Thank you so much for this video! I've always been insanely curious about recycling and whether or not my plastic is actually being recycled. Learning about MRF's is really interesting, especially the infrared light readers. That is amazing! I really want to support sci-show for videos like this, which are so valuable to me.
I recycle paper. 1.I tear paper into tiny pieces and soak it for 1 hour in water 2.I pound it in a wooden mortar and pestle.Then,mix it with 5 parts water. 3.I use a mould and deckle to scoop a sheet of fibers.Then,I press the sheet against moist cloth,transferring it to the cloth. 4.I press everything with heavy books and...myself.I step on the stack,occasionally falling off.Then,I just leave it for 30 minutes.Then,I hang the sheets for hours. We can all recyclen!Every contribution you made.
Has Scishow ever made a linguistics video?If none,they will definitely make one in the future,since they are about general science. Xidnaf is my main linguistics source.You answerast me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm sure I'm not the only person who asked ,"what Really happens" to recycled stuff, But since I asked only recently, I'm gratified that it was answered so quickly & that I was alerted to the airing of the episode right away! Loved every minute of it! Go Hank Green!
I was really shocked when I heard that they don't have pledge on cans and glass bottles in US / some EU countries. In Finland you get 15 cents for a can/glass bottle. 20 cents for a 0,5L plastic bottle and 40 cents for 1,5L bottle ! That is great because I think that is the way to recycle bottles! and if you buy a 0,5L Pepsi for 2,0€ and you return it you have bought it only for 1,8€ what is always nice =D and if you buy 10 you can take one for free
***** That's really surprising. Even up here in Canada we have what we call "deposit" that you pay on recyclables and can return to receive the deposit back. It's even become common for people not to throw out their cans/bottles in the trash or recycle bin and instead choose to place them on the ground so homeless people can salvage them and get money.
Someone once told me the number in the bottom was how many times it could be recycled and I've always thought that was a bunch of bull crap so thanks for clearing that up
Very thorough!! It's unfortunate that polystyrene-foam recycling is so rare. We used to have a drop-off location a few cities over, but the building burnt down... and it's a lower-income area, so the chances of it being rebuilt are slim.
BattousaiHBr The sorting design is amazing! Each step requires using a unique property of the kind of material it sorts that isn't shared by any other material in the process. Paper is uniquely amorphous and lightweight Steel is uniquely easily magnetized Glass is heavier than aluminium and plastic Aluminium is then able to be magnitized via induction And plastic, as ever remains relatively inert and so ends up being the last out It kind of begs the question though: how do you sort paper out using its lightness when you have something like a phone book go through?
Recycling plants really need to up their game when it comes to the number of things that should be recyclable, but aren't because of the trouble to recycle them. Take crisp packets which are very common; they're made of plastic and aluminium but since they are stuck together, almost all places do not recycle them.
Dixavd The problem is that recycling is based on simple economics. Higher cost to separate than you get from the materials? It ends up in the landfill. It sucks, and breaks my heart, but everything is based on markets.
Nolan Thiessen What I'm saying is we need a huge innovative wave to hit the field and make more complex recycling implementation viable. I'm definitely aware that industry (and in many cases, state/governmental) bodies are just doing the most they can that is still economically viable - but I think we need to have more of a push, a greater incentive, to get those things figured out.
Nolan Thiessen That'd be a big reason as to why places where recycling is substantial and expanded more often than not have a system of subsidies or government provision in place. The market could pick up in decades to come when certain resources become rarer, but it'll be better in the long-run if we recycle more as there'll be more resources (and higher supply = lower prices) (Unless the total energy input required is more than the materials saved in some notional value, perhaps some kind of shadow pricing, but I assume/hope that this isn't the case).
Dixavd Yeah, and we should really just have a wave of new innovation wipe out cancer, and heart disease, and racism, and obesity, and... Oh wait, that's not how that works and simply ranting that we should find a better way isn't a valid point? Oops.
seigeengine Way to be a jerk about it. And actually yes that's exactly how economical innovation occurs. We are talking about engineering, social and industrial implementation of known ideas not whole new treatments. As an example, we are in a creative swing in the production and use of energy right now. The reason is because of economic incentive and mass world-wide power-houses striving for more efficient systems. The understanding of energy creation, transportation, use and reuse are well documented - the amazing work is being done at taking advantage of that. There is no reason why we can't be in the same one with material production, transportation, use, and reuse as well. This is a completely different problem to those you mentioned (either because how to go fix things are unknown - such as cancer or heart disease - or the problem is a social or cultural one - such as racism). Your argument is just flat-out wrong. We see time and time again spearheaded work from hundreds of countries leading to a wave of innovation branching from well-understood bases and flourishing into application that changed the world. We saw this with the architecture of the Rennaissance and then again in the 19th and 20th century. We a saw it with the push into space. We saw it with the push into computers and the internet. We see it today with energy and further space exploration. Recycling is just another one of those scenarios.
Cool video! Here in Germany we take recycling kinda serious. Okay, given that -sometimes it sucks as you really get pissed off by separating all the waste. Then again in some bright moments it just all makes sense and I think of the future generations who might be thankful someday that their ancestors did not just throw everything they had into the landscape.
bruce wayne That's pretty horribad. Is it because there isn't a recycling facility anywhere near the school, or are they just lazy/underpaid/doesn't care? What a gigantic waste.
Ai well the problem is that there is only one dumpster so I guess the janitor has no choice. But it's like all those years of recycling all my paper was just a big fat waste!
bruce wayne Alot of retail grocery stores also do this, they won't admit that they do but lazy ass managers do it all of the time, I see it with my own eyes constantly.
You usually have to pay a service fee to have recyclables picked up.(not in all places though) Not that big of a surprise business don't bother with it.
In hope that maybe you missed something or some random hope that maybe a new food product will appear even though you've already checked the fridge and pantry 4 times in the past half hour and nothing's changed
Annaie1234 Lol. The faux hope that there's something left. Opening the fridge "please let there be chocolate cake please." Fridge opened "darn it!!" 5 minutes later "please let there be chocolat..."
40% of everything you put into a recycling bin gets thrown in a landfill regardless of recyclability. The only thing recycling actually works on is aluminum cans and glass. Everything else deemed recyclable requires a lot of energy to break them down, reform them, and distribute them back into the world which ends up being more harmful to the environment than a landfill that's been covered in soil would ever be.
The recycling bins at my local town all go to the landfill when it comes to emptying the bins. Even glass gets the landfill treatment. Some small towns don't have the capacity to recycle when they're in the middle of no where. Transportation would be too expensive at that point in Canada. And honestly, I think most citizens are quite happy with only thinking they're making a difference rather than actually checking too see whether they're making a difference. Ignorance is bliss.
My life would feel so weird without black and green bins, yellow bags and color coded public glass containers. How do people live without getting to throw glass jars through a hole and listen to it smash inside the container?
UrbanTarzan Duh Some places do and some don't but the trucks it seems don't always. So at the end of the day it might just go into the same bin in the truck.
UrbanTarzan Duh It's just cheaper to make you do some of the recycling facility job. There is no technical reason to separate recycling from trash even - it can be done in the factory - but it is cheaper if some of the burden gets moved to consumer
EnTerr yeh but the burden on the consumer to put something in seperate bins is probably a lot less than seperating it after it is all been thrown together.
This was a fun watch. I work at a paper recycling plant and let me tell you, that's just the very basic story. Realistically recycling paper is a lot more involved than that.
Another odd difference between English and American language that no one seems to notice: we just call it Polystyrene. Although I imagine that Styrofoam was/is a brand name more than anything, correct me if I'm wrong.
Tom SDM You're correct, Styrofoam is a trademarked brand name. But if it wasn't, we'd just call it foam or something very general. Interesting that you call it Polystyrene(good thing). In general speech do you differentiate different plastics and such(PET, PVC, Polystyrene) or do you just call it all plastic? Just curious.
Adenoid Hynkel We just say plastic most of the time, sometimes you'll hear polythene or acetate. People tend to say pvc piping instead of plastic piping i think.
Adenoid Hynkel I think in europe, french speaking people refer to PET plastic as PET (like pet in english), so yes some nations differentiate plastics. I know that in australia most people are aware that BPA free plastic is better for your health and as such, it's marked on quite a few water bottles.
Adenoid Hynkel Here in Britain we tend to call everything plastic except for polystyrene and PVC (sometimes). You'll also often hear people referring to plastic lunchboxes as a 'Tupperware box', which again is actually just a trademark but has become synonymous with the material.
Tom SDM here is the problem: calling polystyrene foam just "polystyrene" is wrong! Because CD cases, yogurt cups, disposable razors, plastic cutlery - they are all made from polystyrene too - the non-foam variety.
DUDE. I wish I could take recycling for granted! My trash company is VERY selective about what recycling it takes, and does NOT accept paper/cardboard or plastic #3+. I have to drive 5 miles to recycle paper. I only go 1x per month so hopefully the gas emissions aren't offsetting the benefit. Also, the different separation processes are fascinating and creative and cool. Thank goodness for engineers who come up with this stuff. I very seriously wondered how this stuff was sorted on the back end, and it indeed takes as much creativity as I thought it would. But more creativity than I am myself capable of. (I think.) From the simple air-gust technology to (HOLY CRAP) infrared light sensing technology, I am amazed and so grateful to the people who figure this stuff out. I have also heard that aluminum is THE most recyclable thing on earth, with 100% of it being usable for future thingies, and with no degradation it is reusable forever. This is why I spend extra $ to buy my fizzy water in cans instead of bottles, because while neither plastic nor aluminum are technically "renewable", the aluminum is at least reusable more times.
Andrew Ng Tetrapak is not separated. Instead, some processing plants have a separate recycling process designed for them. Up until recently, they weren't really recyclable, but nowadays I hear they are ground up, heated and compressed into building blocks or tiles.
So based on what Julia said about it being possible to recycle them in Australia, I looked it up and found that there is a way, but the packaging saying not because "In order for any packaging to be able to feature the recycle symbol, recycling of that packaging must be available to a majority of households." And availability to recycle this is pretty scarce. So the process of separating is: 1. mixed with water in a giant blender, this separates out the paper. 2. the plastic and aluminium and left together and used as a material 'poly/al mix' www.earth911.com/news/recycling-mystery-milk-and-juice-cartons/
Kriso de la Erikejo in parts of the us, this is expected. In Virginia, I drive my recycling to a set of several town bins. Each bin is either glass, plastic, metal, etc. In New York, we brought plastic bottles to collection centers to get $0.05/bottle and everything else went to the street bins.
I think the Us system of recycling is sufficient, we just need more people that actually recycles. I do know some of the trash companies actually sift through the trash for items that can be recycled they charge more I believe and they sell the recycled material to make a profit.
Some cities do recycle styrofoam, but it really depends on what it was used for. Recycling has to be clean and have very little residue, esp from food and medical products. If you live in any of these cities in the US, this site could help you determine what to do: www.recyclebycity.com/los-angeles/guide It's harder for some cities mainly due to the cost of recycling styrofoam. But it is very possible
Awhile ago the news interviewed a place near Vancouver BC that was recycling styrofoam. They would melt it down with some chemicals and reform it into insulating blocks for houses. What happened to the company I never heard
I'm wondering about the energy efficiency of plastics and paper recycling. Metals seem obviously efficient. Is there a net energy (and pollution) savings with plastics and paper? If not, it's just a feel good exercise.
nowthis news made a video about recycling and said in the video to make ONE aluminium can from new materials (mined from nature which is finite) takes the same amount of energy to make TWENTY cans from old aluminium cans crazy how much more productive it is to make things using recycled materials
So paper is in theory forever recyclable? I mean new paper recycled into newspaper, then recycled into toilet paper, then recycled again into another product and so on. Will the pulp itself be weakened or disintegrate in any way through countless recycling process?
Nico Mariño If my memory does not fail me, I think it comes a time when the Cellulose fiber stop creating a weave. turning into a gooey mess. Not quite what you want from paper.
Nico Mariño And you're a pedantic fuck more interested in being technically correct than contextually. Kindly fuck off. I'm not dealing with you again.
In Norway we have like 5 recycle bins for all kinds of stuff. Wet organic (Food), paper and cardboard, metal and glass, plastic and misc. Bottles are recycled at stores because you get a small amount of money back for it. From people having visited my apartment, many aren't as good at the whole recycling thing as I became. But at least we have something here.
Dream Warden We have lots of recycling, a few cities over from me won't pick up your trash without recyclables. And landfills, where else should we put trash, the oceans?
Dream Warden "next best thing, burn it for power" and release a ton of pollution, never mind other toxic compounds into the atmosphere? Yeah, totally a great solution.
I help run a summer camp getting girls excited about engineering (specifically Materials Science and Engineering) and I am doing a recycling and sustainability module next week. Cannot wait to show the girls this video!
Do you remember that episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit 'Recycling' where they went on to basically say that recycling (with the exception of aluminium) is ultimately bad for the environment (due to the expense and by-products of the recycling process)? I wonder what SciShow would make of it.
A lot of these processes are very similar to my work where we recycle the ash from incinerators. Because every thing has been burned by this point we extract the metals and leave the glass and old broken plates with the ash to form an aggregate for the construction industry. For a job based around burn bin bags its actually really interesting!
4:39 The side effect of this reaction is a skunky smell and some carbon monoxide; generally, not what you're lookin' for in a beer." Unless, of course, you're cracking open a Bud Light, of course, in which case the flavour would be enhanced to the point of drinkability.
Here's a neat thing you can do at home with number 6 plastic: Cut it into shapes and color with permanent marker then bake in a 200 degree oven for a about 10 minutes. Shrinky-dinks! Many take-out containers with clear lids are made of #6 plastic and a lot of times your local grocery store will give you a few if you ask nicely.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 oh. Napalm, what a wonderful product to destroy your enemies. Just what the world needs. More wars, more killing. That's sick and shameful.
@@pourquoipas2673 Well, while already incinerating ones enemies in to greenhouse gases, one should be more conscious about ecological footprint and at least use napalm made out of partially recyclable materials. One should have pay attention to feelings of public opinion and the values it expresses, apparently nowadays we're preoccupied about ecology.
Interesting fact, making aluminium from bauxite is a very energy demanding process, however recycling is not. It takes about 15000 kWh to make a tone of aluminium from bauxite. Recycling aluminium only takes about 10% or less of energy needed to produce new aluminium.
NPR recently had a story asking if all recycling was equal and the conclusion was that no, recycling some materials actually took more energy that simply making them. I'm sure the NPR crowd was throwing their Bernie buttons and stomping their birkenstocks but it made sense. Recycling glass and plastic actually took more energy that making them from scratch. Metals and paper were the two recycling stars. Plastics can be made effortlessly with little material as can glass. (I still drop it all in the recycling bag out of habit.)
+smb123211 It is also NOT included in the factors contributing to global warming which is a deception also. This is typical governmental impotence, it is promoted with public funds and total disclosure does not exist. thanks for the post.
Greg Smith Here's the link. I recycle and compost (have a farm) but the story was about carbon expended in the process. hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/10/14/economist-rethink-how-we-recycle
Hey, very interesting video, I got a question though, since how you explained almost everything that we throw away gets recycled someway, why are there these mountains of trash that they just bury and keep it there? Why not just recycle it all? SciShow
***** for the same reason the mountains of trash are not burned to produce electricity: Money. I was wondering the same. Turns out it is not economically "practical" to recycle or incinerate garbage, even as pilot high-tech factories to do both have been tried (for incineration a high-temperature plasma burner is needed to break down hazardous volatile products). Sadly, it is cheaper to just burry refuse in huge piles rather than sort it out - as long as land is cheap. In countries who cannot afford such waste of space though, they are building full recycling/incineration facilities.
A little expansion on that last point about wearing recycled plastic: It'll be PET that becomes clothing. PET and polyester are two different names for the same substance.
How recycling works: Poorly, unfortunately. Except for in the case of steel cans, glass, and aluminum, a lot of recycled goods end up creating a weird mass of additional nasty stuff(Check out what recyled paper creates as a biowaste product someday, all that ink can't be recycled). Even Glass is a problem, as it requires really, really hot crucibles. In the event of a power outage when those crucibles shut down? The glass fuses, can't be re-melted again because of the way it melts, and the crucible is suddenly useless.
TacComControl But recycled glass is easier to melt than new glass, because like he said, all the chemicals that need to go into it are already mixed. But ya to remelt a full crucible of solid glass would require a ridiculous amount of heat in the even of a power outage.
Torbox1 a full crucible of glass should be easy to remelt unfortunately it would be a lot of work and would probably ruin the original crucible since it would require breaking the now fused glass into small bits again which would probably require destroying the crucible it is stuck in.
TacComControl Why can't it be re-melted again? And you know, it's almost like massive industries that have been around for long periods should have figured out and implemented solutions to these problems, like a backup power source to power the plant sufficiently to continue operations until they can safely shut down and not wreck their shit.
seigeengine Indeed, many places like that have Diesel engines as backup in case the main power goes out, the Diesel engines are often of the caliber used in large ships, so they can easily power a large recycling plant for long enough to shut it all down safely.
Unfortunate side note by the way. I worked a temp job in a material reclaiming facility that sorted city recycling in Portland at one point. All that sorting? Doesn't matter, it all ends up on the same conveyor. Workers are paid less than 10 bucks per hour to bend over the conveyor and separate out what can or can't be recycled. Paper and plastic products that have been in contact with food? Tossed to the garbage. Oil containers? Garbage. Laminated paper or paper card? Trash. Non-corrugated cardboard? Landfill'd. Side note, if oil got on the conveyor? We were instructed to trash Everything until it was gone. Seriously, we turned way more to the landfills than we did to the bailer there. And we aren't alone. Some investigation into similar facilities all over the US show similar problems and rates of refusal.
Ironically, it takes a crap ton of power to recycle just about anything besides metal and glass. Think of how much gas the trucks need, how much power the plants need, how much power the production of the recycling chems take... Recycling is probably worse for the environment then just landfilling everything and using the waste gasses to generate more electric power.
Why do we even bother to recycle glass? Glass is actually so cheap to make and form that recycled glass costs _more_ than normal glass. Only through grants and tax breaks and such can recycling glass actually be financially solvent. Also, we may as well just trash glass anyways, because it will just get ground up into sand and then compressed into rock like the rock it came out of.
PitaJ And how long will it take to break down? We are already having too much waste at landfills all over world, adding additional one would only make things even worse for the enviroment.
Fighting_Hussar Why does it need to break down. Glass is essentially rock in the first place. It isn't toxic and doesn't need to break down. If you must, crush it up, clean it, and then throw it in the ocean or a river, and it will end up somewhere as sand.
PitaJ Because they wouldn't waste the time to crush glass into sand and then put it in it's own pit. They would just throw it straight into landfills and take up more space.
The eddy currents aren't due to the strength of the magnetic field but due to the changing magnetic field. The changing magnetic field generates a current (like in a generator), which is what creates the opposing magnetic field that send the cans flying.
If your team hasn't already addressed this, perhaps you can do an episode on Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and their conceivable origins along with the potential uses if we could fully harness the immense amount of energy inherent from them. Been watching Hank and his team for a while now and they have done a phenomenal job bringing science and logic back to the masses while simultaneously fighting this Anti-Science movement with tooth and nail. Keep at it guys. You have an army of nerds who have your back.
I wish Hank had said which streams are "down cycled" and which continue to be as valuable as the original. Paper, for example, can only be recycled a limited number of times but I believe aluminum can be recycled forever.
I really wish he had gone into more detail on this. I feel like he kept it just above the surface of where things became really interesting pretty much the whole video.
In Sweden, most people sort their waste themselves and all neighbourhoods have recycling stations where you throw everything in different containers. We're really specific as well, there's hard plastic, soft plastic, clear glass, coloured glass, newspapers and magazines, cardboard, and metals. And like someone previously mentioned, you can go and trade in most bottles for a small amount of money. That being said, it was really weird for me to watch this because i was just thinking "Why don't you just sort it yourself before?!"
That's pronounced: "ter-eff-THAL-ate". My father worked at Amoco Chemicals in Channahon, IL between 1958-1969, where one of the products made was terephthalic acid; among other ingredients, terephthalate is added in the manufacturing of vehicle tires. Phthalates in general make plastics softer and less brittle.
I watched a show on recycling and the lady said that she lived in Montana and if some one wanted to recycle they would have to drive into Wyoming (hundreds of miles) to do it. It would use more energy to recycle than the energy saved.
Good concise explanation of it all. Nice to see an American take on things. Still, interesting debates on this side of the Atlantic about the effect of MRF-based systems on quality, particularly when glass and paper are collected together in compacting vehicles.
Thank you so much for this video! I've always been insanely curious about recycling and whether or not my plastic is actually being recycled. Learning about MRF's is really interesting, especially the infrared light readers. That is amazing! I really want to support sci-show for videos like this, which are so valuable to me.
A whole course summed up as 9 minutes video. I'm mining and resource recycling engineer.
please my name is salim and interested
I'll take you guys up on that 25-part series on The Martian.
I recycle paper.
1.I tear paper into tiny pieces and soak it for 1 hour in water
2.I pound it in a wooden mortar and pestle.Then,mix it with 5 parts water.
3.I use a mould and deckle to scoop a sheet of fibers.Then,I press the sheet against moist cloth,transferring it to the cloth.
4.I press everything with heavy books and...myself.I step on the stack,occasionally falling off.Then,I just leave it for 30 minutes.Then,I hang the sheets for hours.
We can all recyclen!Every contribution you made.
Has Scishow ever made a linguistics video?If none,they will definitely make one in the future,since they are about general science.
Xidnaf is my main linguistics source.You answerast me.
This was really good, I'd love to see more videos about public works. A "behind the scenes" for a city would be really interesting!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm sure I'm not the only person who asked ,"what Really happens" to recycled stuff,
But since I asked only recently, I'm gratified that it was answered so quickly & that I was alerted to the airing of the episode right away! Loved every minute of it! Go Hank Green!
I was really shocked when I heard that they don't have pledge on cans and glass bottles in US / some EU countries. In Finland you get 15 cents for a can/glass bottle. 20 cents for a 0,5L plastic bottle and 40 cents for 1,5L bottle ! That is great because I think that is the way to recycle bottles! and if you buy a 0,5L Pepsi for 2,0€ and you return it you have bought it only for 1,8€ what is always nice =D and if you buy 10 you can take one for free
Ours is more like 1 cent (or 5 cent) in like 2-3 states
A lot of people don't recycle but I do yay planet
Lydia Pogoda Well that is a start! It is really important !
***** That's really surprising. Even up here in Canada we have what we call "deposit" that you pay on recyclables and can return to receive the deposit back. It's even become common for people not to throw out their cans/bottles in the trash or recycle bin and instead choose to place them on the ground so homeless people can salvage them and get money.
***** Ten states plus Guam have bottle deposits ranging from 2 to 10 cents. Three other states used to have it, but not anymore.
***** Michigan is the state with the highest money back rate from bottles, I believe it is 10 cents.
Wow! So manu advanced tech and innovative ideas in a simple MRF. Never will I look at the recycling bin in the same way!
Someone once told me the number in the bottom was how many times it could be recycled and I've always thought that was a bunch of bull crap so thanks for clearing that up
No it means the type of plastic that it is
LOTS of words 😮 So much words! Good job, Hank 👍
Very thorough!! It's unfortunate that polystyrene-foam recycling is so rare. We used to have a drop-off location a few cities over, but the building burnt down... and it's a lower-income area, so the chances of it being rebuilt are slim.
Human ingenuity never ceases to impress me
And you reached that conclusion from this video how...?
Agreed ( Shaun)
Shaun Nicholson Amen to that.
BattousaiHBr The sorting design is amazing! Each step requires using a unique property of the kind of material it sorts that isn't shared by any other material in the process.
Paper is uniquely amorphous and lightweight
Steel is uniquely easily magnetized
Glass is heavier than aluminium and plastic
Aluminium is then able to be magnitized via induction
And plastic, as ever remains relatively inert and so ends up being the last out
It kind of begs the question though: how do you sort paper out using its lightness when you have something like a phone book go through?
Chengyan Boon shredding... lots. and lots. of shredding...
Recycling plants really need to up their game when it comes to the number of things that should be recyclable, but aren't because of the trouble to recycle them. Take crisp packets which are very common; they're made of plastic and aluminium but since they are stuck together, almost all places do not recycle them.
Dixavd The problem is that recycling is based on simple economics. Higher cost to separate than you get from the materials? It ends up in the landfill. It sucks, and breaks my heart, but everything is based on markets.
Nolan Thiessen
What I'm saying is we need a huge innovative wave to hit the field and make more complex recycling implementation viable. I'm definitely aware that industry (and in many cases, state/governmental) bodies are just doing the most they can that is still economically viable - but I think we need to have more of a push, a greater incentive, to get those things figured out.
Nolan Thiessen That'd be a big reason as to why places where recycling is substantial and expanded more often than not have a system of subsidies or government provision in place.
The market could pick up in decades to come when certain resources become rarer, but it'll be better in the long-run if we recycle more as there'll be more resources (and higher supply = lower prices) (Unless the total energy input required is more than the materials saved in some notional value, perhaps some kind of shadow pricing, but I assume/hope that this isn't the case).
Dixavd Yeah, and we should really just have a wave of new innovation wipe out cancer, and heart disease, and racism, and obesity, and...
Oh wait, that's not how that works and simply ranting that we should find a better way isn't a valid point?
Oops.
seigeengine Way to be a jerk about it. And actually yes that's exactly how economical innovation occurs. We are talking about engineering, social and industrial implementation of known ideas not whole new treatments. As an example, we are in a creative swing in the production and use of energy right now. The reason is because of economic incentive and mass world-wide power-houses striving for more efficient systems. The understanding of energy creation, transportation, use and reuse are well documented - the amazing work is being done at taking advantage of that. There is no reason why we can't be in the same one with material production, transportation, use, and reuse as well.
This is a completely different problem to those you mentioned (either because how to go fix things are unknown - such as cancer or heart disease - or the problem is a social or cultural one - such as racism). Your argument is just flat-out wrong.
We see time and time again spearheaded work from hundreds of countries leading to a wave of innovation branching from well-understood bases and flourishing into application that changed the world. We saw this with the architecture of the Rennaissance and then again in the 19th and 20th century. We a saw it with the push into space. We saw it with the push into computers and the internet. We see it today with energy and further space exploration. Recycling is just another one of those scenarios.
This was fantastic! I've always wondered how they separated everything!
Very informative. I was actually curious about this subject.
Cool video! Here in Germany we take recycling kinda serious. Okay, given that -sometimes it sucks as you really get pissed off by separating all the waste. Then again in some bright moments it just all makes sense and I think of the future generations who might be thankful someday that their ancestors did not just throw everything they had into the landscape.
That was a satisfyingly in-depth video!
The janitor at my school just takes all the recycling trash and just mixes it with the other trash.
bruce wayne That's pretty horribad. Is it because there isn't a recycling facility anywhere near the school, or are they just lazy/underpaid/doesn't care? What a gigantic waste.
Ai well the problem is that there is only one dumpster so I guess the janitor has no choice. But it's like all those years of recycling all my paper was just a big fat waste!
bruce wayne Alot of retail grocery stores also do this, they won't admit that they do but lazy ass managers do it all of the time, I see it with my own eyes constantly.
You usually have to pay a service fee to have recyclables picked up.(not in all places though) Not that big of a surprise business don't bother with it.
Flintstoned
Yeah, but these are huge national, billion dollar corporations, they can fucking spare it, they are just too lazy.
Here's a question SciShow Why do I keep checking the fridge after I already checked it and their was nothing I wanted?
Google it, don't ask questions that don't take 6-10 minutes to answer.
In hope that maybe you missed something or some random hope that maybe a new food product will appear even though you've already checked the fridge and pantry 4 times in the past half hour and nothing's changed
Annaie1234 Lol. The faux hope that there's something left. Opening the fridge "please let there be chocolate cake please." Fridge opened "darn it!!"
5 minutes later "please let there be chocolat..."
You are bored
DaZe Are you a DavidSo Comedy fan? I believe you are.
This helped me do my homework
Thank you!
Also thx
I get so pissed when people don't recycle. We have single stream recycling at my college. It doesn't get much easier than that!
Royal Carting Co. uses that too
So does *****
The single stream recycling where I live, gets shipped 400 miles to a processing plant....
40% of everything you put into a recycling bin gets thrown in a landfill regardless of recyclability.
The only thing recycling actually works on is aluminum cans and glass. Everything else deemed recyclable requires a lot of energy to break them down, reform them, and distribute them back into the world which ends up being more harmful to the environment than a landfill that's been covered in soil would ever be.
The recycling bins at my local town all go to the landfill when it comes to emptying the bins. Even glass gets the landfill treatment. Some small towns don't have the capacity to recycle when they're in the middle of no where. Transportation would be too expensive at that point in Canada. And honestly, I think most citizens are quite happy with only thinking they're making a difference rather than actually checking too see whether they're making a difference. Ignorance is bliss.
Amazing, perfectly summarized explanation!
Wait.. so you guys don't have separate bins for plastic, paper, glass..!?
My life would feel so weird without black and green bins, yellow bags and color coded public glass containers. How do people live without getting to throw glass jars through a hole and listen to it smash inside the container?
UrbanTarzan Duh Some places do and some don't but the trucks it seems don't always. So at the end of the day it might just go into the same bin in the truck.
UrbanTarzan Duh It's just cheaper to make you do some of the recycling facility job. There is no technical reason to separate recycling from trash even - it can be done in the factory - but it is cheaper if some of the burden gets moved to consumer
EnTerr yeh but the burden on the consumer to put something in seperate bins is probably a lot less than seperating it after it is all been thrown together.
Ben Grosz Err, do you know that producing oil for plastic and growing tree farms for paper requires a lot of energy?
This was a fun watch. I work at a paper recycling plant and let me tell you, that's just the very basic story. Realistically recycling paper is a lot more involved than that.
Another odd difference between English and American language that no one seems to notice: we just call it Polystyrene.
Although I imagine that Styrofoam was/is a brand name more than anything, correct me if I'm wrong.
Tom SDM You're correct, Styrofoam is a trademarked brand name. But if it wasn't, we'd just call it foam or something very general. Interesting that you call it Polystyrene(good thing). In general speech do you differentiate different plastics and such(PET, PVC, Polystyrene) or do you just call it all plastic?
Just curious.
Adenoid Hynkel We just say plastic most of the time, sometimes you'll hear polythene or acetate. People tend to say pvc piping instead of plastic piping i think.
Adenoid Hynkel I think in europe, french speaking people refer to PET plastic as PET (like pet in english), so yes some nations differentiate plastics. I know that in australia most people are aware that BPA free plastic is better for your health and as such, it's marked on quite a few water bottles.
Adenoid Hynkel Here in Britain we tend to call everything plastic except for polystyrene and PVC (sometimes). You'll also often hear people referring to plastic lunchboxes as a 'Tupperware box', which again is actually just a trademark but has become synonymous with the material.
Tom SDM here is the problem: calling polystyrene foam just "polystyrene" is wrong! Because CD cases, yogurt cups, disposable razors, plastic cutlery - they are all made from polystyrene too - the non-foam variety.
DUDE. I wish I could take recycling for granted! My trash company is VERY selective about what recycling it takes, and does NOT accept paper/cardboard or plastic #3+. I have to drive 5 miles to recycle paper. I only go 1x per month so hopefully the gas emissions aren't offsetting the benefit.
Also, the different separation processes are fascinating and creative and cool. Thank goodness for engineers who come up with this stuff. I very seriously wondered how this stuff was sorted on the back end, and it indeed takes as much creativity as I thought it would. But more creativity than I am myself capable of. (I think.) From the simple air-gust technology to (HOLY CRAP) infrared light sensing technology, I am amazed and so grateful to the people who figure this stuff out.
I have also heard that aluminum is THE most recyclable thing on earth, with 100% of it being usable for future thingies, and with no degradation it is reusable forever. This is why I spend extra $ to buy my fizzy water in cans instead of bottles, because while neither plastic nor aluminum are technically "renewable", the aluminum is at least reusable more times.
fascinating.. seriously. Great video!!
Great video man, just what I was looking for as I’m getting more into recycling.
Then how do they separate two different materials attached to each other? For example tetrapak or cartons?
Hands...
Andrew Ng Tetrapak is not separated. Instead, some processing plants have a separate recycling process designed for them. Up until recently, they weren't really recyclable, but nowadays I hear they are ground up, heated and compressed into building blocks or tiles.
Andrew Ng Cartons normally say on them that they're non-recyclable.
Andrew Ng They don't.
So based on what Julia said about it being possible to recycle them in Australia, I looked it up and found that there is a way, but the packaging saying not because "In order for any packaging to be able to feature the recycle symbol, recycling of that packaging must be available to a majority of households." And availability to recycle this is pretty scarce.
So the process of separating is:
1. mixed with water in a giant blender, this separates out the paper.
2. the plastic and aluminium and left together and used as a material 'poly/al mix'
www.earth911.com/news/recycling-mystery-milk-and-juice-cartons/
This guy needs his own show on TV
In the Netherlands, you separate glass, metal, plastic, paper and organic material yourselves.
Kriso de la Erikejo in parts of the us, this is expected. In Virginia, I drive my recycling to a set of several town bins. Each bin is either glass, plastic, metal, etc. In New York, we brought plastic bottles to collection centers to get $0.05/bottle and everything else went to the street bins.
I think the Us system of recycling is sufficient, we just need more people that actually recycles. I do know some of the trash companies actually sift through the trash for items that can be recycled they charge more I believe and they sell the recycled material to make a profit.
WOW! not every episode of SciShow is as informative as this one. Good job!
Styrofoam doesn’t get recycled? We can’t afford to use it if we can’t afford to recycle it.
Exactly how we should treat all materials 🌱🌏🌎🌍
Some cities do recycle styrofoam, but it really depends on what it was used for. Recycling has to be clean and have very little residue, esp from food and medical products. If you live in any of these cities in the US, this site could help you determine what to do: www.recyclebycity.com/los-angeles/guide
It's harder for some cities mainly due to the cost of recycling styrofoam. But it is very possible
Awhile ago the news interviewed a place near Vancouver BC that was recycling styrofoam. They would melt it down with some chemicals and reform it into insulating blocks for houses. What happened to the company I never heard
So no using computers.
@@ceramicfish4934 probably went broke. Styrofoam is almost all air, theres very little material so youd need alot of it to make anything more solid.
So THAT'S what those numbers mean. Great video!
Quite informative! Thank you!
Clear explanation enhanced by nice animation - Salute!👍👍
I'm wondering about the energy efficiency of plastics and paper recycling. Metals seem obviously efficient. Is there a net energy (and pollution) savings with plastics and paper? If not, it's just a feel good exercise.
Which is why it's so important to find ways to make things naturally recyclable rather doing so artificially as a short-term solution.
Most recycling seems to be a feel good thing. Our single stream gets shipped 400 miles to a processing plant.
nowthis news made a video about recycling and said in the video
to make ONE aluminium can from new materials (mined from nature which is finite)
takes the same amount of energy to make TWENTY cans from old aluminium cans
crazy how much more productive it is to make things using recycled materials
REDUCE, REDUCE, REDUCE, RECONSIDER, REFUSE, REUSE, REPAIR, RETHINK... RECYCLE is near the very end of the list before THROW AWAY.
So paper is in theory forever recyclable? I mean new paper recycled into newspaper, then recycled into toilet paper, then recycled again into another product and so on.
Will the pulp itself be weakened or disintegrate in any way through countless recycling process?
Nico Mariño If my memory does not fail me, I think it comes a time when the Cellulose fiber stop creating a weave. turning into a gooey mess. Not quite what you want from paper.
boy638 Yeah... we don't really recycle toilet paper.
Nico Mariño And you're a pedantic fuck more interested in being technically correct than contextually.
Kindly fuck off. I'm not dealing with you again.
seigeengine How did I know there was going to be a person like that on this comment chain without looking >_
DragoniteSpam Not sure if you're talking about me, or Nico, but hi, how's the weather?
In Norway we have like 5 recycle bins for all kinds of stuff. Wet organic (Food), paper and cardboard, metal and glass, plastic and misc. Bottles are recycled at stores because you get a small amount of money back for it. From people having visited my apartment, many aren't as good at the whole recycling thing as I became. But at least we have something here.
I have a question. Should I be removing paper labels from plastic products before recycling them?
William Stockhecker yes
Sean Bush well crap... I've been doing it wrong for 18 years.
US
Dream Warden We have lots of recycling, a few cities over from me won't pick up your trash without recyclables. And landfills, where else should we put trash, the oceans?
Dream Warden "next best thing, burn it for power" and release a ton of pollution, never mind other toxic compounds into the atmosphere? Yeah, totally a great solution.
I help run a summer camp getting girls excited about engineering (specifically Materials Science and Engineering) and I am doing a recycling and sustainability module next week. Cannot wait to show the girls this video!
Do you remember that episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit 'Recycling' where they went on to basically say that recycling (with the exception of aluminium) is ultimately bad for the environment (due to the expense and by-products of the recycling process)? I wonder what SciShow would make of it.
I was wondering the same thing.
yes i love that show
A lot of these processes are very similar to my work where we recycle the ash from incinerators.
Because every thing has been burned by this point we extract the metals and leave the glass and old broken plates with the ash to form an aggregate for the construction industry.
For a job based around burn bin bags its actually really interesting!
4:39 The side effect of this reaction is a skunky smell and some carbon monoxide; generally, not what you're lookin' for in a beer."
Unless, of course, you're cracking open a Bud Light, of course, in which case the flavour would be enhanced to the point of drinkability.
Here's a neat thing you can do at home with number 6 plastic: Cut it into shapes and color with permanent marker then bake in a 200 degree oven for a about 10 minutes. Shrinky-dinks! Many take-out containers with clear lids are made of #6 plastic and a lot of times your local grocery store will give you a few if you ask nicely.
you can recycle your styrofoam into napalm by adding gasoline or acetone to it.
gskaloyan thanks
Eco napalm sounds promising
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 oh. Napalm, what a wonderful product to destroy your enemies. Just what the world needs. More wars, more killing. That's sick and shameful.
@@pourquoipas2673 Well, while already incinerating ones enemies in to greenhouse gases, one should be more conscious about ecological footprint and at least use napalm made out of partially recyclable materials. One should have pay attention to feelings of public opinion and the values it expresses, apparently nowadays we're preoccupied about ecology.
Thanks Hank and SciShow: you make learning fun.
Solid waste is just raw materials we are too stupid to use.
Ieuan Hunt And soylent green is people.
EE Ehrenberg SPOILER ALERT!
EE Ehrenberg I can honestly say I never thought I'd see a reference like that on a scishow video about recycling haha
bassistoftheyear
I am a Nerdfighter and you don't expect me to read Sci-fi, Seriously? You insult me sir.
Ieuan Hunt I was talking about Ehrenbergs Gargantia reference.
This was an excellent episode, thank you so much Scishow!
Interesting fact, making aluminium from bauxite is a very energy demanding process, however recycling is not. It takes about 15000 kWh to make a tone of aluminium from bauxite. Recycling aluminium only takes about 10% or less of energy needed to produce new aluminium.
Hence the big deal with recycling. Makes it cheaper for the consumer and helps the environment
I've always wondered how recyclables get sorted so thank you SciShow
NPR recently had a story asking if all recycling was equal and the conclusion was that no, recycling some materials actually took more energy that simply making them. I'm sure the NPR crowd was throwing their Bernie buttons and stomping their birkenstocks but it made sense. Recycling glass and plastic actually took more energy that making them from scratch. Metals and paper were the two recycling stars. Plastics can be made effortlessly with little material as can glass. (I still drop it all in the recycling bag out of habit.)
+smb123211 It is also NOT included in the factors contributing to global warming which is a deception also. This is typical governmental impotence, it is promoted with public funds and total disclosure does not exist. thanks for the post.
Pand T Bullshit did that story too
+smb123211 Do you remember where you saw or heard that story? I'm not seeing it in their archives: www.npr.org/tags/141986640/recycling
Greg Smith Here's the link. I recycle and compost (have a farm) but the story was about carbon expended in the process.
hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/10/14/economist-rethink-how-we-recycle
+smb123211 Much appreciated. Thanks!
Great vid, nice to see a longer episode.
Something you'll never hear on these recycling episodes is how much energy it costs to recycle these products as opposed to new.
you can reach the information on the papers of Professor Hashby
Thank you for this information.You are Amazing! We gotta do something about the plastic problem!
Hey, very interesting video, I got a question though, since how you explained almost everything that we throw away gets recycled someway, why are there these mountains of trash that they just bury and keep it there? Why not just recycle it all? SciShow
***** for the same reason the mountains of trash are not burned to produce electricity: Money.
I was wondering the same. Turns out it is not economically "practical" to recycle or incinerate garbage, even as pilot high-tech factories to do both have been tried (for incineration a high-temperature plasma burner is needed to break down hazardous volatile products).
Sadly, it is cheaper to just burry refuse in huge piles rather than sort it out - as long as land is cheap. In countries who cannot afford such waste of space though, they are building full recycling/incineration facilities.
Wow, makes sense now, hey and thanks for answering my question EnTerr
Really needed this for a school project!
MERRRRRRRFF!!!!!!
+Troy Petryk HAHA SO FUNNY
+Troy Petryk WHY THANK YOU
+Troy Petryk uhhhhhh i need a life
I've really wanted to work in a recycling company. I love environmental botany so this was interesting.
who else was thinking about toy story 3?
A little expansion on that last point about wearing recycled plastic: It'll be PET that becomes clothing. PET and polyester are two different names for the same substance.
Every time I hear Hank say "Aluminum", I cringe.
I'm sorry, I can't help it. Aluminium master race.
dzarko55 we have a loyalist here!
Potato potato.
Every time I hear aluminium I think who is this idiot? Did he learn how to read from a comic book? Then I remember the country we do not speak of
+Nicholas Cuevas
Potatis.
This is one of the most interesting of the scishow videos I've watched
you guys should site your sources
Did you try checking the description?
Wrecked
I mean in the video, so you know what is being sited and by whom
but then that would make the video ugly just to please a few people
+prolego okay
I love that recycling is physics and chemistry!
How recycling works:
Poorly, unfortunately. Except for in the case of steel cans, glass, and aluminum, a lot of recycled goods end up creating a weird mass of additional nasty stuff(Check out what recyled paper creates as a biowaste product someday, all that ink can't be recycled). Even Glass is a problem, as it requires really, really hot crucibles. In the event of a power outage when those crucibles shut down? The glass fuses, can't be re-melted again because of the way it melts, and the crucible is suddenly useless.
TacComControl But recycled glass is easier to melt than new glass, because like he said, all the chemicals that need to go into it are already mixed. But ya to remelt a full crucible of solid glass would require a ridiculous amount of heat in the even of a power outage.
Torbox1 a full crucible of glass should be easy to remelt unfortunately it would be a lot of work and would probably ruin the original crucible since it would require breaking the now fused glass into small bits again which would probably require destroying the crucible it is stuck in.
TacComControl Why can't it be re-melted again?
And you know, it's almost like massive industries that have been around for long periods should have figured out and implemented solutions to these problems, like a backup power source to power the plant sufficiently to continue operations until they can safely shut down and not wreck their shit.
seigeengine Indeed, many places like that have Diesel engines as backup in case the main power goes out, the Diesel engines are often of the caliber used in large ships, so they can easily power a large recycling plant for long enough to shut it all down safely.
Unfortunate side note by the way. I worked a temp job in a material reclaiming facility that sorted city recycling in Portland at one point. All that sorting? Doesn't matter, it all ends up on the same conveyor. Workers are paid less than 10 bucks per hour to bend over the conveyor and separate out what can or can't be recycled. Paper and plastic products that have been in contact with food? Tossed to the garbage. Oil containers? Garbage. Laminated paper or paper card? Trash. Non-corrugated cardboard? Landfill'd. Side note, if oil got on the conveyor? We were instructed to trash Everything until it was gone.
Seriously, we turned way more to the landfills than we did to the bailer there. And we aren't alone. Some investigation into similar facilities all over the US show similar problems and rates of refusal.
Very well paced! Love the voice over!
I always wondered how recycling centers operated, thank you for your work :)
A camel toe is also known as a murf ,,,,
I would LOVE to see an episode on the different forms and properties of Plastics.
Ironically, it takes a crap ton of power to recycle just about anything besides metal and glass. Think of how much gas the trucks need, how much power the plants need, how much power the production of the recycling chems take... Recycling is probably worse for the environment then just landfilling everything and using the waste gasses to generate more electric power.
Very informative and interesting. I knew _some_ about how recycling works, but this definitely fills in the gaps!
Why do we even bother to recycle glass? Glass is actually so cheap to make and form that recycled glass costs _more_ than normal glass. Only through grants and tax breaks and such can recycling glass actually be financially solvent. Also, we may as well just trash glass anyways, because it will just get ground up into sand and then compressed into rock like the rock it came out of.
Glass takes a long time to break down, and we can't just fish up resources forever.
Inorganic Vegan Then just throw glass back into the holes it comes out of. When the cost of sand starts to rise, then people can start recycling it.
PitaJ And how long will it take to break down? We are already having too much waste at landfills all over world, adding additional one would only make things even worse for the enviroment.
Fighting_Hussar Why does it need to break down. Glass is essentially rock in the first place. It isn't toxic and doesn't need to break down. If you must, crush it up, clean it, and then throw it in the ocean or a river, and it will end up somewhere as sand.
PitaJ Because they wouldn't waste the time to crush glass into sand and then put it in it's own pit. They would just throw it straight into landfills and take up more space.
Since my family makes so much trash, we need 3 recycling bins. Don't get mad at us; were helping the environment.
Thank you Mr. Green!
Thanks for the help!
Thank you for the information provided.
More murfs than interstellar? Inconceivable!
This was a really good episode!!!!
So cool! I was really curious about this. Thank you so much!
This is helping me write a 6 page paper. Thanks
Very educational and helpful. Thank you!!
I need to watch this when I'm less tired.
The eddy currents aren't due to the strength of the magnetic field but due to the changing magnetic field. The changing magnetic field generates a current (like in a generator), which is what creates the opposing magnetic field that send the cans flying.
Now I want to go to rewatch your Crash Course episode on polymers.
Thank you for that vid! Really... I kinda figured the principles out myself, but had no idea about the types of glass for example...
It feels good knowing that soda bottles keep me from being naked.
If your team hasn't already addressed this, perhaps you can do an episode on Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and their conceivable origins along with the potential uses if we could fully harness the immense amount of energy inherent from them. Been watching Hank and his team for a while now and they have done a phenomenal job bringing science and logic back to the masses while simultaneously fighting this Anti-Science movement with tooth and nail. Keep at it guys. You have an army of nerds who have your back.
I wish Hank had said which streams are "down cycled" and which continue to be as valuable as the original. Paper, for example, can only be recycled a limited number of times but I believe aluminum can be recycled forever.
I really wish he had gone into more detail on this. I feel like he kept it just above the surface of where things became really interesting pretty much the whole video.
Thank you!
really great video! Thanks so much
Awesome and entertaining episode. Loved it.
Very interesting stuff!! Thanks Hank!
Nice. Well done once again.
In Sweden, most people sort their waste themselves and all neighbourhoods have recycling stations where you throw everything in different containers. We're really specific as well, there's hard plastic, soft plastic, clear glass, coloured glass, newspapers and magazines, cardboard, and metals. And like someone previously mentioned, you can go and trade in most bottles for a small amount of money. That being said, it was really weird for me to watch this because i was just thinking "Why don't you just sort it yourself before?!"
Love Planet Earth and be an Eco Hero! 🌍❤️
That's pronounced: "ter-eff-THAL-ate". My father worked at Amoco Chemicals in Channahon, IL between 1958-1969, where one of the products made was terephthalic acid; among other ingredients, terephthalate is added in the manufacturing of vehicle tires. Phthalates in general make plastics softer and less brittle.
I watched a show on recycling and the lady said that she lived in Montana and if some one wanted to recycle they would have to drive into Wyoming (hundreds of miles) to do it. It would use more energy to recycle than the energy saved.
Good concise explanation of it all. Nice to see an American take on things. Still, interesting debates on this side of the Atlantic about the effect of MRF-based systems on quality, particularly when glass and paper are collected together in compacting vehicles.
Scishow isnt run by one American, but a while crew of them.
It truly is fascinating.