Recycling often gives us a false sense of reusing things that were once harmful if just thrown away, or thoughts of cleaning things up to reuse them in another form. It doesnt include burning plastic and shoving that crap into mold presses to make chairs like this. We are so ffffffucked as a society.
I don’t hold high hopes many of those guys will be alive in 5 to 10 years after breathing in all that highly toxic smoke and fumes from burning plastic.
I’m not debating that it sucks, and is horrific, I’m just saying 5-10 years is a laughably low estimate, when smokers can last for 60+ years while breathing in similarly toxic crap every day.
Watch Penn & teller :bullshit' TV show on this, had former head of recycling saying it's worse. It's a crazy episode and I defy you to think recycling is good after watching it
Seen it (back when I liked P&T, before I realized where they stand on issues like gun control). I still think recycling is good. Corporations are just not doing it properly. What else is new, right?
Oh, I'm aware that recycling plastic is not the solution. It's a drop of water on a hot stone, as we Germans like to say. But recycling on the whole, if done right, is helpful.
YouTube is filled with videos of little workshops in Pakistan turning out molten metal cast parts, fixing impossibly broken vehicles, doing major repairs on the side of a busy road... It's really wild. No safety gear at all and very few power tools. Along with child-labor. It's my new binge-watch (cringe-watch). Incredibly creative and ingenious solutions.
Mighty Car Mods went to Malaysia to race in a Kei cars event and the dude who welded their exhaust didn't have a helmet, looking straight at the arc... Hope there's potatos in his first aid kit.
I couldn't find the one where they were on the side of the road fixing the frame(!) of the truck with a torch, hammers, jacks and chains, welding... it's wild. There are vids showing them restoring a V-10 Mercedes for $500. OSHA is nowhere in sight... Here's one. https://youtu.be/rClQvSC-foA?si=XoC1SI7Hb7as5Z9S
Not really. The material you get from recycling plastic is really bad. I'm surprised they can even make structurally sound chairs out of it. I'm guessing they skipped a few steps between the grinding and the forming because the machine that makes the chairs isn't the same machine where they pour the crushed recycled plastic.
that's fucking terrifying. the offgassing from both the factory and the chairs as they break down... this is desperate people forced into a bad solution. we aren't saving the planet this way
And that is why I sometimes find lead in random recycled plastic using XRF. Most recently affected a luxury vegan leather handbag - cost $350 and was sold as eco-friendly , advertised as oeko-tex - their source material was contaminated up to 400 parts per million lead (they gaslighted me when I sent them a video of the testing, lots of businesses treat me like a dumb mom when I show them their quality control sucks in about a minute using an x-ray tube instrument. Others threaten me with legal
Since veganism is based on consent it is possible to have genuine vegan leather as long as it came from a consenting (human only, as animals can't give consent) source.
I'm rather impressed you have an XRF device just laying around. (I assume it's related to work? I used to work at a place with an XRF gun. One day I brought in a hunk of solder to identify it. Turns out it 50/50 lead and tin.)
Not officially or in commercial settings. Most hobbyists still use lead solder, because it's SO much better. You almost have to use it to hand desolder stuff, to dilute the lead free stuff with something that flows properly.
it was body solder. I did some research back when I found it and it's what we used as car body filler before Bondo was a thing. I knew it was going to be leaded, but didn't know what the composition was.
Doesn't matter because due to the EU law, no one uses lead in modern electronics anymore. Which is actually a problem and one of the big reasons why electronics don't last as long anymore.
As I was saying before someone downvoted me... no the US hasn't banned it, but no one uses lead in solder anymore anyway because of the EU laws. However, that's actually a very big problem because it has led to electronics made with lead-free solder not lasting as long, and tens of millions of additional devices entering the waste stream, simply because tin whiskers caused them to fail.
as I understand it, tin whiskers are far less of an issue these days. (But the xbox red ring of death? that was aaaallll, tin whiskers, though the PS3s issue was related to crap solder, but not tin whiskers)
Capitalism demands that everything be for profit, including recycling, hence why it rarely actually gets done. You know greasy paper is still 100% recyclable, but needs to be sorted since you can only make "low" quality products such as cardboard with it. But rather than create a machine or lay someone to sort it, they rather gaslight us and have us dump it into landfills.
When you’re in and out of the hospital beginning in your 30s and die on some ICU floor in your 40s that generates a massive amount of trash and energy consumption.
It's much better actually. Yeah they're burning something to melt it, and that pollutes both from what they're burning and the melting plastic, but if they put it in a landfill all of the plastic would end up in in the atmosphere, doing it's bad thing, and someone would possibly buy a new plastic chair, putting even more plastic into circulation.
Just the product... those men will die of horrible lung problems in a few years... ammonia? Plastic fumes? Rhey are mixing so many plastics. Those chairs are probably mildly toxic too.
It's not better actually...just another greenwashed lie from the plastics industry. It is better to bury plastic and use less in the future than burn it and expose those communities to all those cancer causing components.
Not really - depending on how it's burn.... errrmmm, sorry, "thermally recycled". Some waste processing/district heating plants love this stuff, as it has a thermal value similar to oil.
Good point, I think we should be encouraging these chaps to take the waste to their nearest waste processing plant instead... That one a few countries over.
Maybe better than burning it all, although I suspect even that would depend on how it was burned. Doing the above on an industrial scale is far worse for the environment than compacting and disposing of the waste in a landfill where you can layer the waste and situate the landfill to try and minimise bio-accumulation. Ideally with new chairs then being made of non-plastic materials (at least those won't become brittle and break within a few years either).
Yeah no,if you take in to account those terrace chairs that are just made of shitty 0,1mm thin "metal" and some "wooden" weave that starts to break apart and is already rusty after one summer. What we need is less capitalism. Products that are actually meant to last for years,no matter what material,not shit that's produced at cents per unit and 500% profit. If,e.g, plastic chairs were made more structurally sound with a coating for UV protection,way less would be wasted and "recycled" like this
I do agree with the "ideally non-plastic" part in general,but I believe stuff could be made more durable, from plastic or anything, that the amount of stuff needing to be recycled, in general, would be less and the problem less severe. This applies to all customer segments, be it consumer or scientific/industrial, plastic or not. This probably would raise prices but so what? I can't see how a couple of dollars or cents more should be a difficult choice,if you take in to account what's at stake.
Those non-plastic chairs you refer to are still considerably less problematic for the environment when they reach end of life, and the waste being recycled here is mostly single use plastics. Nobody is going to make durable plastic bags that last a lifetime and the chairs produced probably won't survive a year, UV coating or no, given the hodge podge of plastics and contaminants they're made out of. Whatever way you slice it the above is amongst the worst methods of disposing of plastic waste.
China stopped taking plastic recycling for this very reason, a company can make money off repurposing plastic waste but the health effects are so terrible it’s not worth it. Benefits of having socialized medicine, the government has to foot the bill if you allow an industry that is so harmful on the employees.
China doesn't have socialized medicine though. They stopped taking plastic because of a number of economic reasons related to their increased cost to manufacturer compared to places like India/Vietnam, etc.
Not sure if we are splitting hairs in terms of what counts as “socialized medicine” but from the www.who.int (the World Health Organization): “The concept of UHC (Universal health coverage) is much in line with the goal of China’s Health Reform since 2009, which aims to provide establish a universal basic health care system providing safe, effective, convenient and affordable health services to all by 2020.”
China has made no efforts to enact anything resembling SHC/UHC. It's 90% direct payment for services or insurance companies like the US. (half my family still lives in Jilin Province China).
JoylessGreyhound
FoxAffair
This is why I just throw my plastic bags directly into the ocean.
mrsparkle001
Don’t forget your safety sandals
quietwalker
Got them open-toe safety sandals on.
guitarfourtysix
I'm gonna have to add "stepping on molten plastic" to this
zookeeBandit
This smells like cancer.
20MBHDD
Oh my India... Zero sense of responsibility towards the environment by majority of the people...
PrincessWasabi
Honestly I wouldn’t give 2 farts about the environment if I was hungry or homeless lol
GreenMnM
Recycling often gives us a false sense of reusing things that were once harmful if just thrown away, or thoughts of cleaning things up to reuse them in another form. It doesnt include burning plastic and shoving that crap into mold presses to make chairs like this. We are so ffffffucked as a society.
DerpeDimmer
A mask seems like a really good idea.
SirSmurfalot
"recycling"
ijustwonamathdebate
If this was my alternative to working in a scam call center, y'all better believe I'll call you everyday all day
GrosseChung
And uh… what’s the GHG emissions for the operation of this… lovely machine?
PineappleIsDeliciousOnPizzaFightMe
Redshadow09
Im just waiting for the pic to turn in to a horror one Blood eyes and in shock
BeaverOnFire
LucidPariah
Mmmmm burning plastic bags
jridley
Wow that plastic recycling is super eco friendly.
illmx
My back hurts after sitting too long and typing
CorgisButtsDriveMeNuts
That's fucked up on every level
Debberz
YAY! They’re recycling! At the cost of their health. But YAY!
Whatswrongwiththispicture
I don’t hold high hopes many of those guys will be alive in 5 to 10 years after breathing in all that highly toxic smoke and fumes from burning plastic.
bilborrax
who cares? there's 50 more dudes lined up outside ready to work. just get a new one
Scylia
Isn't any worse than cigarette smoke honestly, and people live into their 80s breathing that shit every day.
Midgarmerc
The difference is nobody needs to smoke cigarettes to not starve to death
Scylia
I’m not debating that it sucks, and is horrific, I’m just saying 5-10 years is a laughably low estimate, when smokers can last for 60+ years while breathing in similarly toxic crap every day.
just4thelolz
Don't let the political right see this! They'll spin this into a "recycling is bad actually" narrative.
Orbaxus
Watch Penn & teller :bullshit' TV show on this, had former head of recycling saying it's worse. It's a crazy episode and I defy you to think recycling is good after watching it
just4thelolz
Seen it (back when I liked P&T, before I realized where they stand on issues like gun control). I still think recycling is good. Corporations are just not doing it properly. What else is new, right?
ICantFeelMyHead
The downvotes are strong on this one. I think they've misinterpreted us.
just4thelolz
Could be. Though I'm not sure how. Maybe there's just actual rightwingers out and about on imgur right now.
ICantFeelMyHead
Yeah. That makes sense.
ICantFeelMyHead
This 100%.
florpglorp
Honestly its more like plastic recycling is largely not even a thing. We should have stuck with reusing glass bottles.
just4thelolz
Oh, I'm aware that recycling plastic is not the solution. It's a drop of water on a hot stone, as we Germans like to say. But recycling on the whole, if done right, is helpful.
Midgarmerc
Nah they'll say "look how efficient these workers are when not bogged down by useless regulations!"
just4thelolz
They might say both at different times, depending on what they want to emphasize at the moment.
CanisMaximus
YouTube is filled with videos of little workshops in Pakistan turning out molten metal cast parts, fixing impossibly broken vehicles, doing major repairs on the side of a busy road... It's really wild. No safety gear at all and very few power tools. Along with child-labor. It's my new binge-watch (cringe-watch). Incredibly creative and ingenious solutions.
guitarfourtysix
"sometimes they come out in pieces.. we identify by their shirts" https://youtu.be/5jdEG_ACXLw
CardboardEmpress
When things are cheaper to produce (or "recycle") in another country, it's only cheap for us. Someone else is bearing the actual cost.
bilborrax
if you watch them at 2x speed they sound exactly like minions
MapleSyrupMafia
Mighty Car Mods went to Malaysia to race in a Kei cars event and the dude who welded their exhaust didn't have a helmet, looking straight at the arc... Hope there's potatos in his first aid kit.
trumpypumpyinyourrumpy
Link us up bro
CanisMaximus
I couldn't find the one where they were on the side of the road fixing the frame(!) of the truck with a torch, hammers, jacks and chains, welding... it's wild. There are vids showing them restoring a V-10 Mercedes for $500. OSHA is nowhere in sight... Here's one. https://youtu.be/rClQvSC-foA?si=XoC1SI7Hb7as5Z9S
neilwatkinsfromaccounting
can’t help but think it could be making something better than chairs
Hendlton
Not really. The material you get from recycling plastic is really bad. I'm surprised they can even make structurally sound chairs out of it. I'm guessing they skipped a few steps between the grinding and the forming because the machine that makes the chairs isn't the same machine where they pour the crushed recycled plastic.
alenfishman
Did I just get cancer watching this?
RooGryphon
Yes
JoeGrunt
I think I lost a few fingers.
jinbee
I think we all did
zombiejedediah
Lung disease will get you before the cancer becomes terminal, so you're all good.
itypewerdsonline
Bonesy84
florpglorp
Already have cancer so im good
Skr121
🥹🫡
themobileappisbroken
No safety issues here at all.
userfriendly19777
Don't you see they have their safety sandals on.
tarpettalol
😂🤣😂🤣
ItTookMeAGoodWhileToComeUpWithAUsername
And lovely how they recycle while fucking up the entire environment around them
gtollie
Jezz .. do you want plastic chairs or not ? /s
themobileappisbroken
Well not that colour, no.
AVeryLongFuseWithAVeryBigBangAtTheEnd
that's fucking terrifying. the offgassing from both the factory and the chairs as they break down... this is desperate people forced into a bad solution. we aren't saving the planet this way
Frndlylion
Plus cyanide gas from burning plastic as a bonus!
Toomuchsheep
Extremely cost- and energyefficient.
kn1fe79
BobHubert
SunPraisingIntensifies
BobHubert
wagnus
phew thank god it's fish free, I'm allergic. that could have been really bad
LeCoq1963
The first half is analogous to the way my body processes fast food
choppedliveraldente
And the last half is how it leaves mine. SssshhhhphhphphphffffffflooohhhrpOPfhfhfphphshhh
gft8gd5khn101
And that is why I sometimes find lead in random recycled plastic using XRF. Most recently affected a luxury vegan leather handbag - cost $350 and was sold as eco-friendly , advertised as oeko-tex - their source material was contaminated up to 400 parts per million lead (they gaslighted me when I sent them a video of the testing, lots of businesses treat me like a dumb mom when I show them their quality control sucks in about a minute using an x-ray tube instrument. Others threaten me with legal
SeriousIy
Pleas tell us more!!
TheHolyFatman
Every single time someone mentions their shoes or bag is "vegan leather" I say "oh, so it's plastic? How's that working out for you?"
JohnThatcher
Since veganism is based on consent it is possible to have genuine vegan leather as long as it came from a consenting (human only, as animals can't give consent) source.
gotigs
Could leather from an animal that died naturally be "vegan"? Genuinely curious.
TheHolyFatman
This is an acceptable solution. 🤣
JohnThatcher
Human breast milk cheese is vegan, too.
gotigs
Could leather from an animal that died naturally be "vegan"? Genuinely curious.
Mugendramon
There are no laws. But strictly speaking, no. Vegans don't use animals as product, no matter how they died.
usualnamewasteken
I'm rather impressed you have an XRF device just laying around. (I assume it's related to work? I used to work at a place with an XRF gun. One day I brought in a hunk of solder to identify it. Turns out it 50/50 lead and tin.)
merxman
Agreed, good XRF units are like $25k new.
jridley
So, the solder was exactly what it was supposed to be? Or was it supposed to be lead-free?
Bimmler
No lead in EU solder. We use worse materials because they are not poisonous.
jridley
Same in the US too, same ROHS rules, but again hobbyists rarely use lead-free stuff.
jridley
Not officially or in commercial settings. Most hobbyists still use lead solder, because it's SO much better. You almost have to use it to hand desolder stuff, to dilute the lead free stuff with something that flows properly.
usualnamewasteken
it was body solder. I did some research back when I found it and it's what we used as car body filler before Bondo was a thing. I knew it was going to be leaded, but didn't know what the composition was.
jridley
50/50 might be normal for that kind of solder. 60 tin / 40 lead is common for electronics. Purists these days want 63/37 as the "ideal" mix.
usualnamewasteken
I usually use 60/40 for electronics. The last time I used 63/37, it sucked.
GutsTheStruggler
*horrified gasp* SOLDER HAS LEAD IN IT?
Rhinee
Blue cheese has mold in it.
Selfawerewolf
not the same thing.
dickblack12
EU banned the use of lead solder in 2006. I don't think (hold your surprise) that the US has.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
Doesn't matter because due to the EU law, no one uses lead in modern electronics anymore. Which is actually a problem and one of the big reasons why electronics don't last as long anymore.
kadaeux
I’d rather the electronics being the thing that’s dying faster because of the solder used, not me.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
As I was saying before someone downvoted me... no the US hasn't banned it, but no one uses lead in solder anymore anyway because of the EU laws. However, that's actually a very big problem because it has led to electronics made with lead-free solder not lasting as long, and tens of millions of additional devices entering the waste stream, simply because tin whiskers caused them to fail.
usualnamewasteken
as I understand it, tin whiskers are far less of an issue these days. (But the xbox red ring of death? that was aaaallll, tin whiskers, though the PS3s issue was related to crap solder, but not tin whiskers)
theraininspainfallsmainlyontheplain
FP has been slowly becoming downvote crazy, sorry you were still correct, but you didn't write an essay explaining it.
scoutMoonDiver
Oh, that looks completely good for the environment, not to mention the employees. /s
minipancho94
Capitalism demands that everything be for profit, including recycling, hence why it rarely actually gets done. You know greasy paper is still 100% recyclable, but needs to be sorted since you can only make "low" quality products such as cardboard with it. But rather than create a machine or lay someone to sort it, they rather gaslight us and have us dump it into landfills.
KafkasKarma
You can see and feel the excitement in the last guys face
KittenInside
But hey, marginally better than throwing the stuff out, or burning all of it.
anyrandom0
When you’re in and out of the hospital beginning in your 30s and die on some ICU floor in your 40s that generates a massive amount of trash and energy consumption.
NorthmanoftheNorth
It's much better actually. Yeah they're burning something to melt it, and that pollutes both from what they're burning and the melting plastic, but if they put it in a landfill all of the plastic would end up in in the atmosphere, doing it's bad thing, and someone would possibly buy a new plastic chair, putting even more plastic into circulation.
Ionico
Just the product... those men will die of horrible lung problems in a few years... ammonia? Plastic fumes? Rhey are mixing so many plastics. Those chairs are probably mildly toxic too.
gft8gd5khn101
It's not better actually...just another greenwashed lie from the plastics industry. It is better to bury plastic and use less in the future than burn it and expose those communities to all those cancer causing components.
Scylia
The lie from oil companies was that plastic recycling was economically viable compared to fresh, not that it wasn't environmentally viable.
stercusmoriturussum
Not really - depending on how it's burn.... errrmmm, sorry, "thermally recycled". Some waste processing/district heating plants love this stuff, as it has a thermal value similar to oil.
zazznz
Good point, I think we should be encouraging these chaps to take the waste to their nearest waste processing plant instead... That one a few countries over.
madeejit
This is the "waste processing plant", and it is a few countries over.
SimiKusoni
Maybe better than burning it all, although I suspect even that would depend on how it was burned. Doing the above on an industrial scale is far worse for the environment than compacting and disposing of the waste in a landfill where you can layer the waste and situate the landfill to try and minimise bio-accumulation. Ideally with new chairs then being made of non-plastic materials (at least those won't become brittle and break within a few years either).
IHaveUnpopularOpinions
Yeah no,if you take in to account those terrace chairs that are just made of shitty 0,1mm thin "metal" and some "wooden" weave that starts to break apart and is already rusty after one summer.
What we need is less capitalism. Products that are actually meant to last for years,no matter what material,not shit that's produced at cents per unit and 500% profit.
If,e.g, plastic chairs were made more structurally sound with a coating for UV protection,way less would be wasted and "recycled" like this
IHaveUnpopularOpinions
I do agree with the "ideally non-plastic" part in general,but I believe stuff could be made more durable, from plastic or anything, that the amount of stuff needing to be recycled, in general, would be less and the problem less severe. This applies to all customer segments, be it consumer or scientific/industrial, plastic or not.
This probably would raise prices but so what? I can't see how a couple of dollars or cents more should be a difficult choice,if you take in to account what's at stake.
SimiKusoni
Those non-plastic chairs you refer to are still considerably less problematic for the environment when they reach end of life, and the waste being recycled here is mostly single use plastics. Nobody is going to make durable plastic bags that last a lifetime and the chairs produced probably won't survive a year, UV coating or no, given the hodge podge of plastics and contaminants they're made out of. Whatever way you slice it the above is amongst the worst methods of disposing of plastic waste.
HellCartoonDog
Our lives are fueled by things like this behind the scenes.
thedarkcanuck
You mean the guys who are making 10 cents a day?
tarnok
Ha, less.
brumbasse
This is why we'll lose the climate crisis. Not because you didn't recycle your Starbucks cup
SlayerOfGoat
KhanhChannn
Green houe gas? Never heard of her
LooseyGooseyBrett
Plastic bags are like all natural man. The like even come from the environment
tarnok
They have safety sandals tho!
Prometheusblu
China stopped taking plastic recycling for this very reason, a company can make money off repurposing plastic waste but the health effects are so terrible it’s not worth it. Benefits of having socialized medicine, the government has to foot the bill if you allow an industry that is so harmful on the employees.
server1a
China doesn't have socialized medicine though. They stopped taking plastic because of a number of economic reasons related to their increased cost to manufacturer compared to places like India/Vietnam, etc.
Prometheusblu
Not sure if we are splitting hairs in terms of what counts as “socialized medicine” but from the www.who.int (the World Health Organization): “The concept of UHC (Universal health coverage) is much in line with the goal of China’s Health Reform since 2009, which aims to provide establish a universal basic health care system providing safe, effective, convenient and affordable health services to all by 2020.”
server1a
China has made no efforts to enact anything resembling SHC/UHC. It's 90% direct payment for services or insurance companies like the US. (half my family still lives in Jilin Province China).