I’ll start… toilet paper, tampons, and QTips…

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
      4·
      4 months ago

      Didn’t you usually have to grind the source material into dust completely destroying it to remake it into something better?

      • besbin@lemmy.ml
        1·
        4 months ago

        That’s only half the story they told you. After you dice, grind and melt the original material. You have to use some virgin materials as binder to get all that stuff together. The amount of virgin materials can sometimes surpass even the amount of old stuff and render the whole recycling process moot for those nasty material. That’s why you should have better just burn them all in a furnace or just bury them back in the ground where they belong.

    • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
      3·
      4 months ago

      Why is that?

      If I have the choice between composting or recycling paper, would it not be better to recycle than compost?

      • hedgehog@ttrpg.network
        4·
        4 months ago

        Pretty sure you’re right - there’s the concern of the resources / energy needed for recycling but also, recycling decreases the need for new materials enough to offset that.

        That said, AFAIK paper and cardboard are the only thing that can be both composted and recycled, so the advice of the person you replied to is still generally good.

        This is the guidance I’ve seen on the topic:

        Recycle:

        • clean, dry paper
        • clean, dry cardboard

        But compost:

        • soiled and wet paper/cardboard
        • pizza boxes and other similar things
        • paper towels
        • paper/cardboard egg cartons

        Don’t compost (throw away if unsuitable to recycle):

        • glossy paper
        • paper with plastic attached
        • anything (e.g., paper towels) with cleaning chemicals or other substances unsuitable for composting on it
      • chaospatterns@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Things that can be composted are usually food waste or food spoiled papers not treated with chemicals. Paper is hard to recycle because it can only recycled into lower quality paper, frequently gets contaminated, and it’s hard to seperate out from everything else.

        Thus if something is compostable I believe it’s better to compost than to recycle that same material.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
      6·
      4 months ago

      Okay, fair enough. Not exactly where I was going with the question LOL, but legit answer regardless. 👍

  • BlackAura@lemmy.world
    151·
    4 months ago

    That’s right OP, the correct order is to reduce, reuse, and then recycle.

    If you feel you can reduce use, or reuse any of the things listed. Please try that first!

  • kat_angstrom@lemmy.world
    121·
    4 months ago

    My mother in law’s stories. She keeps repeating these stories over and over but we’ve all heard them a dozen times before and then when we say, “oh, we’ve heard this one” she takes it as encouragement to keep going

    • stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
      4·
      4 months ago

      My grandmother is like this. Then occasionally she tells some new story and we are all like, this is way more interesting why hasn’t this been part of your repertoire for the past decade?

        • otp@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          4 months ago

          Also consider recording as many as you can. I regret not doing so.

          Don’t worry, you still have time to record their grandma’s stories!

        • pingveno@lemmy.ml
          2·
          4 months ago

          Some recording programs can do transcripts as well. They’re not perfect, you have to tidy them up, but it is nice to not need to go back and do the transcribing manually.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      4 months ago

      I totally get you. I’ve been told many times that I should stop repeating the same old stories.

      Like WTF, those are my experiences in life, what am I supposed to do, make up another false one for shits and giggles?

      My response… “If I’m all out of stories I haven’t already said, then let’s go make a new one. What’s the adventure today?”

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      4 months ago

      Let’s state the obvious why don’t we?

      I mean hell, if we can refine dirt into raw chemicals, then theoretically we should be able to refine our trash into raw chemicals, and start the whole process over again.

      I mean fuck, when you break it all down, it’s all atoms and molecules right?

      What makes used toilet paper any different than the carbon based molecules it’s made of?

      Also, Poo Paper actually exists…

      https://youtube.com/watch?v=eLxi7uGfZ84

  • spittingimage@lemmy.world
    4·
    4 months ago

    MDF pallets, according to our pallet recycling guy. Apparently normal pallets get fed into an enormous shredder and turned into garden mulch, but the glue holding the layers of MDF together gums up the works.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      4 months ago

      I’m not exactly a palette expert (I’m guessing many other readers aren’t either), but what’s the difference, and how can we average fools tell them apart?

      • spittingimage@lemmy.world
        2·
        4 months ago

        The MDF ones are made of many layers of plywood, glued together. Lots of different wood shades. Looks like a sandwich. The others are actual wood, with one shade, grain and often rough edges because they’re not sanded down.

        • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
          2·
          4 months ago

          Ah, I totally get you now.

          I’ve never seen any palettes made of plywood, but clearly they exist then. I guess that basically means that no plywood is good for compost or proper recycling, unless perhaps grinding up into particle board…?

  • dustycups@aussie.zone
    3·
    4 months ago

    Paper coffee cups.

    Composting is controversial too. There is an Australian standard but I don’t know what it says about the PFAS.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      4 months ago

      If I’m not mistaken, I believe the reason those shouldn’t be recycled or composted is due to the wax lining inside to make it water tight.

      If I am mistaken, anyone please let me know.

      • dustycups@aussie.zone
        1·
        4 months ago

        Bad news: it isn’t wax (wax melts). It’s either plastic (hdpe?) or most of the compostable ones use fluorinated “forever chemicals”

    • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
      3·
      4 months ago

      It’s fucked that the plastic symbol being in the public domain was cooped when plastics were required to be labled

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        4 months ago

        Plastic is awful for recycling between cleaning and sorting. We spend a ton of resources to effectively recycle at best half the plastic that makes it to the facility.

  • pingveno@lemmy.ml
    3·
    4 months ago

    Lots of types of plastic. Sure you might be able to hand them off to someone else, but there’s no guarantee they are not just headed for a landfill.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      4 months ago

      It saddens me that many types of plastic cannot be recycled in any economic or environmentally friendly manner. ☹️

      Like hell, they told us that plastic in general should last like 400 years. Well phuck, I’m only 42 years old and my fucking hairbrush is already obviously degrading.