WEBVTT - New Show, Recycled Topic 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.480 Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:17.520 the podcast that looks at the future. It says, it 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.160 feels just like I'm walking on broken glass. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.079 I'm Lauren WelCom, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.040 going to talk about the three RS, but mainly recycling. 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:32.040 That's of course, reducing, reusing and recycling. We were talking 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.760 about the future of trash and is recycling part of 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.839 that future and where does it play it's part and 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.040 how important is it and does it make sense? Uh? 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.600 And some of the answers are are might you know 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.320 they might surprise you. Um, it's not even across the board. 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.320 And also it's something that's constantly changing due to our 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.960 improvements in the technology and processes. Let me guess it's 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:01.520 for hippies. You shouldn't do it, according to and teller, Yeah, 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.080 what you should do is go out consuming. That doesn't 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.160 surprise me. They had a they had a show. Um, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.479 I'm not sure if I can actually say the title 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.760 of the show was was the name? That was the 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:15.480 name of the show? And um, and they had an 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.720 episode on recycling in which Pen in particular came down 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.920 very harshly on it. Yeah, well, I mean most of it. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.080 And there there are certain arguments you can make against 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.639 recycling certain products. I think a lot of that again 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.960 will change over time due to improvements in tech and processes. 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.319 But to really, first of all, I mean, let's talk 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.200 about what recycling is. Obviously, it's it's for those who 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.679 just have never heard the term Welcome to Earth. Recycling is, 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.200 of course taking material that you normally would just throw 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.640 away and and uh and breaking it down to be 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.200 reused in some form further down the line, whether it's 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.120 to create more of the same product as what you 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.120 were currently using or something entirely different. I think part 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.720 of the key of understanding recycling is the idea that 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:08.639 there's some reprocessing involved, right, that it's not just reusing, 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:10.760 saying right, right, right, It's not taking a jar that 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.160 you've used and putting something different in it, hopefully after 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.560 you've washed it. Um that that would be reusing. By 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.280 the way, if anyone comes over to my house for 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.480 any sort of party or whatever, you're going to be 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.639 drinking out of Mason jars, I'm not a hipster. It's 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:26.960 not that I think that that's a cool thing. You're 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.600 just Southern and that's what you have. I buy a 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.440 lot of pickled vegetables, and then I think I want 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.200 to keep using these jars, and so that's that's my 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.720 glassware for the most part. I mean it just it is. 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.560 I got to collect your urine for the apocalypse somehow, 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.160 that's right. Well, I'll start on my urine later. I'm 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.200 collecting other people's right now. And it turns out that 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.200 it's a lot harder to convince people than I first expect, 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:57.200 like biometric falsification, yeah, or just throwing at aliens just 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.960 in case that happens to be their weakness. So recycling 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.200 has been has it has been used actually for for 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.240 for really for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Um, 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.880 going going back to when people were making metal tools, 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.400 realized I don't really like this one. Let's melt it 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:17.080 down and make it again. Um, technically is recycling. Got 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.720 that tool or sword or etcetera. Right, Right, So if 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.200 you've if you folded in a thousand times and major 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.200 katana for your end of Days duel against the Kurgan, 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.040 you know, yeah, or if you just were, I guess, 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:34.560 if you were to beat your swords into plashhairs, right, recycling. So, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.160 but but really that's not you know, that's that's one 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.119 form of recycling, but it's not really what we think 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.440 of when we're talking recycling. It's not the industry level 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:44.280 thing that we've got going on today. Yeah, there was 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.080 a I mean, obviously there was a big push to 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.760 recycling back in the thirties and forties, right right, well 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:53.720 even even before that, around the turn of the century 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.360 is is when a bunch of industries started getting together 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:01.240 and um processing scraps. World War One was when this 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.120 became much more important because because because materials became so 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.880 scarce due to the global war efforts that uh, some 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.880 companies began rendering garbage to recover grease and make make 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.240 tankage out of the rest of it. Tankage being um 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:20.400 uh non fat related proteins, usually from from animal parts 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.479 that can be used for fertilizer um and uh. And 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.520 then yeah, the through through the nineteen thirties, during the 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.960 Great Depression here in America certainly, and hard economic times 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.280 in many other places, conservation recycling became so important due 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.200 to I mean a lot of people made most of 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.760 their income by collecting items and selling them for scrap. 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:41.960 And then you get to World War Two and there's 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.440 more recycling efforts for the war effort. Again, Uh, you 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.440 had fewer people to work on things because you had 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.680 so much of the workforce sent off to war that 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:55.760 you know, you didn't have as many people to actually 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.440 get the raw materials you usually would need to produce. 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.320 And in wartime production is a big part of it, right, 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.200 I mean everything from the stuff you would think of 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.080 like vehicles and weapons and ammunition that sort of stuff. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.080 Two things that you might not necessarily imagine, just to 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.479 keep everyone who's still, you know, away from the fighting 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.560 supplied with the stuff that they need. Boots did you 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.839 need to make in World War two? Lots? Yeah, rubber 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.800 and UH and nylon items that were made that were 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.479 used at the time to make lots of common clothing 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.360 items wound up being used in Uh. Nylon was used 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.760 for parachutes for the war effort, and UH, and of 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.440 course rubber for tires and yeah. Actually, the fact that 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:43.240 they switched from like DuPont was making nylon stockings, they 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.200 stopped making nylon stockings in order to make materials for 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.600 the war effort, and apparently that caused a bunch of 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:54.159 um well they were called nylon riots when when DuPont 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.279 went back to creating nylon stockings, there was apparently a 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.920 run on stores because I rum didn't mean to make 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.279 a run joke. Boy, that was a pun. That was 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:11.600 complete puns. We're so yeah, that was that again, And 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.880 that was sort of changing gears for production. But it 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.159 also meant that repurposing this material for something else. Repurposing 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.640 and recycling was so big during the wars. It was 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.840 more far reaching than than most people today really realize. UM. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.839 For for example, during the UH during the Victorian era, 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.839 fancy cemeteries, UM every cemetery plot would have these gorgeous 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.560 wrought iron fencings around them. And during the Two World Wars, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.200 you won't find those today basically anywhere because all of 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.359 them were melted down during the wars. And so you 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.440 know it's its People would picnic there. It was very nice, 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.520 you know, cemetery, that's what you do. Yeah, sure, but 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.400 doing yere in Atlanta to Oakland Cemetery does it all 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:58.160 the time. That is where I learned about this. By 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.400 the way, visit Oakland there you go. Also, so you 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.560 get up to like the nineteen seventies, that's really when 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.400 we got into the environmentalism movement. So recycling up until 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:13.360 the nineteen seventies was more about conserving resources for use 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.800 for particular efforts, like the World War effort. When you 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.200 say resources, you mean the raw materials themselves, like the 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.600 thing that's being reprocessed. Right, it was. It was recycling 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:28.840 because in order for us to meet our needs to 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.280 do them. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't you know. It 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.640 wasn't a save the environment kind of thing. It was 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.080 we need more X. The best way to do it 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:38.920 is to pull up a bunch of Y, melt it 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.480 down and turn them into X. Right. Right. And in fact, 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.000 immediately after the war, especially here in the States, we 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.040 went through that economic boom where people were very um 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:53.640 conspicuously consuming, and it became argue, we're still there, are 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:58.080 more conspicuous than others, especially at the time, by pair 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.560 of glasses buying new stuff. Jonathan just got his Google glass. 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.880 It's very exciting, um or our Google glass. It's all 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:10.840 of ours, you can share, come on over. But yeah, 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.200 it wasn't until the first Earth Day in nine seventy 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.080 and um in three was when the first curb side 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.720 recycling program got off the ground here in the States. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.200 Um and and then through through the nineties, I think 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.400 is when it started really picking up, you know, due 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:31.040 to a Captain, Planet and Gully. Tim Curry played the 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:32.959 bad guy in that he did you know? I laughed? 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.040 But Captain and Planet made an impression on me, did he? 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.680 I think? So? Were you? Were you a planet tier? 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.880 I guess you know, I never got a ring. But see, 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.240 for me, it's always I just go back to the 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.800 image of the Native American with the one tear going 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.640 down the cheek to avoid littering. That's that's where my 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.160 environmentalism comes from. Isn't it funny All these issues kind 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:03.520 of get blurred together, like waste waste management, littering, landfills, recycling. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.720 But it'll be worth us talking about exactly what the 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:13.120 real benefits of recycling are. Well, first I kind of curious, 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.360 like how does it happen? Like how does recycling work? Well? Yeah, 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.240 that's interesting. So there are um okay, well let's start 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.200 at your house. I guess. Okay, so you've got a 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:28.000 bunch of recyclables and they'll be say glass bottles and uh, 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:35.480 plastic containers, paper products like cardboard and newspaper, and cans, 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:40.280 aluminum cans, steel cans, tin um. And you want to 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.320 get all this stuff recycled, Well there are two. There's 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:45.280 a big distinction you want to make right at the beginning, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:50.720 which is sorted versus unsorted um, And different municipalities I 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.000 think will deal with that in different ways. Like some 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.440 people require sorted, and that makes sense because it's much 0:09:56.520 --> 0:10:01.079 easier to process when the recycling a drives pre sorted 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.760 to the processing facility. But what I've read is that 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:10.240 that also lowers participation because you're putting the burden on 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:15.320 the person and for some people that's just too much trouble. Yeah, 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.199 they don't they don't want to go through the effort 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.240 of sorting through the stuff that they want to recycle 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.760 and put it into one of five different bins or whatever. Um. 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.040 So it also just makes it it makes it less 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.120 convenient for the person. And the sad fact is is 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.840 the more inconvenient it is, the lower the participation is 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.960 going to be. Yeah, So these facilities get more materials 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:44.160 overall if they allow mixed mixed mixed materials material Yeah, yeah, 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.720 but then that makes it more difficult to actually to 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.720 actually recycle the stuff, right, and they sort it. Interestingly, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.640 we're getting a lot better at that. Um. So, the 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.200 so you put you take these mixed materials and you 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.560 have say curb curbside pickup, so a tryan spur truck 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.080 comes along along a route and and picks up all 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.120 the materials and takes them to a place called materials 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:11.800 recovery facility. And from there you essentially put all your 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.640 materials on a conveyor belt and from here. It's not 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.240 the same at every facility. Um But so I'm just 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.080 gonna give kind of a standard view of some things 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.520 I've seen. Um One thing that's going to vary between 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:28.120 all these facilities is the level of automation versus manual sorting. 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:33.080 Um So, more advanced facilities have fewer human workers working 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.960 to take these things out and have better processes for 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.319 sorting automatically. But so, usually the first thing will happen 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.800 is there's some kind of initial purge where obvious trash 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.079 is removed because you know, what, do you know, people 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.920 put pizza in their recycling and stuff that they can't take. 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.880 Um So you try to remove that at the beginning, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.000 and then usually after that, one of the first things 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.920 they want to do is remove glass, because glass is 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.200 kind of a different animal than most of these other 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.920 things we recycle, and so glass will be moving along 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.360 conveyor belt, and if it's not removed manually, it can 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.479 be removed automatically by like a raking mechanism that separates 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.559 based on weight and shape, or there can be gravity sorting, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:22.200 so that there's a conveyor belt moving sort of upward 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.760 at an angle with enough friction to carry up plastic 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:30.360 and paper products, right, but glass rolls down off of it. 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.880 And so once the glass is separated, that's usually crushed 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:40.520 up into a constituency of shards called cullet, and that 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.440 that can be used for all kinds of different things. 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.240 But most of the rest of the products apart from glass, 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:52.480 eventually what the goal is to bail them, like hey, um, 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.760 And so after glass is removed, they'll usually sort out 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.000 paper products and they can do that by mechanical action 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.000 or by hand. Um. And you separate those out and 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:05.319 take them to a fiber bailer and bail them up together. Uh. 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.880 Steel cans are often separated by magnets and that's interested. 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.320 The UH conveyor belt will just pass under a very 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.520 powerful magnet just sucks them straight up. But then you've 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:18.600 got a problem that you've got all these aluminum cans 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.720 and these other alloys that aren't their non ferrest materials, 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.679 so they're not attracted to magnets. So one of the 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.320 popular ways of dealing with that these days is you 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.520 have something called an eddy current separator, and that's this 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:38.040 powerful magnetic rotor that generates a field that blasts non 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:43.080 ferrost metals off in some direction. It creates a separate 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.600 magnetic field within the can itself, and UH and and 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.240 and that magnetic field will be at at odds with 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.679 with the field being generated by the device. We'll just 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.160 pop it right off the belt. Interesting, so you've got 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.680 so say you've separated everything else by now, and you've 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.560 got non ferros metals, and you've got plastic and they're 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.560 rolling along. The plastic will just sit there. But when 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.760 the the aluminum cans pass over this thing, they shoot, shoot, 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:12.120 you know, fly away, I guess into a big basket 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.680 or whatever you use, take them to the bailor smash 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.439 them down into a cube. Um, those will be ready 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.720 and then finally, usually you're gonna have plastic, and that's 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.800 sort of according to type. So you've probably seen like 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.480 number one plastic, number two plastics, like type two plastics 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.960 like milk jugs and laundry detergent jugs, that kind of thing. Yeah, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.400 And those things are separated into different groups for ease 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.360 of reprocessing um and uh. And that can be done 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.360 by hand or automatically by things like they're sort of 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.280 optical field separators. So they shoot out some beam of 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:52.280 light that penetrates a different plastics in different ways and 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.480 use a sensor to to figure out what bits uh 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.600 exactly which. Yeah, as it passes over like a like 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.800 a gap in the conveyor um or or something like that, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.480 it will use air jets to to to shoot out 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.920 the ones that it wants to. Yeah. So then at 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.920 the end, and so you got your plastic leftover and 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.320 smash that into bales, and then at the end, your 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:18.360 final product is you've got glass color, bales of plastic, 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.080 bales of paper products, bales of aluminum, bales of steel 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.480 um and all of these things are then sold to 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:28.400 manufacturers or I guess really whoever wants them, and you 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.720 can buy recycled materials and just go pay for a 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.520 bale of steel. Yeah, and in fact, um, let's talk 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.280 about some of the stuff that can be made from 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.480 recycled materials. Now, there's some stuff that you know, is 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.120 you've probably heard of things like you know, made tires 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.800 made out of recycled materials, even pavement made from recycled materials. Uh. 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.400 Typically a lot of the stuff ends up making more 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.760 of whatever it was before. So, for example, a lot 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.000 of paper, recycled paper ends up going into things like 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:02.680 paper plates, napkins, paper towels, uh, that sort of stuff. 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.760 So a lot of that reclaimed paper just becomes more 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.480 paper products. Same thing with aluminium, a lot of like 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.280 you know, the odds of an aluminium can becoming something 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.480 like a car frame are low. It can happen. There 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.840 are manufacturers out there that will use recycled aluminum as 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.040 part of their materials for designing this stuff. But it's 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.280 far more likely that the aluminium can you tossing the 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:30.040 recycling is going to become a new aluminium can. Glass 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.560 some glass depending. Glass is tricky because glass comes in 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.680 a lot of different kinds as well, Like you can 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.120 have glass that's and colors or you can have clear 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:43.000 glass that can change things up. Often glass will get 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.240 down cycled. Now, down cycle means that you convert this 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.360 into material that is slightly less valuable than what the 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.440 raw material was or what the original product was. So, 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.200 for example, a glass jar, you might throw that out 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.440 in in recycling or whatever, and it gets re cycled 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.119 as part of uh something that's made out of fiberglass, 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.239 and by weight, it's less valuable. That's why we call 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.200 it down cycling, because it's moved down a level. Um, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:15.159 So that will uh, that's fairly common to for a 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.920 glass to go into things like fiberglass. But then there's 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.040 some kind of cool stuff. I'm going to mention some 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:25.240 specific companies too, just for some sort of nifty products 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:29.680 that are made of recycled materials. For example, Uh, there's 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:34.920 a group called Keens Harvest Bags. They make like messenger bags, okay, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.760 but they make them out of recycled air bags from cars. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.840 Are actually really cool. Uh, you know, they just kind 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.600 of a nifty way of reusing this material that otherwise 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.080 might not ever be used. There's violence, what's that I 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.119 just imagined getting a messenger bag that had like blood 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:55.480 or I'm pretty sure that wouldn't happen. I think that 0:17:55.600 --> 0:18:00.000 might be bad press for the company. Um, I appalled 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:04.000 gized to Keene's harvest bill. No, I'm not that would happen. 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:09.280 I know, I know, it's just the first know, I'm 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.280 right there with you. U. There's vinyl luxe. Vinyl Luxe 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:16.480 uses uh something that has beloved to me old vinyl records. 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:22.880 So some old vinyl records are beyond the uh they've 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.680 just they've passed their prime right there. There might be scratches, 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.199 there might be some sort of warping, and anyway, it 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:32.119 makes the music less than or whatever was recorded on 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.359 them less than interesting or pleasurable to listen to. And 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.520 so what vinyl X does is it takes old vinyl 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.320 records that are you know, kind of messed up and 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.800 then creates things like bowls or clocks, uh, ornaments and 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.919 other stuff and uh, anything that they don't use, like 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:53.320 any scraps that are left over from their their projects 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:58.120 gets sent to a plant in Nashville actually, and all 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.080 of that those scraps are melted down to create new 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.959 vinyl records, to help to be the material for new 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.080 vinyl records, so nothing gets wasted There is another company 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:13.920 called Looped Works, and they have used recycled neoprene, nylon, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.639 vinyl polyester leather to create all sorts of different products, 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:23.080 like like electronics covers, like a cover case for you know, 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.640 a tablet or something. Uh, some really cool designs coming 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.240 out of them. And then there's a company called Moving 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.360 Comfort like this one a lot. They remove chemicals from 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:38.320 coffee grounds and turn it into yarn and then we've 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:47.080 cloth out of this stuffy fibrous shirts. It's actually the 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.119 chemicals from coffee grounds. So they're making a synthetic yarn 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.680 from various chemicals they extract from coffee grounds and they 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.120 turn that into yarn and they use that to make clothing. 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.879 So companies called Moving Comfort, you can look them up. 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.080 Pretty cool stuff. It's pretty pretty Eight. There's a there's 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.159 recycled Bikes, which is out of here's a here's a shocker. 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:08.840 I know you guys are gonna be amazed when you 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:13.160 hear this. Portland, Oregon Recycled Bikes which make bikes out 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.840 of recycled aluminum um. Their seats are made out of 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:21.760 renewable cork. Uh right now. They also are belt driven bikes, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.840 not chain driven because they said that the belt driven 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.760 ones are easier to maintain. Um. They say that their 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:32.840 goal is one day to have a recycled materials bike. 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.080 Right now it's not quite there, but that's their goal, 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.280 is to to just make bikes that are completely made 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:43.240 out of recycled materials. Up in Vancouver, the city is 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.360 experimenting on creating new types of pavement that is made 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:51.280 up of wax partially from recycled plastic. So they're taking 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:55.080 this plastic in and they're processing it into this wax 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.240 to go into new pavement production, which is kind of 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.880 neat um. So, yeah, that's just some examples. I mean, 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.879 obviously there are tons of different examples of ways to 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.760 use recycled materials. Uh. And you know what new products 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.159 you can make from recycled materials. So let's kind of 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.680 talk a little bit about some statistics like what is 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.120 actually getting recycled and how much is being recycled. Uh. Now, 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.800 we're going to be citing some factors from a report 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:26.800 done by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is which is 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:28.760 here in the United States, and we should also mention 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:30.520 obviously a lot of the stuff we're talking about is 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.120 very US centric because that's where we are located. There 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:38.640 are obviously lots of different recycling companies and facilities around 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.800 the entire world, but we we are focusing mainly on 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.280 the US because that's really where we can get the 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:48.840 most recent information, uh, the in a very easy way 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.639 since we happen to live here, it makes it pretty convenient. 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.320 But the report we're looking at is citing statistics from 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.119 two thousand eleven, which was the most recent information that 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:04.000 we could find. And according to that report, of all 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:10.679 UH newspaper slash mechanical papers were recovered meaning recycled, fifty 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:15.200 seven percent of yard trimmings were recovered. Thirty of metals 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.679 were were recycled. Uh so you know, you see that 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.000 this number is going down. Glass there was even less 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.600 um and and plastic is a little weird too. But 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.760 by recycling the metals, there was actually seven point five 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.920 million tons of metal recycled in two thousand eleven. According 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.800 to the e p A, we eliminated twenty million tons 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:41.880 of greenhouse gas emissions, which totals more than twenty metric 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.560 tons of carbon dioxide. And again according to them, they 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.080 say that that's about equivalent to removing four million cars 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:52.640 from the road. For an entire year. So, I mean 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:54.880 this is showing that there can be a real impact 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:59.080 these programs. If you participate, you can actually really help 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:02.639 to reduce in greenhouse gasses because the amount of energy 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:06.520 needed to go into recycling some of these materials, not 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.280 all of them, but some of them is so much 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:11.280 less than what it would take for you to create 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:15.480 a new product from raw virgin material that you are 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:17.960 saving quite a bit of energy and as a result, 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:24.120 emitting fewer carbon carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. UM. 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:27.440 So you're doing lots of good work all along the way. 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:31.160 But that's that's kind of like the basic lowdown on recycling. 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:33.760 I mean, it's a it's a big deal. It's very 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:39.439 much down to individual participation as well as community participation. Clearly, 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:42.679 if you live someplace that doesn't have a recycling program, 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.600 it makes it much more difficult to be part of this. Right. Um, 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:49.840 the I think that report said that that overall, UM 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:53.280 in two thousand eleven, Americans generated about two and fifty 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:58.120 million tons of trash, and UM recycled about thirty four 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:01.000 point seven percent of that. Yeah. Yeah, out of all 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:04.560