
Greening Up My Act
For skeptics of sustainable products, learn how to spot greenwashing in the wild. This sustainability podcast is hosted by two marketing writers — Kat and Tiff — who reveal the sneaky tactics brands use so you can avoid getting tricked by green hooey.
Greening Up My Act
Glass Recycling: Do It For a Million Years
Did you know glass won't break down for a million years? And we haven't even had glass for that long? Find out the #science in this week's look at glass recycling.
Sources:
- Glass Alliance Europe: What is Glass?
- Momentum Recycling: How is Glass Recycled?
- Glass Packing Institute: Glass Container Recycling Loop
- Chemical & Engineering News (C&En): Why glass recycling in the US is broken
- Eco Promotional Materials: Benefits of Recycling Glass
- Roadrunner Smarter Recycling: The Decomposition Clock
- Recycling Center Near Me: Glass Recycling
- Recycling Coach: Is broken glass recyclable
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Well, hey, Tiffany. Boy Hey cat. Are you doing this evening? I'm doing pretty well. How are you? Pretty good. It's 100. And see we've reached the 100 degree weather in Austin is supposed to be 105 this weekend. Oh, my Lord. Yeah. So typical. It's a little early for that. We had a pretty cool spring. So we're just kind of thrust into this. But yet, it's usually later. Like, July before we get this hot, but yeah, it is. I mean, it was I think it was pretty hot last May. So. Okay. Yeah. Well, this comes out in July, but we're recording. Yeah, we're recording it in June, June. So like mid June. Yeah, that's like that's pretty hot. It's been. We had like one hot day here so far. That's it. Oh, lucky. But like zero rain. So are you getting it? Yeah, that stinks. Are you getting a wildfire smoke or is that not? We did? Yeah. It's funny, because by the time this gets, this comes out, it will be like wildfire. Smoke. That was so long ago. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying because it's all part of the big, you know, part of climate change sign. No. And it was kind of interesting, because it's like, I don't know if it was a wake up call. But it will you because like New Yorkers have never seen that. It's only been California and seconds and minutes. Like, oh, no, it's in your backyard. Yeah. And the fact that it went all the way down to like, yeah, I don't even know how far south it went. But really good stuff. Probably drifting some. I mean, it's dissipated. But yeah, my sister had it in Cleveland, Ohio. Wow. So gnarly stuff. Welcome to green and got my act, where we talking about gnarly stuff, gnarly stuff, and try to make it entertaining. Yeah, one of the reasons though, that we believe in sustainability is I mean, ultimately, it's up to governments and corporations who have all the power to make these changes, but we're the ones who have to live with it. And we can do our individual parts to make it less profitable for these companies to Yep, to keep producing trash, basically. And then using greenhouse gases to fuel their enterprises. So it's, it all feeds, it's all part of a giant green ecosystem. It is. And we also like to call out what we call green Hui, because there's a lot of it greenwashed products and systems and yeah, and, yeah, this season, we're talking about waste, and all that that entails now. Because there's, you could have a whole podcast about waste, but we're kind of hitting the high notes, yellow notes, I guess, yellow, I guess? Well, I mean, there's some of them are kind of high. I think there's some hope. There is surprise. It's been surprising. Tint, we usually talk about products. But this is we're talking about systems, this this, the four horsemen of the recycle apocalypse. And I also found a new term while I was researching this week's episode, which is about glass recycling. So I want everyone to get this down wish cycling. Oh, so wish cycling is that kind of blind trust we put in our recycling systems where we just throw anything into the recycling bin? Oh my gosh. So wish cycling is when you throw that really greasy piece of lasagna topping aluminum in or mirrors, for instance, can be recycled. So write anything you need to look, you need to educate yourself before you just throw things in your recycling bin because ultimately, it wrecks the rest of the recycling for you to throw in plastic bags or you know, paper cups with a plastic tarp. You know, so, I wish cycling is when we just kind of blindly throw things and hope that they're recyclable. So I gotcha cool term. Okay, so I'm not gonna name names, but I know somebody who they did their research and they looked up how to recycle a motorcycle helmet. Wow. And this is actually a thing like they found that like, yeah, you can do that. But then they put it in the bin like curbside know that people begin to recycling open the bin and just throw it in the yard. Like good art because they're like, this is not this is not where he put this. But you know, it's confusing because it's it is that's it's recyclable, but it's just it's different curbs versus what, like at my recycling center, you can take things like laundry baskets, I just found out oh, wow research. You can take like kind of heavy duty plastics, but you have to take them to the place. You can't just put them in your curbside. Yeah, I think and that's something I mean, I know the city of Austin has been sending out recyclable pamphlets on what can go in the recycling bin and I recently just recently I stopped putting a plastic bag liner in my recycling in you know, my my bin inside the house and taking it out to my outside bin. So now we're just dumping straight from our little recycling trashcan in the house, to the recycling bin without the plastic. Oh, so you were doing a plastic bag? I think a lot of people do that because they sell those clear plastic ones that are supposed to be for recycling. Yes. And they're not. It's so true. It depends if you're if you don't have a recycling bin, and you're just putting it on the curb. They may ask for the clear bag because it makes it easier to sort or whatever. Gotcha. In my jurisdiction. They don't want plastic bags. Uh, you know, that includes your little shopping bags your little. Yeah, we'll get into that next week when I talk about plastic. So wish cycling that I love it. Yeah. So accurate. And I do it all the time. I mean, don't we? Oh, yeah, I probably not after doing this podcast. I'll probably be better about it. But let's dive in. So this week is our third horsemen of the recycled pocalypse which again, it ends up is kind of a My Little Pony spoiler alert. Oh my goodness. I'm so happy. Yes, that just gives you some hope. But so let's get into my sources for this week. I started with glass Alliance Europe, they had an article about what what is glass and I for the record, they're promoters of glass. So to take everything there with a little grain of salt, right? Momentum recycling talked about how glass is recycled. I believe they're out of Utah. So that's kind of the process as it is in Utah but it was a general overview. Then we have the glass packing Institute glass container recycling loop. Then this was a fun one chemical and Engineering News. They go by sea and in. So see ya CNN. Oh, cute, cute, cute. But why glass recycling in the US is broken, super informative article, highly recommend reading it. Ooh. And then eco promotional materials had the benefits of recycling glass. Road Runners smarter recycling had the deep composition clock which had some great info on how everything decomposes over time. And, and then a resource that we should post is recycling center near me. This was their glass recycling post, but they have a locator for wherever you live to find aggress glass recycling or other recycling options near you if you don't have curbside. Oh, wow. Very cool. Yeah. Let's start with what is glass and again, I relied on the glass Alliance Europe for this one, but I'll just quote directly from them. Glass is a solid like and transparent material that is used in numerous applications in our daily lives. Duff. It is hard, like I said last time about paper paper is thin. Yes. Glass is hard. Yes. It's hard and clear generally. But okay, it's what it's made from is mostly natural materials. So sand, soda, ash, and limestone are the three main ingredients. Also, glass calling, which we're going to do that's recycled materials. And then they're all melted down at a super high temperature to create glass. Glass is structurally similar to liquids when it's hot. Okay, but at room temperature, it behaves like a solid so some people will tell you that glass is a liquid. But I mean, it's moving so slowly for us that we can't perceive it I guess. Wow. But because if you heat it up high enough, it turns into a liquid basically it can be poured, blown, pressed and molded into whatever shape you want. Basically. Nice, yes. So it's highly usable substance. Originally, glass was produced in Egypt and Mesopotamia as all good things are about 3500 before the common era a long time ago when they first because they didn't have industrial processes. Obviously, they made it for smaller things like jewelry, but then they started using it for vessels for liquids and things. Did it start okay? Please it of me didn't know heart with lightning strikes. I always think of that dumb movie with Reese Witherspoon about Oh, Sweet Home Alabama. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's like her love interest, whose name I forget is a glassblower and he makes these because when the lightning strikes this sounds like a whole thing. Yeah. Turns into you know, I didn't get that deep into the history that's that's possible. I mean, that's there's whole sections of it. You should look this up but the Trinity site in New Mexico because the sand there with the mica and whatever was heated to such a high temperature didn't make glass Oh, wow. There's pieces I believe. Someone Someone from the nuclear weapons community is going to correct me on this I'm sure. Right. Maybe someone we know. But and, but but there's dead Trinity glass. I mean, it's extremely radioactive, but it exists. So anyway, yes, high heat plus sand equal Glass. Cool. Yeah. Obviously how it's made, it has to be melted first, you can do this either with those three materials, sand, soda, ash, and limestone. Or you can make some of those raw materials with glass calling, which is recycled glass. You mix these elements together. I shouldn't say elements because they're not elements but their materials together and put them into a furnace at about 2700 degrees Fahrenheit. That's toasty. That'll melt your face off. Yeah. That's 50 100 degrees Celsius for our two European listeners. Yeah, there you go. I wonder if we could come up with another image like 15 lightning strikes. And he said that it had to be said it in an American accent because we'll use anything but the metric system. Right. Right. Then, yeah, then the wall or so I guess. Yes. Celsius. Isn't metric, is it? Oh, lordy. Anyway, well, isn't just Celsius. It's not, but it's used by all the metric countries, right? Yeah. It's it makes the most sense. It's based on the boiling point of water and water. Nobody's judging you. Okay. Well, yeah, they are. Sorry, to my rocket scientist friends. Okay. Well, you know, maybe don't screw up your friends. Anyway. Okay. Well, then the molten mixture has taken out to be cooled and shaped. You've probably seen glass blowing. Yes. Okay. So you can do you can add other things to the mixture to make it harder or stronger or change the color of the glass. So that would be an applications like fiberglass, for instance. While that doesn't make it harder or stronger, that they use glass particles to make fiberglass. Okay. In the United States, there are 44 glass manufacturing plants in 21. States. Oh, 44. That's it? Yeah. Whoa, that's yellow. Yeah, it seems low. Right. And then there are 63 glass benefiting facilities. So places that process glass, or glass products in 30 states? Well, that's also low. Yeah, something to keep in mind. And you gotta assume the distance between them is pretty great. Right? So that's something to keep in mind when you think about glass recycling. Yeah. So according to momentum recycling, the step by step process for recycling glass is number one, it's collected and delivered to the facilities where it will be processed. Then it's sorted. And there are specifically sorting facilities that do this. They get rid of the contaminants of the wish cycling materials like ceramics or your Pyrex bowls, your lightbulbs, your mirrors, those things can't go in glass recycling, ladies and gentlemen, you know, light bulbs. Yeah, not, that's not good. No. And then they separate Brown from non brown glass, because I guess you can't make clear glass out of brown glass, if that makes sense. Make clear. Yeah, that would make sense. Can't get the color out? Yeah. Okay, from there after it's sorted, usually, by individuals by hand. It's broken down by this machine that has 24 Industrial hammers the size of your forearm, that just kind of mashes the glass up, okay. Into crude particles, this can create like a glass dust, and so they use a water mist to control the particulate matter. Oh, keep it down. glass dust sounds unsafe. Yeah, yeah. Is that something you want to inhale. Then it goes through a trommel, which is a revolving screen that sorts it into pieces that are three eighths of an inch and three fourths of an inch. That also at the same time, detaches, labels, corks, caps and lids, which go off to their own, hopefully recycling bins, but because I always wonder sometimes I put wine bottles with their corks in them in my bin, and I'm like, I don't know how to do this. I would take it out. At the end of this episode, you'll probably want to clean glass as much as you can, but I would take it out. And then it goes through another process of fluidized bed driver that heats the air underneath it to 109 degrees. I said it was kind of like an air hockey table where it kind of lifts the stuff up and heats the air under it. Interesting. Then it burns off label glue, and any sugars or bacteria. Okay, and then the residue floats because the residue is lighter than the glass, it floats up and is sucked away by vacuum, which sounds very New Age space age to me. But yeah, and then next step is it passes through a primary rotary screen, which calls out specific sizes. And so they set the screens that kind of sift the glass particles into specific sizes based on who their buyer is going to be because different glass manufacturing processes use different size of this. What's Whoa, glass calling. Okay, that sounds just all sounds so sophisticated. Yeah, it is. It's very high tech. So fiberglass manufacturers, for instance, need their particles to be, quote unquote 12 mesh which is like the smallest mesh house smaller right? bottles and other glass need larger sizes or can use larger sizes to melt down, etc. Then the next step is anything that doesn't make it through the primary screen there gets sent to the pulverizer. Again, it's another 36 hammers that aggressively reduced particle size, if what I read that to mean was Smash. Yeah, I'm thinking of like Hulk Smash. Yeah, the Hulk Smash, but it's 36 industrial sized hammers. And then that material goes back through the primary screen to be sorted again. Okay, that is a process that continues until everything goes through, then you have a secondary rotary screen size classifier to sort them into four sizes for the different end markets. So it's sorted again. So this is after all the colors have been sorted through so they do this for every color. I think so that I didn't that might be very over the overly complicated. I'm just yeah, it just sounds like so much. There's just too much involved. Yeah, well, but it's a lot of it's automated, I mean, obviously, okay, and I've been wrong, it's not glass calling, it's glass cullet. So those are the glass pieces that end up and they can be the everything they range from the size of pebbles to sand to even powder which can be used for different reasons. And then it's sold to end users for different production purposes and momentum recycling listed new glass containers, so that'd be bottles, jars, etc. Okay, and then fiberglass you can use this kind of sand or the powder for our abrasives like sandblast for your sandblasters okay, they also use it as a binder in ceramics and bricks. So that would be like the powder. You can use it as a filler and paints and plastics. Really, yep. You can use it in a certain type of material which I didn't write down but it's it's an alternative for natural clays or fly ash. Okay, it's also used as a filtration medium for water usually like swimming pools, but sometimes municipal water sources use it to Okay, and then a friction ater in matches in and ammunition which is probably my favorite word that feels made up. Like that causes the friction. Yeah, it matches the friction ater. So that's on your backpack, you know, the friction there. And then you can use it as an additive in flux and flux and metal foundry too. So those are the basics. Okay, that's a lot. It's a lot in terms of recycling rates. According to the glass packaging Institute in 2018 39.6% of beer and soft drink bottles were recovered for recycling. That's according to the EPA 39.8% of wine and liquor bottles and 15% of food and other glass jars. So in total 33.1% of all glass food and beverage containers were recycled in America in 2018. That's pretty low at super low. super low. So what was the food and beverage I'm trying to think what comes in glass? It's like a regular food and beverage or the Lhasa? Oh, any you know any jams, jellies, right? Okay. The container and fiberglass industries collectively purchased 3.3 5 million tons of recycled glass, which is remelted and repurposed for use in the production of new containers and fiber fiberglass products. So they like it. Yeah, so we're gonna start with the negative, why wouldn't you recycle glass? Number one, we have to say this with every process. As a person who's devoted to green living, there's the obvious reason. Recycling glass is a process that uses energy and water resources. So if you're trying to reduce your individual footprint, you'd rather reuse a glass jar, than have it recycled to make more glass jars. And we're doing a mini episode on that. Yes. And I'm very excited. Yeah. Okay. Now also, according to the Roadrunner, smarter recycling decomposition clock. Glass takes a million years to decompose. Well, yeah, I mean, it usually gets broken up. Obviously, if you've ever dropped something like a glass bottle on the street, you know that it's breakable. So usually, but generally, like if you just throw it in the landfill, and it didn't break a million years. Whoa. But eventually it would actually just from pressure. Yeah, again, anything plus pressure equals biodegrade. Wow. That's insane. I love how that's like. It's just math. Obviously, we haven't been making glass for a million years, right? We haven't even done that. There's not a single piece of glass that is decomposed on this planet. Well, that we know. Okay, but the real reason that you would not recycle glass is because on a cultural level, the United States is just bad at it. So this is where the article from CNN comes in, and I'm just going to quote directly from them. There are many reasons why more glass isn't recycled in the US, says David Rhew, an engineer at the gas Technology Institute near Chicago who recently completed a year long study of us glassware recycling as a consultant, the US glass recycling shortfall comes down to the interplay between the quality and availability of cullet. So that's the glass particles and the economics of making glass, he says, and he says the recycling rate discrepancies between the US and other countries result mainly from differences in government policy and consumer education and habits. So he says, by understanding these hurdles, the glass recycling, industry groups hope to boost the rate in the US. Just to brag it up about our European counterparts. Most of them on average, recycle glass at a rate of 90%. Whoa. That's not super surprising, I guess. I know. I mean, they're good at but the big three, okay, so the big reason is, they talk about the difference between single stream recycling and multi stream recycling. Okay. Yeah. So single stream recycling is just curbside pickup at individual residences. That's what America generally does. Yeah. So we just throw it in all together. And a lot of wish cycling goes into it. Yeah, like motorcycle helmets. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. So multistream recycling simplifies the process for the processors to do their work because it already separates glass from other materials like aluminum and paper. Uh huh. So that's already cuts down economically in the process for the processors. It's like in the Netherlands. Yep. They have. And they may even have separate, you know, glass, like clear glass goes here. Thankfully, did actually glass goes here. Yeah. So that makes it if individuals put the effort in to do that, it makes it cheaper for the processors, you know, because they don't have to spend as much money sorting something kind of interesting. You know, I grew up in Indiana, and we never had curbside. Oh, wow. Yeah, really barely had curbside trash. You have to pay like 10 bucks for it or something. Anyway, never had curbside recycling. But you took your stuff to the recycling center. And you had to sort it yourself. Yeah, I think we had some of that in Albuquerque, too. We had, they didn't have curbside glass recycling. And so you had to take the glass yourself to a drop off point. Right. The other thing about that multistream process? Is that usually the glass that goes there is a lot cleaner than other glass already. Is it? Yeah. Because you're not going to take it in your car, if it's just leaking gunk. Okay? I mean, that's part of it. So it can bypass those materials, recovery facilities and go straight to the processors. Oh, the problem is that you have to be educated and willing to do this initial step, right. Also, on a municipal and local level is cheaper for cities to implement single stream than multi stream interesting. Then another factor that goes into it, the distances in the US, between all the facilities that are part of this process is way further than it is in Europe. So to transport the collected glass to the sorting facility, and then from there to the processing facility, that'll make, you know, the glass cullet that takes a lot Hulk smash it up. Yeah, a lot more fossil fuel, and then to get it to the processing plants that create glass is even more, you know, time resources and money, and fossil fuels and, you know, transportation and all those things. So, the US is just too big, and the processes are too spread out. Okay. or, excuse me, the processing facilities are too spread out for it to be as simple as it is in Europe. Yeah, it makes it I mean, yeah, because European countries are like the size of Massachusetts. Yeah. So, ya know, and at the same time, glass cullet quality, and type can change how it is used. So, the cullet made from bottles and jars is incompatible with window glass or fiberglass components. So color producers have to have extra processes in place to separate these things out, right. So that means the burden is on them. So it's not necessarily a great money making venture for them. So all those things add up and make glass recycling in the US. Kind of a monster. But you should recycle glass and here's why. Okay, a color according to the glass packaging Institute. Glass is 100% recyclable without losing quality or purity. Like aluminum. You can do it infinitely. Oh my god. Yeah, that is so exciting. Yep. recycled glass can substitute up to 95% of the raw materials. So that cuts down on needing to get sand and limestone Wow. Or soda ash, which I guess you can harvest sand. I mean, we seem to have an infinite amount of sand but I'm sure there are better types of sand and you know, yeah, Uh, although Aren't most of our beaches like manmade? A lot of them? Yeah, they're usually reclaimed land. Yeah. But yeah, I guess you can make sand from a lot of things. Yeah. But the other thing is that I don't know why this is the case, but a lot of places quoted energy costs to make recycled glass, or two to 3%. Less for every 10% of color used in the manufacturing process. Oh, that's a lot of numbers. I know. And then some another place. I'm just gonna go through all of my sources and say what they say because a lot of them have different numbers in there. But anywhere from 5% less per 10% of call it used. I mean, two to 3% seems to be standard, but okay. There's also an economic reason. It creates jobs. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Yeah. Are these sorry, are these recycling sent? The manufacturer the processing facilities? Are they like government run or government funded? Are they private? They're private. I think they, the government may pay them to take this stuff. But they're, they're privately owned. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So recycling 1000 tons of glass, according to The Container Recycling Institute creates slightly over eight jobs in your community. Interesting. Yeah. And and states that have bottle buyback bills, bottle bills, beverage container deposit systems provide 11 to 38 times more direct jobs than curbside recycling systems. Whoa, yeah. And that's according to the Container Recycling Institute returning to work, understanding the jobs impacts from different methods of recycling beverage containers, which is a very specific study that I'm very interested in. Boy. I love these. Yeah, I know. They're like the nerds that I mean, it's a we're nerding out Yeah, and super, super helpful. Yeah. But okay. According to our friends, CNN, see, and in, Americans throw away 10 million metric tons of glass. And only half of that gets recycled. Cardboard. So that that's per year. Yeah. My god. Yeah. So using glass cullet reduces the need for manufacturers to use those raw materials silica, sodium carbonate, limestone. Plus, you get 20% more glass out of recycled cullet per kilogram than raw materials. And I don't know how they did that math. But it was one for every you get 20% more glass mass can be created? Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just based on time and process. Interesting. Yeah. It lowers the cost of the final product, obviously. And it improves the quality of it, because you can control recycled glass call it better than sand melting call, it doesn't release co2 or other gases trapped in the glass via air bubbles. CNN said basically, for every six metric tons of color, using manufacturing glassmakers can cut one metric ton of co2 emissions way so it stays trapped. No, I think it there it isn't in the air bubbles anyway. Okay. Or the way that the process does? It doesn't release it in the air. Yeah, all this crap is so confusing. I know. But still, okay. So that's like a net positive, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so eco promotional products also had more stats. Are you ready? So it saves energy. Recycling is less energy sucking than creating new glass. It consumes 40% less energy than making new glass from raw materials, right. And that means reduced emissions of nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide. They say it reduces air pollution by 20%. Over making new glass nice and reduces water pollution by 50%. Whoa, are making new glass right? Obviously, it reduces landfill. It takes as little as 30 days for recycled glass bottle to leave your recycling bin and appear on a store shelf has a new glass container. That is so cool, man as opposed to a million years in a landfill. Yeah, right. No minor difference. All right, again, conserves natural resources. every tonne of glass that is recycled saves more than a ton of raw materials that you would need to create new glass. Okay, so this is a really dumb question. But I'm just thinking through maybe our listeners are not really sure about this either. But it's like, I don't I just haven't thought about this before. But basically the recycling center that I take my crap to or gets picked up curbside, but I take some stuff too. I go there, I throw it in a bin and then nothing happens to it there. Right. It just gets sent to one of these processes sorting facility generally, unless there's a sorting facility on site. Yeah. See, that's so interesting, because I always kind of just in my, in my mind, assume that stuff happened there. It might I mean, it depends on the facility. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. I have no idea about but yeah, it's like, you know, there's different players that are involved for different amounts of money and Okay, so interesting. All right. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, glass is just fucking better than plus to. And again, it's why wouldn't you recycle it? Like if you're not going to reuse it and we are going to do an episode a mini episode on how to reuse glass jars and things? Yes, the things that we've learned over the years, yeah, if you're not going to reuse it, don't throw it away, recycle it. Now again, clean it you know, rinse it out, I've we run our jars at the dishwasher before we put them in the recycling bin. Usually, again, though, they can catch the corks and the caps and the, you know, other parts, but clean it as much as you can. If if you want to be a super good person, write to your representative and ask them to implement better recycling policies. curbside, again is cheaper for cities. Americans don't like to pay for things. We don't like to pay taxes. And we don't like to we'd like to wish cycle we'd like to Yeah, we don't like to vote. Yeah, we don't like to separate our aluminum from our paper from our Yeah, go out of our way to take the time for that stuff. If you live in a place that doesn't have curbside glass recycling, as my French teacher used to say it's worth the pain to say it in French Savola. Ben, take it to your local center. And if you have a you live in a state that has bottle buyback, make some money off of it, get your bottle bought back from you. It is worth it. It does make an impact. I think I looked that up. I don't remember maybe I looked up aluminum. But I looked up one because Indiana, my county at least used to have that and they don't anymore. Yeah, maybe it is a statewide thing. But yeah, it's cutting back on taxpayer money has to come from somewhere. So I mean, I guess if they sell the glass to certain places for sorting and whatnot, they can make money back off of it, but it's part of a state budget. So yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So that's glass recycling in a nutshell, and my granola rating. Uh huh. I gave it a four out of five country. I love it similar to aluminum. Again, the reason that it's not getting a five out of five is because Americans are lazy, and the available systems for recycling. hold us back. And that's not just because Americans are lazy. It's because we don't have the political system in place to prioritize these kinds of things. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say I mean, laziness is certainly part of it. But it's also busyness and lack of clarity, I would say and educate. I mean, we aren't particularly well educated on recycling. Right. But yeah, I will never throw a glass container in a trash can ever again. Oh, it just feels like bad to do. Yeah, I mean, even I hate to say this, but even if it's broken into a bunch of pieces, if you can safely put it in your recycling bin. It gets that's really interesting. Sometimes. I'm trying to think of what I've done is with sometimes I put Oh, yeah, yeah, I had like a glass pane from a picture frame. And I didn't want the people collecting it to get cut. So I like put it in a paper bag. And I didn't know if that was what was gonna happen. That was definitely a wish cycling thing. I don't know what happened with it. It probably got thrown in the landfill. But that's I have heard that before. Because you kind of have to like think about your recycle, recycle folks. Like you can't throw in tin. When you open your cans. You have the sharp, round thing. Those are not recyclable because they can really cut people. Yeah. So glass is the same way. So I don't know what happens if it's in a paper bag. But yeah, it looks like so broken glass cannot be recycled. And oh, really, they they ask that you please wrap it in several layers of newspaper or seal it in a box and label the package glass before putting it in your trash cart. Trash. Alright, so I think I got halfway there. Yeah. Yeah, that's a bummer, though. I wonder if it can be recycled elsewhere? I'd kind of doubt it. It's probably the same reason that the what do you call those? The lids? They're not lids. They're the sharp tops of cans that you Oh, yeah. The the tabs. Not even the tabs. Me? Oh, like when you use a can opener. You have this? Like round top of the lid that comes apart? And that's like, razors, basically. Yeah. Anyways, it's probably the same reason because people can really cut themselves. Yeah, I mean, okay, so I'm going to have to show you how to open a can so that you don't have sharp edges. Oh, please do I've actually okay, do I feel like I've seen this online or something, you just do it backwards or something new, lay it sideways. So you know how you you know, see if vertically, you know you normally put the cutters on top of the can vertically, you lay it on its side. So you're spinning around horizontally. If you take video of it the next time you open a can Yeah, do it doesn't leave a rooftop. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. That's helpful. So maybe that would be recyclable that night. didn't increase my aluminum recycling. Oh yeah, for sure are 10 What is it again? Are they made from tin rhodium from aluminum? Well, those are 10. Yeah, tin tin cans are different, but they're still recyclable. We aren't doing one on them. I just found a blog called recycle coach that talks about whether or not broken glass is recyclable. They basically come down to call your local bottle accepting place. I have interesting in our show notes as well. Well, the other thing that's confusing about that is it when they pour my pour out bottles from my curbside bin into the truck, you know, breaks to shit. So I know. That's kind of interesting. Yeah, who knows? All right. There you go. So that's awesome. That's nice. I feel better about it now than I did. Me too. I feel better about well, most recycling plastic was like I cried myself to sleep. But we'll get into that next week. Yeah, so I guess we should talk about next week. Our four horsemen of the apocalypse is kind of turned into three My Little Ponies and one horsemen. So yeah, and it's definitely death. It's definitely dead. So next week, we're doing starting with plastic. And because of the amount of research we're going to do it in two episodes. Yes, right. Yes. It's gonna be a doo doo. Oh, parter. Yeah, it's not right. To order two parter. Yeah. So wow, I'm concerned for my sleep after you. Maybe should be, to be honest. really disturbing. Yeah, it was just way too much. And I couldn't do it. And when I didn't, mostly I wanted to give it the time it deserves because it really deserves some time. It's complex. I mean, obviously, glass recycling systems are there's, I think that article by sea, and in that I had, I think everyone should read it just to kind of open your eyes as to what, what is holding us back. Right. And, you know, we can do our parts. But there's a lot of policy that has to be made and a lot of players that aren't making money off of it. So they're not going to do anything about it. Right. And all of our all these links are in the show notes, so you can just check them out. Yeah, so Well, wow. Yeah, email us. Your concerns about my take on how glass was first formed by lightning and our nuclear fission. We're at greening up my act@gmail.com. Yeah, send us an email. If you have any requests or curiosities or questions, you can just do what our family does and message us personally. Thanks, Julia. Thanks. So my sister, or Instagram my like to respond to this? Oh, yeah. Tiffany does a great job on her Instagram. So kudos. Awesome. All right. Well, we will see you next week. And thanks for listening. Thank you.