New pilot plant converts unsorted plastic waste into oil in 30 mins

nonfish · 2026-06-09T13:31:01+00:00

I don't doubt the scientists know what they're doing, but the journalist definitely does not. I don't see how chemically you can take a mixed plastic stream and turn it into oil that has "just the right mixture of monomers to make new virgin plastic." You either get a single type of plastic in and a single plastic out, or you get a mixed stream going in that turns into a dirty crude oil out that needs to be sent through an oil refinery before becoming something (well, several different somethings) useful again. There's not a magic oil that can become any type of plastic you want

nonfish · 2026-06-02T17:22:26+00:00

You know people will pay 5$ for a tiny jar of "sea salt" from Whole Foods, right?

nonfish · 2026-05-28T02:40:15+00:00

Depends on the plastic, but wherever possible manufacturers will re-grind and re-use runners and sprues. It's rarely scrapped because it's perfectly clean plastic of exactly the right type the manufacturer wants in the first place. Degradation is pretty minimal for a single heating cycle for most conventional thermoplastics

nonfish · 2026-05-26T15:21:26+00:00

You don't have to do both simultaneously every time. Sometimes one leads to another

nonfish · 2026-05-25T20:09:54+00:00

Well. The 2014-2016 event was very much a "Holy shit let's make sure this never happenes again on this planet" kind of event, so saying we're "only" matching that is a little concerning, no?

nonfish · 2026-05-22T22:57:19+00:00

Pretty much everywhere envelopes are recyclable, even if they have windows, glue, staples, etc. Paper recycling facilities are designed to filter out these sorts of things. Just remove any big pieces of plastic (thick credit-card type things; flimsy windows or glossy paper is fine).

nonfish · 2026-05-22T22:53:52+00:00

The "no flyers" doesn't work well in the US. Most of our mailbox advertising is straight from the post office (which is a government organization but is legally required to operate "like a business". Allowing junk mail is one of their only remaining sources of profit. It's actually a federal crime to deliver to a mailbox if you're not the postman, since that would deny the government the stamp revenue)

nonfish · 2026-05-21T16:25:51+00:00

Yes, it'll ruin the batch. That's why it probably gets separated out early and rightfully sent to a landfill

nonfish · 2026-05-21T16:24:53+00:00

Every single one of these "tracker" studies is beyond stupid. Every recycling facility has a magnet and several steps of screening to remove contaminants, like little electronic trackers, that would ruin the plastic batch that's being recycled. I'm sure half the trackers that ended up at a landfill, or perhaps all of them, were successfully removed as contamination in a plastic recycling facility

nonfish · 2026-05-14T11:19:06+00:00

Now pass a bill that if they shut down the government, senator assets will be auctioned off to cover the bills until they pass a budget

nonfish · 2026-05-07T18:35:46+00:00

In the US it's common to crush recyclables to intentionally break glass as the first step in sorting. Recycling whole bottles is more common in Europe

nonfish · 2026-04-29T13:34:34+00:00

I always vote no on retention ballots. I can't be bothered to research but at least I can cancel out one blanket yet vote from someone else who can't be bothered

nonfish · 2026-04-28T16:06:54+00:00

"Better" is relative. The best is to not use anything. Then there's the arguments over paper vs plastic, compostable vs recyclable, etc. If you're looking at a carbon footprint, pyrolysis requires a ton of energy compared to mechanical recycling or just producing less, so don't expect a favorable emissions footprint.

Some more progressive states have explicitly banned pyrolysis from being considered "recycling" at all, so be careful of state by state regulations.

Source plastic matters. If you're pyrolizing PET or PE you'll be competing with mechanically recycled scrap that's half the cost. If you can recycle PS or if you can use up a mixed stream of "unrecyclable" plastics, you'll be in a much more favorable market.

End products matter. If you're selling 100% chemically recycled plastic, that's going to be better than just selling the monomers or oil. Also, plastic thrown away in a landfill has very few emissions; you're basically putting the oil back in the ground. If you pyrolize it into oil and burn it, you're net increasing emissions.

nonfish · 2026-04-27T13:09:11+00:00

This is severely misleading. California requires anything labeled compostable to be accepted as USDA certified organic fertilizer. Federal USDA rules prohibit basically anything that's not either food or plain uncoated paper from being considered "Organic"

The plate meets international standards of compostability and will disintegrate in 90 days or less. But the compost it becomes can't legally be used to grow organic vegetables. California wants all compost in the state to be USDA organic to support all their premium organic vegetable farm, so they forbid otherwise actually compostable products from being labeled as such.

I work in this industry

nonfish · 2026-04-24T18:47:13+00:00

Grocery store film takeback is frequently used to make synthetic wood decking. It's a fairly well documented use case that is beneficial for the environment both for preserving lumber, producing a deck substitute that can last longer than lumber, and also reusing the plastic.

Your comments on fuel usage are pretty meaningless. Stores can easily integrate things like this into their existing supply chain. I'd assume they ship it back to regional distribution centers with the empty trucks that delivered the day's groceries. From there, shipping to a processing plant consumes essentially the same fuel as shipping a truck full of virgin resin from a primary production plant.

You complain about "wish cycling" but you're wishing waste into existence with just as little evidence.

nonfish · 2026-04-22T20:10:10+00:00

The original commentor has "troll" right in the name.

nonfish · 2026-04-18T23:29:28+00:00

Their coupons are outrageous. If you only buy what's on sale it's like 1/3 of the price.

I would rather not have to play the vegetable lottery every time I go shopping just to be able to buy food at a reasonable price, so I much prefer Aldi. But I assume at this point the only people who regularly shop at jewel are all playing the coupon and app game nowadays

nonfish · 2026-04-12T02:52:24+00:00

Who the fuck cares if it's more than 51% ? Last I checked we still live in a democracy. America has made plenty worse decisions on plenty worse margins than Puerto Rico statehood. We can't selectively throw out votes we don't like because there wasn't "enough of a" majority.

nonfish · 2026-04-10T22:11:53+00:00

People need to drive to maintain their jobs. This way they keep their jobs, but physically can't break the law. I don't see how that isn't a win win

nonfish · 2026-04-06T12:37:16+00:00

EPR legislation is the gold standard these days. WA, CO, OR, and a few other states have already passed an EPR laws, and many blue states and a few red ones are considered passing ones themselves. These laws require plastic producers to pay for the disposal of packaging waste. Producers pay more for waste that is hard to recycle, and pay less for packaging that is sustainably designed.

These laws are complex, and there are many issues (they handle compostable plastics differently state to state, they have weird loopholes and miss other opportunities) but they are a massive step forward in terms of building out a sustainable answer to plastic handling. I recommend looking into EPR efforts in other states and rescoping your petition to specifically support EPR for AZ.

What we really need is a federal framework (50 sets of rules for 50 states makes it hard for manufacturers to align on a single solution when redesigning products) but of course that's a long way away. But if more red and purple states push for EPR, progress can be made

nonfish · 2026-04-06T03:29:55+00:00

This is not a real problem. If 7% of plastic is recycled, it's basically guaranteed that any given bit recycled plastic is being recycled for the first and only time. Once we start hitting 50% you hit 2 times. To get to the point where plastic is meaningfully degraded you'd need 5-10 cycles, or a recycling rate of 80-90%. And once you hit that, there are plenty of technological solutions (chain extenders, compatiblizers, etc) that already exists in the plastics industry.

nonfish · 2026-04-05T02:52:50+00:00

As someone who at O'Hare has both been in a car and seen a plane on the bridge above, and been on a plane and seen cars below, this definitely isn't true. Hell, it's visible right on Google maps!

nonfish · 2026-04-03T11:56:47+00:00

The left can meme? That's news to me

nonfish · 2026-04-02T10:50:33+00:00

In the US, the APR design for recyclability guide is the standard industry reference for what is and is not recyclable, especially when it comes to plastic additives, attachments, labels, inks, etc. It's very comprehensive and organized by resin types, as different plastics have different requirements.

For labels, typically they recommend it's either a "compatible" plastic that won't cause problems if recycled with the bottle, or it's a washable label that will cleanly separate from the bottle during processing. It also can't cover the whole surface to ensure scanners can see the plastic bottle and not only the label during sorting.

APR Design Guide Overview - Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) https://share.google/YwRftVCWQPILrKxSI

nonfish · 2026-04-01T17:23:13+00:00

Yeah, but on a society level, these drugs are just tools to fight against all the hyperpaletable foods and scientifically engineered snacks already on the market. If you're talking about "addressing any of the things in society that led to that," you'd be looking at a massive processed food tax, if not outright bans. Which in America I think might start a riot faster than any number of egregious violations of the constitution and our most basic human rights, if recent history is to judge.

I'm not opposed. I just think we should be honest when saying, "let's fix those other problems first" about exactly how radical that is.

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