi-pack of 6 cans. Recently they've bumped the price up by £1 so I've been looking at the prices of their trays. Same food, same weight, but seems to be cheaper if you buy the multi-packs (single trays are more expensive).
My query though is which is better for recycling? I've always gone tin can, partly because it seems easier to feed half a can, stick a lid on it and pop back in the fridge. There is nothing on the website to say what the trays are made of, and if they can be recycled.
I'd rather not contribute to the ever increasing plastic problem by buying something that can't be recycled, or something that can be recycled but at a greater cost (although I guess the manufacturing process for cans may be more detrimental than for plastic?).

TIA,

Jess

[gryffron]

Interesting question. Just the sort of info recyclers should be asking. Although sadly we don't have nearly enough information to answer.
What are the trays made out of?
What is your local council's recycling policy for that material?

From various web sources:

Steel requires about 75 MJ/kg to produce. 6-12MJ/kg to recycle.
PET (the harder plastic usually used for trays and bottles) requires 119MJ/kg to produce. (Plastics are made from highly refined chemicals. A huge amount of energy is used to extract these chemicals from oil). Only about 1% of that to recycle .

BUT.
Recycling metals is easy. They can be filtered out of mixed waste by machines, and melting it down removes all the impurities.
Recycling plastic is hard. It requires a lot of manual labour to sort it into different types and clean it, before it can be shredded for reuse.
Manual labour is expensive. Energy is cheap. That's why most metal is recycled, but very little of our plastic. Much of the latter is incinerated. Which does recover a bit of energy, but nowhere near as much as was used to manufacture it.

Gryff

[Slarti]

Don't the cans have contact details on them?

Why not email or snailmail and ask them what the tray is?

Slarti


Edit: You've already got the website, doesn't that have a contact us link?

[swill453]

In a discussion with Michael Gove on Today on Radio 4 this morning, the presenter (Nick Robinson) said that whether you put your plastic in the bin or in the recycling, "most of it will end up buried in the ground or floating in the sea".

He gave no reference for this assertion but it went unchallenged on the programme.

Scott.

[Dod101]

I sympathise with the OP. Our local butcher over the last couple of years or so has started selling all his meat in black plastic trays and when I emailed the office to ask a) if they were recyclable and b) why they used them anyway, they told me that sadly they were 'currently not recyclable' and they were looking in to their use. The last couple of times I have been in they have not used trays. They wrap the meat in greaseproof type paper and place the meat in a plastic bag. Not sure if that is much better. Plastic bags can be recycled at large supermarkets but only if anyone can be bothered saving them up and taking them in. That seems to me to be the problem.

I suspect it is better to simply incinerate the trays.

Dod

[Watis]

I sympathise with the OP. Our local butcher over the last couple of years or so has started selling all his meat in black plastic trays and when I emailed the office to ask a) if they were recyclable and b) why they used them anyway, they told me that sadly they were 'currently not recyclable' and they were looking in to their use. The last couple of times I have been in they have not used trays. They wrap the meat in greaseproof type paper and place the meat in a plastic bag. Not sure if that is much better. Plastic bags can be recycled at large supermarkets but only if anyone can be bothered saving them up and taking them in. That seems to me to be the problem.

I suspect it is better to simply incinerate the trays.

Dod

Does anyone know why black plastic cannot be recycled?

Surely it can be used to make more black plastic things?

Although I do my bit to ensure as much of our waste is recycled, I can't help feeling that we're shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. It would be better if the stuff had never been made in the first place.

I detect a grand assumption in the media that all recycling is always good. But there are energy and other costs associated with recycling that partially (or wholly - who knows?) cancel out the benefits of recycling some materials.

I suspect that glass gives the best return over costs, followed by metals, then paper, and finally plastics.

Watis

[JessUK98]

I detect a grand assumption in the media that all recycling is always good. But there are energy and other costs associated with recycling that partially (or wholly - who knows?) cancel out the benefits of recycling some materials.

Therein lies the conundrum. The H&S guy that I used to work with said that recycling was pointless as to clean and reuse materials also costs money & resources so counters out any benefits. He was quite pessimistic in general though.

I think plastics are the worst. The amount of plastic bags and bottles you see littered about and stuck in trees is astounding (and the photos of the plastics in some parts of the ocean is shocking). I'm trying to cut down on the amount of plastics I buy, but it's very hard nowadays as literally everything perishable comes with some form of plastic. Even the cardboard juice cartons have a plastic lid! I think I'm also going to have to look into my poop bags. I buy what I thought were biodegradable poop bags, but then I read articles like these: https://www.rover.com/blog/truth-about- ... p-bags-in/ and http://www.dogster.com/doggie-style/dog ... een-review and I wonder if the bags I have *are* actually any better than your standard poop bags (at least the core in the roll is cardboard and not plastic...).

[swill453]

Having anything "biodegradable" is entirely pointless if it goes to landfill anyway.

Scott.

[didds]

Recycling plastic is hard. It requires a lot of manual labour to sort it into different types and clean it, before it can be shredded for reuse.

Our prisons our full to overflowing with (un)willing workers.

I always believed that the reason prison populations don't do "real work" is because it is seen to undercut private enterprise who don;t have access to such (in effect) cheap labour?

didds

[tjh290633]

Recycling plastic is hard. It requires a lot of manual labour to sort it into different types and clean it, before it can be shredded for reuse.

Our prisons our full to overflowing with (un)willing workers.

I always believed that the reason prison populations don't do "real work" is because it is seen to undercut private enterprise who don;t have access to such (in effect) cheap labour?

didds

A lady I know set up a charity which uses prisoners to refurbish bicycles and then give them to people who need them, both in the UK and abroad.

See http://www.margaretcareyfoundation.org. ... /about-us/ for details. Sorry about the music.

TJH

[swill453]

I look around my council area at all the pretty basic jobs that need doing and aren't done because the council have no funds and yet we have a huge supply of eye wateringly expensive labour sitting in our prisons.

I'm sure it's been thought of. The security and supervision requirements would likely make it by no means cost-effective.

Scott.

[gryffron]

Does anyone know why black plastic cannot be recycled?
Surely it can be used to make more black plastic things?
...
I suspect that glass gives the best return over costs, followed by metals, then paper, and finally plastics.

There are many different types of plastic materials. They cannot be mixed together or it ruins them. This need to retain segregation and avoid contamination, is what makes recycling plastics so difficult and expensive. The common and easily recognisable plastics it is just about feasible to collect enough together and recycle it. The less common or hybrid materials, it is never going to be feasible.

You suspicion is almost exactly the wrong way around.

Glass is a poor material to recycle. Melting down reused glass uses about half as much energy as creating it in the first place. And glass is very heavy so transporting it around to a recycling plant is expensive. e.g. All our green glass wine bottles get shipped back to France because we don't use any in this country. And sorting the colours is manual and expensive. If the driver was purely cost, you wouldn't bother.

Metals are much better. Cracking metal ores uses a lot of energy. Melting scrap uses much less. Anything from 5-25 times less, depending on the metal. In addition, metal gets purer (better) every time it is recycled. Metal is the only thing you can make an infallible energy AND economic case for recycling.

My previous post on this thread contained a link to plastic recycling. Which showed recycling plastic uses <1% of the energy of manufacture. Plastic manufacture is very energy intensive, due to the need to produce pure chemical naptha, ethylene, etc used in the process. Recycling doesn't even melt it. So all you have to do is collect it, sort it (the expensive bit), clean it thoroughly, and then shred it.

Paper is fairly easy to recycle. But the long wood molecules that make it useful degrade every time it is recycled. Recycled paper is much poorer quality than new, really only suitable for packaging or toilet paper (although that's still a lot of paper). Also, the process of growing trees is of course carbon negative. And they usually generate power from the biomass (bits of tree) they can't turn into paper. So paper production is pretty carbon efficient to start off with. I haven't seen a study, but It may well be the case that producing recycled paper generates more net CO2 than new! Although, still much less than burning it.

Also bear in mind, neither the environment, nor resources, nor energy, are the greatest drivers for recycling. The biggest driver for recycling in the UK is lack of landfill capacity to dump it in.

Gryff

[didds]

Have you never seen the Shawshank Redemption?

But yes, I agree, private enterprise should be offered the work first. Unless, of course, the local authorities cannot actually afford it?

I look around my council area at all the pretty basic jobs that need doing and aren't done because the council have no funds and yet we have a huge supply of eye wateringly expensive labour sitting in our prisons.

indeed. But once prisons start doing the work then if at any time the resources/funds became available for private enterprise to be inmvolvfed - they can;t because prisons are already doing it, at a "rate" that a private company cannot equal.

I'm not defending it - just suggesting what I believe is the "reasoning". Frankly getting prisoners to do _something_ other than sit in a cell 23 hours a day has to be better for all involved.

didds

[didds]

Also bear in mind, neither the environment, nor resources, nor energy, are the greatest drivers for recycling. The biggest driver for recycling in the UK is lack of landfill capacity to dump it in.

Gryff

And overall maybe we need to stop looking at recycling but actually more towards reducing and reusing? Which in terms of plastic at least may well mean reducing in the first place. eg stop putting fruit and vegetables in plastic trays, wrapped in plastic.

I've been wondering a bit about single use plastic bottles of late, prompted by the shock horror exposes of islands of plastic in out oceans etc.

I'm 55 but my memory isn't working too well - what DID we use for a drink when we were out and about 45 years ago? Thermos from home, glass bottles from home? In terms of large numbered gatherings (sport, music etc) its "impossible" for safety and security to take glass in today. What happened 45 years ago? Did people not take them in, did they not throw glass bottles at others? (allegedly)...

?



didds

[Watis]

Thank you for your detailed and informed response, gryffron.

So plastics are the real baddie, for various reasons. This perhaps explains the recent focus on the undesirability of plastic packaging.

And since plastic is ultimately made from oil, we should be doing whatever we can to minimise how much oil needs to used to make plastics while at the same time looking for alternatives - before the oil runs out.

Surprised to hear that glass is so poor to recycle, at least in energy terms. The alternative would be to reuse bottles – as was common in my younger days – but I guess the costs of collection, washing and sterilising for reuse as food containers is very high.

I’m surprised to read that disposable coffee cups cannot be easily recycled, because they comprise both paper and plastic. Yet, where I live, Tetra Brik packaging can be recycled, despite being made of paper, plastic - and metal!

Long before recycling was a thing (apart from returning bottles for reuse) someone I knew who worked in the paper industry forbade his wife from buying recycled paper products because he knew that the recycling process, involving bleaches and dyes as it does, has a higher environmental cost than producing new paper from trees.

And since trees can be grown in a generation or two, and tie up carbon while they grow, paper doesn’t seem to warrant being a high priority for recycling.

Watis

[swill453]

I'm 55 but my memory isn't working too well - what DID we use for a drink when we were out and about 45 years ago? Thermos from home, glass bottles from home?

Ha, we had a drink before we left the house, had another drink when we got home again and, shock horror, we didn't die of thirst by not imbibing liquid for 4 hours.

Scott.

[UncleEbenezer]

My local authority provides a single green bin for all recyclables, totally mixed up. I guess sorting happens at some depot. Which intuitively makes sense, 'cos it deals with the problem of confused consumers making mistakes (or just not bothering because it's all too complicated).

With plastics, I wonder how how we're affected by China's facilities closing to our waste? I'd guess right now we must have a surplus of supply over demand: a headache for local authorities, but a boon for recyclers here, and industries that consume recycled plastic waste.

[Dod101]

Therein lies the conundrum. The H&S guy that I used to work with said that recycling was pointless as to clean and reuse materials also costs money & resources so counters out any benefits. He was quite pessimistic in general though.

My opus seems to have got lost. Apologies if this is repetition.

I do not see this as a conundrum. The benefit is to rid the place of rubbish and recycling is only one way. Any economic benefit is almost beside the point but seems to have taken over. If plastic cannot be recycled I would rather see it simply incinerated because at least the heat generated can be used. Recycling was always supposed to be a by product not an end in itself.

Dod

[dspp]

Having anything "biodegradable" is entirely pointless if it goes to landfill anyway.

Scott.

No.

Cap the landfill with a membrane, let it biodegrade, stick in some plastic drainpipe and turn the methane that comes out into electricity via a converted diesel engine. That is what is done at landfill gas sites. So there is value in using biodegradable stuff even if it goes to landfill.

(landfill is not a fantastic idea mind you. Better is energy recovery. See Pennon etc.)

Also rubbish plastic blowing around the countryside has a very long life before it eventually breaks down. But biodegradable versions break down faster. That's another plus for them.

regards, dspp

[tjh290633]

On the subject of glass recycling, it is important to remember that any bottle glass can be recycled into green glass, while only clear glass cullet can be used to melt clear glass. The chemistry of amber glass means that it accept both amber and clear glass cullet.

Melting energy from raw materials takes about 2.2 Mbtu/ton while from 100% cullet it is only about 1.8 Mbtu/ton. On top of that you have the structural and exhaust gas losses from the combustion process.

All the green glass melted in the UK uses only recycled green glass as it's raw material, plus some small additives to help the melting process. It is the same in Switzerland, and the reason is the large amount of wine imported in green bottles. One of the savings from recycling glass is not having to use minerals in the batch, which saves the cost of mining and transport of sand and limestone, which would otherwise be needed. The other major ingredient is sodium carbonate, either mined or manufactured from sodium chloride, which is also the most expensive.

Another use for glass cullet, if it is not suitable for remelting, is as an abrasive or for use in road surfaces.

As a child in the wartime years, our lives were helped by the regular visits of the Corona Lorry, who brought bottles of lemonade, clear and yellow, and cherryade. We had a wooden crate holding four bottles with swing top corks, and Thomas & Evans's man would replace our empty bottles with full ones, the empty bottles then being taken back to Porth for reuse. The same principle was used by the brewers, whose beer bottles were often reused many times. This stopped when the industry moved to lightweight non-returnable bottles.

TJH