Inexpensive hull construction materials

Not only does it need to be transported,
it needs to be cleaned, sorted, scrutinized and moved again,
to a processing plant, sometimes an ocean away.

Sometimes the barges get swamped and roll over losing the entire load.

The overall footprint is a loss, not a gain.

Recycling doesn't work but people think it does and that makes them feel good.

Don't criticize what makes people feel good, especially if it's wrong.

 

Steel recycling has been done for quite awhile now. Seems to work just fine. Operators got it to scale by making people bring in minimum quantities for compensation. You can't tell me mining iron ore from the ground and smelting it and shipping taconite around the world is more efficient. You can tell me virgin materials have different uses. We have a rebar factory and they have old steel compacted as a raw input. You can see car blocks outside their plant when you drive by...

Broadbrushing that recycling doesn't work is the same broadbrush as recycling is a panacea.

And reducing waste may not be recycling, but careful thought about waste reduction helps. The Andersen Window Corporation used to throw out a lot of waste. One of the streams was wood and vinyl combined. That waste can be made into a wood/vinyl mix. But it takes quite a bit of work. The material must be ground; then vibration separated; then ground again. Then recombined along with virgin materials. Burning it is not allowed. Landfilling everything has a high cost, but it seems like it vanishes until you look at the numbers and measure them in daily tons of vinyl and wood.

They used to throw out a lot of window parts. The parts could be cut down and remade shorter; the equipment per part cost millions, but they looked firther than a typical 18 month payback and have been recovering parts for 25 years now at a value of $1000 a day give or take. Call it 5 million bux. More than the cost of the equipment for sure. No other costs but some tooling.

 

Do you think it sounded that way because the guy interviewed was selling a product that cleans glass to high purity?

 

Or people who are too lazy to recycle choose to believe it doesn't work to justify their laziness.

 

Lol.
You guys crack me up.
Carry on.

 

I'd like to say, I think being able to recycle items and have a net reduction in pollution and waste would be great.