Plastic recycling Pahoa

[DTisme]

I was always told that you take the tops off of plastic bottles before recycling -- because it's a different plastic. But hubby was told at Pahoa recycling center (across from post ofc) that we should leave the tops on to take advantage of the xtra weight. Anyone know if this is correct?

[leilanidude]

It would take a lot of tops to get another nickel...

[birdmove]

I've been told you leave the tops on. That was probably at the Keaau facility.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[Rob Tucker]

Leaving a top on a bottle would make it harder to compress I would think. One could still recycle the tops.

[randomq]

Is there anywhere that actually pays $0.05 as promised, and instead of by weight? I've got a collection to bring in...

[alaskyn66]

quote:

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Originally posted by randomq

Is there anywhere that actually pays $0.05 as promised, and instead of by weight? I've got a collection to bring in...

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Works out to the same... 1.60 a pound for cans.

32 cans to a pound × .5 cents = 1.60

If you crush them a 33 gallon trash bag holds about 25.00 +/-

I expect plastic bottles are the same. So many to the pound times 5 cents.

https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/28068/web

[birdmove]

You can remove the cap, squash the main body of the plastic bottle, and screw the cap back on. The cap will keep air from entering the bottle and it will stay squashed flat. When we were buying that coconut water in the very thick tin cans, I used to set them on a scrape piece of 2x6, then take a scrap piece of 2x4 and my short handled mini sledge hammer, and flatten them. The guy at the Pahoa recycling center asked me how in the heck I did it. Good exercise too.One has to pound them pretty good.

Now my gripe. People that are too lazy to properly flatten their cardboard. This fills up the containers way to quickly, and then the truck hauls it away, etc, etc. Bet we could lower the number of cardboard containers hauled out by at least two thirds.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[terracore]

"Is there anywhere that actually pays $0.05 as promised, and instead of by weight? I've got a collection to bring in..."

They have to count them if you request it.

If you have a bunch of aluminum Atlas used to advertise that they pay higher than the set rate. I don't know if they still do.

ETA: Why are we separating our plastics and paying for all the bureaucratic overhead for this program if it's just going into a landfill anyway? According to this article (and others) China used to be the world's "recycled plastic" dumping ground but they stopped accepting it: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/clima...apers.html

[kalakoa]

Why are we separating our plastics and paying for all the bureaucratic overhead

If only we could do something useful with all that plastic. Oh, wait, we could.

https://www.plasticroad.eu/en/

Yes, this one says "pilot 2018" and "prototype" but they're not the only ones; there's also a "plasphalt" hybrid for more conventional road construction.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If only we could do something useful with all that plastic.... there's... a "plasphalt" hybrid

It could work here in Hawaii if we didn't have incompetent plassholes mismanaging the "pilot 2018" and "prototype" programs

“It's tremendously big and tremendously wet, tremendous amounts of water.” President Donald J. Trump describing an active hurricane on Tue, Sept 11, 2018