Is this not proper madness?
https://www.revk.uk/2024/03/learning-to-count-in-recycling.html
@revk Most of those plastics aren't actually recyclable anyway are they? The 'arrows with a number in' doesn't indicate anything about recyclability, it just states the type.
@penguin42 No idea, will be interesting to see how the council reply, if they do.
@revk There's some weird history where the recycling people came up with the 3 arrow symbol to signifying recycling but never trademarked it properly; then the plastic people took it and put the numbers in to signify the different types of plastic, but that doesn't actually imply anything about recycling.
@penguin42 @revk Maybe have a look at what "Precious Plastics" is doing. Sorting by type is an absolute must (mixed plastics is basically solid oil, just usable a fuel). They also sort by colour. And then, some low-lech recycling is possible. Given the random mix of additives, the plastics quality will be more random, but still usable. Not food-grade of course.
Overall, yeah, recycling complex composite products requires effort from the consumer because *nobody else* can separate a large variety of stuff at scale for a reasonable cost. Can't be mechanized, nor automated. Best you can expect curently from manufacturers are instructions and some design effort to make disassembly easier.
Maybe a mandate for all manufacturers to be responsible for recycling could be pushed, at the cost (monetary and environmental) of doubling the size of the logistics sector (perfect symmetry between forward and reverse logistics).
