alt Hacker NewsIIRC any grease is considered a contaminate. So any cardboard with grease splotching should be discarded instead of recycled.
Interesting my municipality recycles glass, but like, why? Silica is the most common mineral in the crust, easily accessible almost everywhere, and recycling it takes as much energy if not more than just making new. It's not like aluminum or steel where there are significant energy savings to recycling vs mining and refining.
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> and recycling it takes as much energy if not more than just making new.
It's just melted, mixed and reused, AFAIK. We're recycling glass since forever (maybe mid 90s), and the recycling bins were put out by our national glassware company.
They even have a special line built with these, recycled glasses, which I don't remember the name. They also have a "upcycle" line where they repurpose their fine but not perfect items to other things. Both are excellent lines and are not more expensive than their usual wares.
I've seen articles lately about the sand becoming harder (more expensive) to get. Even though it is abundant, it is not necessarily clean. It still needs to be refined similar to other raw ores. If the glass has already been made, I would expect the contaminants are easier to eliminate from crushing and melting it back down.
> it takes as much energy if not more than just making new.
It saves 30% of the energy inputs to reuse slightly contaminated glass, especially when done locally.
That's ignoring the energy inputs of mining and delivering the silica.
https://learn.sustainability-directory.com/learn/what-are-th...