July 4, 2023 • 39 mins
Check out your favorite green living podcast in their triumphant return to your headphones with a second season! This week, Kat and Tiff explore aluminum recycling as the first in their series on the Four Horsemen of the Recycle-pocalypse (spoiler: this one is more of a Sparkle Pony). Celebrate AMERICA! by listening to this podcast, finishing your beer, rinsing the can, and throwing it in your recycling bin.
Source Links
- Aluminum Leader: What is Aluminum?
- Aluminum Leader: How is aluminum produced?
- Gabrian: Is it Aluminum or Aluminium? Learn about the metal’s fascinating spelling history
- Green Citizen: Is Aluminum Foil Recyclable?
- Better Meets Reality: How Much Aluminum Is Left In The World, Will We Run Out, & What Happens If We Do?
- The Week: Why we will never run out of aluminum:
- Green Tumble: How is Aluminum Recycled: The Recycling Process
- Recycling Partnership: Recycling Initiative Drive Captures 4.1 Million New Pounds of Aluminum Annually
- Republic Services: Two Things You Should Always Recycle to Help the Planet
- Studies on the Impact of Bauxite Mining Activities on the Environment in Kolhapur District
- Columbia Climate School State of the Planet: Project Drives Sustainability commitments from Guinea’s Bauxite Mining Industry
- Institute of Physics: Processing red mud as a factor of removing the risk of environmental disasters: RUSAL experience
- Tomra: Bottle bill states and how they work
- Seattle PI: Environmental Problems Associated with Recycling Aluminum
- Oberk: Which States are the Best (or Worst) for Recycling
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hi Ken hatIve how are you?
I'm so happy to be back.
Oh my gosh, me too. It's just soso good to be back in front of
the microphone.
needed all I need the attentionfrom our massive mountain fans.
Huge Hi, mom. Actually, I don'tthink my mom even listens so
(00:29):
high 10 sister.
I don't know. I don't think mymom knows how to listen.
I don't I don't blame her. Yeah,my neither.
Yeah, break was good. I did alot of things. It's very
specific. I went to NorthCarolina that was nice. Went to
the beach. I'm actually 100% nota beach person. So yeah, it was
(00:51):
a family trip, though. So it wasactually really fun to just have
Charlie hanging out with hercousins. And oh, that's cool.
Yeah, it was adorable. We saw adouble rainbow and we have this
video of Charlie just shoutingrainbow.
Like that. Did you remember thatvideo that came out of the guy
was like a double rainbow. Andhe's like, freaking out.
(01:12):
No, but that was pretty muchwhat was happening. And all the
people from the house next doorwere like adults shouting that
thing. It has an effect. Yeah, Ican see that.
How was your break? was good.
I went home to Albuquerque forone of my really good friends.
We just have a party every yearcalled eating day. Which is
(01:33):
exactly what it sounds like.
Love it day devoted to eatingand we hadn't done it in since
before the pandemic because hisfather had passed away. So it
was our first time back and fiveyears and everybody had four
year old children. I don't knowwhat happened. But there were
400 Am that weren't there. So,which was cool, but we taught
them about eating day thetradition continues. So it was
(01:54):
great. That's adorable. Yeah.
You're like, Wait a minute.
You weren't here before? Yeah.
Though, you know, in my mind,they all were just born. So I
don't know how they're walkingand talking. So
Right. Probably neither know howto read almost. I
know. Oh, my God. Don't tell methat. But uh, Hey, Welcome to
(02:19):
Season Two of greening up my actwith this season, we're talking
about waste, which, you know,that means we're gonna get
wasted with you. Just kidding.
It's not about that kind ofwaste. So what are we doing this
season? Tiffany,we are talking about lots of
things. If you're the teaser,you'll know a little bit but
(02:40):
we're talking we're gonna startwith recycling. And talk about
how how do you describe it? Howridiculous it
was? Because I was like,corrupt, Meaningless,
meaningless. I mean, it's not wenot all of it is I think we need
(03:02):
to narrow that down to plastic.
Yeah, other recycling is pretty,not well, some of its some of
its actually really good andinteresting and, and helpful.
And, you know, great forcommunities. And then plastic
recycling is a sham. I'm justgonna throw it out there a sham
100%. That was a great word todescribe it. Yeah, we'll get
(03:24):
into that. And I'm pumped forthat episode. But yeah, cuz I
had just been reading all thesearticles about recycling. And
now it's a broken system. Andthen we found some things that
you recycle, or actually, itworks relatively well. Not like,
it can't be improved.
But right. Yeah. But it's reallyinteresting process. Because,
(03:46):
you know, you think you justthrow everything in that blue
bin and it goes in, it's fine.
But that's not how it works. SoI'm gonna say after that, we're
going to talk about other waysto dispose of waste that aren't
your city municipal recyclingprogram, or your landfill or
landfill. Yeah. So Beyond TheBeyond the bin, I think that
section, but we're calling thisthe first four episodes of the
(04:06):
season, the four horsemen of therecycle apocalypse, because of
that sham factor, I think,really? You and I have both on
our research on aluminum andpaper, and they're probably not.
They're not plagues. Really. Butglass and plastic. Plastic is
definitely death. 100% and glassmight be famine. I think that
(04:27):
that's appropriate. The othertwo are like my little ponies.
So yeah. It's like sparkle ponyand paper pony. I don't know.
Sorry. I didn't mean to remove.
Sparkle is definitely aluminumthough.
It's shiny, bony, shiny.
But yeah,yes. Yeah. And then later in the
season, we're gonna talk aboutlike, composting. We're gonna
(04:50):
try our hands at that. Andalthough it's kind of, we should
probably start now because ittakes a while but yeah, there's
A municipal recycling program inmy city. So my my recycling
program is putting it from thelittle thing on my countertop
into the green bin outside whereall right, good, takes it away.
(05:12):
Okay, I have that option too,but I have to drive it. I'm not
going to do that. So I'll justtry it at home. Yeah, there you
go. And then yeah, some reusablethings that everybody seems to
love. And we're gonna explorethem like reusable stasher bags,
like Ziploc bags or reusablestraws. Yeah.
So how to reduce your use.
Yeah, and then you're gonna getinto food waste, which is going
(05:33):
to be reallyinteresting. Yeah, finding out
ways to quit throwing all yourfood in the trash America.
Yeah, and exploring whether ornot they actually like these
tactics or hacks or whateverwill actually work. Yeah.
Because I'll be honest, I'm abig food waster. And I'm not
proud of it. But I've been a lotbetter lately. So
(05:57):
that's good. I'm, I'm the sameway I have my eyes for
vegetables are bigger than mystomach. And I like look
broccoli, that's gonna last forsix months, right? And then No,
it doesn't generally last forsix months, maybe in the
freezer, but not in your fridge.
So Right. Gross.
Gross ease. You Yeah, but do youwant to just jump dive into
(06:17):
running a sparkle pony? Sparklepony number one. Aluminum
recycling? Yeah.
Well, should we talk about therecycling industry? A little
bit?
Yeah. Can we dish a little?
Because I know you've you've duginto it? And I want to know,
yes. So this is something that Ithink surprises a lot of people
because it surprised the hellout of me when I first learned
about it. But basically, therecycling industry in general is
(06:42):
kind of shady. Because it wassupported very much so by big
industries, like Coca Cola, likeI think some oil companies,
because they wanted to be ableto create disposable, like to
(07:04):
veer away from glass bottles,you know, like your coke used to
come in glass bottles,because it's expensive. And
they're delicate. Yes. Yeah. Andthey were responsible for taking
them back and cleaning them. Andthat was expensive. And they
didn't want have to deal withit. So they sort of jumped on
the recycling bandwagon. This isspecifically for plastic, but I
think it kind of, you know,other to the rest of it. Yeah.
(07:29):
And, yeah, they basically hadlots of ads. Like I found this
NPR article that pulled out thisad that said, the bottle may
look empty at its anything buttrash. And it's this ad from the
1990s says it's full ofpotential, we've pioneered the
(07:49):
country's largest, mostcomprehensive plastic recycling
program to help plastic fill,fill valuable uses and roles.
But the whole time they the samearticle quoted another former
president of the Society ofplastics industry, saying that,
if the public thinks thatrecycling is working, then
(08:10):
they're not going to be asconcerned about the environment.
Because they knew classicspecifically, plastic recycling
wasn't going to work. No. And somuch. And like I haven't done
the research yet on the plasticepisode, but so much of it goes
straight into the landfill. Soand, and it's just the American
(08:30):
public is like, Oh, well, numberone, the companies that are
producing the plastics should bein charge of recycling it.
Yeah. Like they used to be. Theyused to be responsible for
making sure that all of thoseclass coke bottles weren't
littering the beaches. And nowit's like, they basically sold
us a bag bag of goods is that atrash bag, bag of friggin
(08:54):
literally a bag of trash. And itreally like shit really hit the
fan in 2018. When we used tobefore then, basically China
decided in 2018, that theydidn't want to accept most of
our recyclables a lot ofplastic. But because we as
Americans were so bad atrecycling, because I think we
(09:16):
just have this idea thatanything's recyclable, throw it
all in. And we were sending themour garbage. Like it wasn't
right. I understand why Chinadid it. But they basically, they
didn't necessarily ban importsof recycling from the US, but it
feels like a bank because Ithink it dropped from like 90%
to 10%. Wow. So we ran into thisissue where we still haven't
(09:38):
really solved it. And it's like,we don't have anywhere to send
this stuff. And it basicallyturned from a profitable
industry into a not profitableindustry.
The opposite and expensiveexpense and expense communities.
Yeah, so it's, it's pretty wild.
And yeah, we're kind of in thiswild Last of we don't really
(10:01):
have all the solutions yet, butBut yeah, so that's why we
wanted to look into recyclingbecause it's like, everybody,
everybody thinks that it's theright thing to do that it's
good. That it's a solution thatit's like,
way better for the environmentthat it's yeah, if you don't do
(10:22):
it, you're evil. Yeah. Andsomebody's taking care of it.
Yep. Yes. That's the bigthing. It's like, just a
Starbucks cup is definitelygonna be recycled. Absolutely.
And it's like, probably not.
Plastic doesn't go away.
No, eternal plastic is forevermore than diamonds. Plastic is
(10:42):
forever. More than diamond.
Tell the beersthat should be like this society
of plastics slogan more thantime. But anyway, onto aluminum.
We were chatting a little bitand it seems like some
recyclables are okay. And hopingaluminum is one of them.
(11:07):
Yeah, so I'm going to take youon a ride about our sparkle pony
aluminum. So first, I just wantto go through my billion sources
here.
Yes, I started with the aluminumleader. What is aluminum? They
also have How is aluminumproduced? I then I went to
Gabriel, which has an articleabout how you pronounce
aluminum. Is it aluminum oraluminium? Learn about the
(11:30):
middles fascinating spellinghistory. That's our actual
article and only, you knowfunny. Well, depends where you
live, right? Yeah, well, good.
Well, oh, wait a minute. Okay.
Then. Green Citizen is aluminumfoil recyclable, which I believe
you found. And then in a littlearticle from better meets
reality is how much aluminum isleft in the world will we run
out and what happens if we dowhich is really just a bunch of
(11:50):
aggregated articles from otherplaces. The week had a YouTube
video about why we will neverrun out of aluminum. I hate to
do spoilers here. Green tumbleis how is aluminum recycled the
recycling process. The recyclingpartnership had a an article
about recycling initiative thatcaptures 4.1 million new pounds
of aluminum annually annually,which I didn't get into too
(12:12):
much. But I thought it was aninteresting piece. Republic
Services has an article on twothings you should always recycle
to help the planet with someinteresting statistics. Now we
get into kind of the deep divehere studies on the impact of
bauxite mining activities on theenvironment of coal have poor
district in India. That's aresearch article. We had an
article from the Columbiaclimate school state of the
(12:34):
planet project Dr.
Sustainability commitments fromGuinea's bauxite mining
industry, then the Institute ofPhysics had processing red mud
as a factor of removing the riskof environmental disasters. So
I'm telling you what directionthis article is going right. And
then tomra had a thing aboutbottle bills, bottle bill states
and how they work. The SeattlePei had an article on
(12:55):
environmental problemsassociated with the recycling of
aluminum. And then Uber cut areally great article about which
states are the best or worst forrecycling. Oh, wow, that's
interesting. You might want tosee as well, I think, yeah. Some
details about aluminum. We'regonna go into people in the UK
call it aluminium. Because abunch of British chemists in the
(13:16):
19th century thought it soundedmore classical. That's it. They
just liked because when theywere naming it, the British
chemists were like aluminium andthe Americans were like
aluminum. And so that's whythat's it.
So. So typical.
Well, you can read thefascinating history from jbn.
But that's not why we're here.
Right? Right. So aluminum is anelement, it was discovered in
(13:38):
the 1824. So it's the 13th. It'snumber 13. On the periodic
table, it's a metal. As youknow, it's the most widespread
metal on the planet. It makes up8% of the earth's core mass,
according to aluminum leaders.
So that's a lot. That is a lot.
But it doesn't occur naturallyin its pure form, because it
binds too easily with otherelements. So in order to get
(14:00):
pure aluminum, you have toprocess it. And this is done
using electricity. So there wasno aluminum before there was
electricity. So you can thinkHey, Tesla and Edison for that,
right?
Yeah, historic viewed.
Yeah. We're not a Tesla anyway.
But yeah, but go Tesla. Thefirst time anyone produced pure
(14:23):
aluminum was 1824. But it wasn'tthey didn't create an industrial
process for it until after 1870.
So it's known for beinglightweight, durable, easy to
process, and it's resistant tocorrosion. It also doesn't catch
fire, and it's not toxic, likeother metals. So it's kind of an
ideal material catch fire. Yeah.
Okay. I don't I don't know whatmetals catch fire. That's
(14:46):
interesting. Yeah. It doesn'tconduct electricity unless it's
combined with other elements. Soif you combine aluminum with
other elements, you can make allsorts of stuff like the wires In
your phone, they say it couldreplace copper. They also make
alloy aluminum alloy wheels foryour car. They make engine parts
(15:07):
from it. automobiles andairplanes are all like
everything around you is builtfrom aluminum. On some level,
you've probably seen aluminumdoors, you've seen aluminum
ladders. They're usuallyaluminum alloys because pure
aluminum will be a little bittoo lightweight for those
things, but there's a lot ofeverywhere. Okay, so the most
common form of aluminum thatoccurs naturally is aluminum
(15:29):
sulfate. And that's used as achemical to clean water to cook.
They put it in medicine andcosmetics. But for our purposes,
today, we're going to talk aboutpure aluminum that the quote
unquote tin foil uses andactually aluminum foil and your
household cans. Okay. Okay. So,again, I'll go into the process
(15:51):
of how you make aluminum later,but most of this aluminum comes
from an ore called bauxite ore.
Okay? A big statistic. If youjust Google aluminum recycling,
or just aluminum in general,every article will say 75% of
the aluminum that has ever beenproduced since 1880. is still in
(16:12):
use today.
What? AmazingYeah, that Bud Light you were
drinking? Probably made uppartially of Alumina was in
created in. Yeah.
I was thinking was made into mynext but like, but yeah,
yeah, well, that too. But Idon't even like Bud Light. The
(16:33):
Bud Light. I know. I don't drinklight either. But it's just you
know, it's a can. The LacroixLacroix that you're drinking.
Yeah, right now, it's one of thesustainability of these drinks
we're drinking. The one thing Iwant to point out here is don't
be confused, you would thinkthat would mean that 75% of
aluminum is recycled. But that'snot a fair statistic. It's just
75% of the aluminum that hasever been created. Since it was
(16:56):
started in 1874. Whenever isstill in production today. So
but that's not from recycling.
What it is from recycling. Butthat doesn't mean that 75% of
all aluminum is recycled. Okay.
There's a false statistic there.
They're not correlated.
correlated correlation. There'sno correlation necessarily.
(17:17):
Yeah. Sounds right. To me,recycling aluminum. It's one of
the most recyclable materials onthe planet. It doesn't break
down during the process. It's apretty straightforward process.
You sort it, first of all,right? You shred it, you clean
it, you melt it down, remove anybyproducts. So anything else
that shows up in it? You createan alloy, and then you compound
(17:39):
it. This is done. Actually, youknow, we were talking about
China takes most of our plasticare used to there's a lot of
recycling actually done in theUnited States is a simple enough
process that they can go to theUnited States.
Okay. Do they have to doanything to get like the colors
off them?
That would be removing thebyproducts? Okay. Yeah, the
paint and stuff? Yeah, yeah.
Aluminum recycling rates in2018, which is the most recent
(18:01):
data? Well, that I found fromthe EPA, they said 3.9 million
tons of aluminum were produced,including 1.9 million tons of
aluminum containers andpackaging, and then 2 million
tons of durable and non durablegoods that would be like your
wheels and your letters. And sothe total recycling rate of
aluminum containers andpackaging, so that's your Bud
(18:23):
Light cans and your foodcontainers and your tin foil or
excuse me, aluminum foil was34.9% 35%. That's pretty low.
Yeah, but if you just look atbeer and soft drink cans, we
recycle those at 50.4%. Hmm. Butthat still means that in
2018 2.7 million tonnes ofaluminum went to the landfill.
(18:47):
I was gonna say that's stilllow, like 15%. Yeah,
I did. There may be reasons forthat. Okay. But interesting. I
was like one out of every, somesome places said that 65% of
aluminum is recycled. So thatthat's apparently so green
tumbles, stated that, and thatwas 67% of aluminum cans in the
world. So two out of threeworldwide, which means, you
(19:13):
know, probably Holland is doinga lot better job than we are.
Generally they do Europe ingeneral. Yeah, recycles a lot
more than we do. So whatever thereasons are for that. Only 50%
of our soda cans are recycled inthe US. Step up your game.
Yeah, especially if it actuallyfunctions. Yeah, like if the
system works.
(19:33):
Yeah. Then we wanted to get intowhy you might not want to
recycle aluminum. Okay, so firstof all, as with any
manufacturing process in theUnited States, aluminum
recycling can also causeenvironmental issues. Okay,
according to Seattle PII, thiscan include there's toxic melted
waste. There's a toxic cake thatis created by the recycling
(19:57):
process that's made of salt Thatdisposing of it is difficult and
toxic. There's also the burningof fossil fuels to run the
machines and the electricityneeded to do that. And then of
course, air pollution frommelting the aluminum down. Those
are all reasons why you mightnot want to recycle aluminum.
Right.
(20:17):
Okay. I'm curious to see how itstacks up against.
Well, I'll keep going new. Yeah.
Okay. Another reason you mightnot recycle aluminum is, it's
really difficult for recyclingfacilities to separate out clean
aluminum from dirty aluminum. Soit's really easy for it to get
classified as contaminated bythe recycling facility during
pre sorting. And if they call itcontaminated, it's gonna get
(20:42):
thrown in the trash anyway,dirty aluminum can't be
recycled. And we're talkingabout your lasagna topper when
you're baking, and it's gotcheese and grease in it. That
stuff can be recycled gums upthe works. Also, you can rinse
that before you throw it in therecycling bin, you can clean
aluminum foil before you tossit. But if it's got grease on
(21:04):
it, I mean, in general, justeverybody knows. oil and grease
is not allowed in recycling. Soyour pizza boxes also, I'm not
sure you're going to talk aboutthat. But we talked about it.
Glass bottles that had essentialoils in them can't be recycled
because of the oil, right? Sojust know that you have to throw
(21:24):
it away. If you can't scrub itdown. Also, it needs the
aluminum should be separatedfrom any other recyclable or
trash materials. So forinstance, you know, sometimes
you get those food containersthat are aluminum foil, and then
on the top, they have like apaper that's gotten like
aluminum. Yeah, you probablycan't separate the paper from
the aluminum in that. So you'rejust going to throw it away. Oh,
(21:46):
gotcha. Yeah, on top of rightthere, if it's combined or
something if you if it comesattached to plastic and you can
safely remove the plastic fromthe aluminum, then you can
recycle the aluminum if it'sclean, again, no big. But
otherwise, it's just gonna gettossed out. Anyway, another
thing to note, if you if you dowant to recycle your tin foil,
(22:06):
crunch it up, it may seem likeyou want it to be as pristine as
possible, but they said that thesheets get caught up in the
recycling turnstiles and thingsand so it's better to have it
crumpled up. Which is probablyalso why you want to crush your
cans.
Do you crush your cans?
I do. You well do? I do when I'mwhen I'm out with the Hash House
(22:28):
Harriers I crushed my hands whenI'm really at home. I don't.
Okay, my grandma used to and itwas like she got well she
actually did the smart thing andcrushed like, gallons and
gallons and gallons of you knowbags. Yeah. And took it to the
recycling center and got moneyfor it. Well now goes like
(22:49):
couple cents per can.
Yeah, that's what I'm going totalk about that in a minute too.
So, but that those would bereasons why you don't recycle
aluminum is I mean, personallyfrom your own house. If it's
dirty, just don't do it. Butalso because it does there are
environmental issues with therecycling process. It's
something to be aware of, butokay. Why should you recycle
(23:10):
aluminum? Number one, it'sactually better for the
environment than making newaluminum.
Okay, this is what I assumed.
Yes.
The process of extracting purealuminum from or is extremely
energy intensive. I mean,there's a lot of other aspects
that go into it. So number one,you have to mind the bauxite, so
(23:30):
that usually occurs in tropicaland subtropical areas. That's
where most of the box ideas areChina. According to a little bit
of leader 73% of bauxite isfound in five countries in the
world, including Jamaica,Guinea, Brazil, Australia, and
India. Whoa, now mining, it'sall a pit mine. So there's
(23:51):
concerns about deforestation,water contamination, and of
course, human rights violations,right. A lot of the mining that
is done in furnance blue, a lotof places said that Guinea has
the largest concentration ofbauxite ore in the world, but
it's usually outside companiesthat come and do the mining and
they don't actually help thelocal community very
(24:12):
much. Well, yeah.
There's that from there, theBauxite ore has to be processed
into alumina, which is a whitepowder to create aluminum. This
takes. Yeah, yeah, that was mymind. Yeah. Well, it takes a
very high temperatures, and thenthey have to also use a
concentrated toxic soda. Andthis creates something called
(24:33):
red mud, which, according to theInstitute of Physics is toxic to
humans and the environmentbecause it's extremely
corrosive. So they use a toxiccorrosion chemical and very high
temperatures to separate thealumina from the bauxite, and
it's the process of it goes backand forth several times. So then
you have to dispose of the redmud properly in a mud disposal
area, which means more land andyou have to make sure that the
(24:57):
mud disposal areas won't allowthe alkali So the corrosive
elements to get intogroundwater. So you have to very
much trust that the industrythat's doing this is following
all the procedures and incertain deregulated areas where
perhaps all of this is takingplace, that might not be so Wow.
But apparently, if it's doneproperly, aluminum leader says
(25:18):
the red mud can be reused as araw material because the Bauxite
turns into different components,and you can get those out of the
red mud later. Also, these mudareas can be reclaimed once
they're full, by burying the redmud in sand, ash or dirt, and
then planting trees and plantsgrowing on top of it. Okay, but
(25:40):
still, it's a toxic by seep downinto the water. Yeah, it's a
concern, right. And thenfinally, you've got to have
another element cryolite to makethe right environment for the
electrolysis that it takes tomake aluminum. It's a rare
natural fluoride mineral,they've started making it
artificially, I didn't go verydeep into the process of how if
(26:00):
that's sustainable or not, butit's another environmental
impact. There's this otherelement that you have to eat?
Well, I don't think cryolite isan element. It's a missing a
fluoride mineral. There we go.
Okay. It's a thing. But yeah,it's a thing. And then also,
again, high amounts ofelectricity to create the
aluminum from the Illumina.
(26:22):
These things always make mewonder who the hell did this
first suitscientists in the 19th century,
were just running around likecrazy. Like, if you look there,
they just like let's setsomething on fire. I mean, like,
Oh, this is radioactive. Let mekeep it in my bedroom. And keep
screwing around. And I mean, itwas a great time for science,
but it's also like, well, you'relosing your hair. Marie Curie,
(26:44):
you know? You gotta thinkelectricity. So exciting. You
know, you're right.
Let's turn this white powderinto a showing that Oh,
yeah. And call it aluminium. No,aluminum, aluminium, aluminium.
You know, it was like, just theWild West. I mean, literally,
that's when the Wild West was soright. Yeah. And they definitely
(27:06):
didn't have you know, protectiveeyewear. Right? This is why
those things exist. Those arefor forefathers and foremothers
walks so we could run withoutscissors. But yeah. Okay, so
there you go. According toRepublic Services, recycling
aluminum takes 95% less energythan making new cans from raw
(27:30):
materials. Whoa, that's huge.
That's a pretty bigsustainability thing. Also,
another reason you want torecycle it aluminum is
infinitely recyclable. You canrecycle it for the next billion
years. If we do that. It doesn'tbreak down during the process.
And again, that that can haveLacroix or drinking probably
contains aluminum that wascreated in 1880. Probably. Yeah.
That's so cool. Yeah. It's weirdto think about, but it is, it's
(27:55):
this product that is so integralin our lives, and it's only
existed for 250 years.
I know. It's like, what the heckdid people drink out of
your wooden cup, right? Justleaking all over you coconut
shells. Couldn't even have hadcarbonation. You know, you had
(28:16):
to carbonate on the premises.
Right? You couldn't you couldn'thave originated
beer. You couldn't even haveLacroix. What was life, like?
Just the word sounds horrible.
Well, okay,so there you go. But another
reason. And you just touched onthis. Basically every state in
the US offers some form ofaluminum recycling. Okay. You
may have to bring it inyourself. But most places have
(28:39):
come because it's so easy. It'slocalized. They have the
programs in place. But as youwere talking about bottle bills,
which are state laws thatrequire recycling facilities to
pay people when they bring backcertain recyclable goods, you
can make money off of it. 10states have bottle bills
(28:59):
currently, you can get cash forcans in California, Connecticut,
Hawaii, Iowa, Maine,Massachusetts, Michigan, New
York, Oregon and Vermont.
Oh, so they used to do it inIndiana, because my grandma did.
Yeah, a lot of places got rid ofit. But according to Oberg, the
state that recycles the mostaluminum cans is Michigan. I
(29:22):
don't know if that's becausethey drink the most beer or what
but they recycle the most cansand they get money for it. Okay.
Now, another reason some, thisis back and forth. The scare
factor is that there's someconcern that we could run out of
bauxite ore to make new aluminumwithin the next 80 years. But
most scientists think there areanother there are enough other
(29:45):
sources of aluminum that wewould figure out how to get it
out of there because again, itmakes up 8% of the earth's core
mass. So probably, we're notgoing to run out of aluminum
anytime soon. It's just we'regonna refine new processes to
make Get hopefully moreefficient, you know, less Miney
and less. Yeah, we'll see. We'rejust gonna take it out of the
(30:06):
air. Just kidding. There's noaluminum in there. Yeah, but you
said it likes to clean to otherthings, right? So it's there's
so many aluminum, aluminum,aluminum alloys aluminum
combinations in the world thatyeah, we have lots of options
apparently. Okay. As always,we're going to say, when you
(30:28):
think about your concerns withaluminum production, and
secondary aluminum, which isrecycling, those all cause
environmental concerns, so useit as sparingly as you can. and
reuse it. Some of the ideas thatgreen citizens said were that
you can, you know, obviouslyrinse it, wash it, reuse it. You
(30:51):
can also bunch it up and use itto scrub your dishes.
Oh, the aluminum foil? Yeah. Oh,it's reusable sponge.
Yeah, I was like, it's probablyless less gross than reusable
sponge. Right.
Whoa, interesting. I wonder howlong that would last seems like
it would fall apart prettyquickly. Yeah,
I wonder. But you could also useit to polish your silverware. I
(31:12):
mean, there's all kinds of usesfor aluminum foil. I know
people throw it in theirdishwasher. And supposedly it
polishes their silverware. Well,yeah.
Yeah, there's some interactionthat happens. You can like put a
piece of aluminum foil in athing of water and add I forget
baking soda or something andleave your silver in it. And
it'll remove the what you callit, the green or whatever,
(31:36):
oxidation from your server. Sothat's something
Oh, cool. I think I've heardthat before. I think I tried
that on my like,I tried it once too. And it
actually silver. Oh, yes. It'speeled off the outer layer. It
was like that thing and then youbroke up with whatever boy
bought it for you. Did? Good.
Anyway, but yeah, America. Putdown that Bud Light, pour it
(32:00):
out, rinse it out, throw it inyour recycling can in your ears
like Lincoln, recycling bin,sorry. recycle the cans. And Can
Can Can Can Cal cans. You cancan recycle can cans.
Yeah. So my question is like,you might not have the answer to
(32:20):
this. But a lot of people saythey try to come up with
strategies for like wasting lesswater while they're rinsing off
their recyclables. Especially ifyou say it's like not even going
to do anything like it soundslike if I wanted to recycle
lasagna tray, I'd really have toscrub it. And that might not be
like is that I wonder if that'sworth the water?
(32:42):
Well, that's what Green Citizenwas saying. If you're already
washing dishes, and you're doingthe to pan method that we talked
about, you know, you might aswell you can watch it there too.
And that might be worth it. Ifyou're already washing. I mean,
like my grandmother's lasagnapan. I'm already watching that.
So why not wash the aluminumfoil? I put on top of it,
right? Yeah, I can wash it soyou actually wash your aluminum
(33:05):
foil?
No, this is ladies andgentlemen. It has poked his head
in the door. Hey, dog. He'sdecided he doesn't. He doesn't
want he just wants the door openanyway. Okay, we're gonna leave
it open until something crashesin the kitchen. He's lying
between my room and my roommatesrooms. And you can watch both of
(33:27):
us. But my roommate has his doorclosed and Oh, sad. Boy.
He's so ugly. That's why I'm inthe basement. I only have
spiders tobow Yeah, you're friendly
spider. No, Ruby for us to playwith. No, it's for the best.
Yeah. But yeah, I, I use mygrandmother's lasagna pan is
like a old cast iron thing. Sookay, I watched that. And then
(33:49):
why not watch the lasagnatopper. You know, while I'm at
it, I can scrub that. And butagain, there are other things
you can use instead of aluminumfoil for your lasagna. There's,
you know, reusable method.
Things You Can Use. Is there.
Yes. And I don't have them inhere. But I need Oh, no, that's
fine. Yeah, there's like paper.
(34:12):
Paper because it would catch onfire. But there's, there's
there's reusable you can doparchment paper, but I don't
know if that's any better. Yeah,it won't be as good as aluminum
because like, Yeah, but you canuse a lid, you know, like a pan
lid. They make them.
Okay, so it's interesting. Oh,yeah. Cuz some are covered are
like a Dutch oven.
Yeah, like a Dutch oven. Andthen you just Yeah. So look into
(34:34):
those methods. Yeah, that'saluminum.
That is very interesting. Thankyou.
Well, now we must rate it on ourgranola system.
Oh my goodness.
So we're talking about aluminumrecycling, not aluminum itself.
And, again, our granola ratingsystem because we're a couple of
dirty hippies is on a scale ofone to five granolas with one
(34:55):
being soggy and five beingbreaker tooth off because the
crunchy or the better. I wouldgive this aluminum recycling.
And it's the first one thatwe're doing with the season.
It's either a four or a five,either crunchy or break your
tooth off. I say crunchy again,because there are other concerns
with the environmental aspectsof the process of recycling
(35:17):
aluminum that are problematic.
Yeah. But the alternative,right, it's so easy to recycle.
Yeah, and better than creatingnew aluminum. So and it's so
easy to do. So I kind of want togive it a break your teeth off.
Oh, that's so cool. I wouldagree with that. The only caveat
(35:38):
would be does this system eventhough it works well incentivize
people to use more than theywould otherwise? And
there's a question and again,the same thing we're talking
about with plastic. If you don'tknow that, you can't throw dirty
aluminum in the you know, you'rejust going to gum up the works
anyway. So it does it justencourage people again, out of
sight out of mind to use moretrash, so that might be a four
(36:02):
in that sense. It might be acrunchy, okay. Yeah, let's just
give it a crunchy because fiveshould really be one of our
other fives. Canyou think the only one I can
think of is DIY laundrydetergent?
Yeah. Yeah, we didn't even giveit to dish or to
don't say dishwasher didnot dish No, definitely not
screw dishwasher detergent,obviously. But we didn't even
give it to glass cleaner. Oh,yeah. Glass Cleaner.
(36:26):
That was a four.
I think it was before. Wehaven't ever done a three
before. Oh, really? Let's findsome threes. Yeah, I
think we'll have some thisseason. But yeah, update on my
dishwasher. Dirty labs. Shoutout to them.
Is it working?
It works really well. Oh, whenit's more expensive than like
making you're making ityourself. But it also functions.
(36:47):
So actually does this jobrushing.
I know and I tried today thewhole or last night I tried no
rinse, no pre rinsing. And itworked. So because on their
packaging, it says you don'thave to pre rent and I was like,
I don't believe it because I'vebeen so screwed. But it actually
did work. And I once a week willuse like citric acid in my food
(37:13):
grade citric acid works for hardwater deposits, at least works
for me. So like once a week I'lluse it maybe once every two
weeks. But other than that, likethings are good. Also, I am a
fan for life. As long as acompany is around.
I have to a friend of minetexted me the day before our
dishwashing detergent one cameout. And I was like well I may
(37:34):
have some recommendations foryou. But I need you to listen to
the podcast tomorrow. So I'lltext them tomorrow and be like
dirty labs dude, because he waslike I don't like these water
spots on my dishwashing Yes, Iknow situations that deal you've
man.
Yep. Awesome.
That's so well there you go.
Aluminum recycling. It works. Doit America. Do it better.
(37:54):
Grunty starting the season offgood.
Yeah, feels feels good. I'mgonna go throw some beer cans in
the trash. Another trash in therecycling.
Not that trash.
So, what's up next week,Tiffany?
Yeah, I'm gonna be talking aboutpaper recycling. We're
continuing with our four tohorsemen and to
these colonies. These are the MyLittle Ponies. Recycle applet
(38:18):
recycle apocalypse. Recyclepsychological. Have you seen the
Robot Chicken? My Little PonyApocalypse pony? No. I'll have
to send you that. We might haveto post it on Instagram too. I
love it. I'm pestilence. Oh,yes. I'll have to show it to
you.
(38:38):
Well, that's definitely plastic.
So here we come. Yeah, we'retalking about paper paper
recycling. So excited. Yes. Sothat's, that's what's coming up.
So there's like work done here.
Done a little bit. Um, if youlike us, leave us a review. Five
(39:01):
stars are great. That's sayinganything acceptable review,
right. Ifyou don't like us, don't leave a
review. Please don't leave butit does. It does help other
people find us. That's how thealgorithm decides what to
present to people. So radius ifyou like,
me like being popular, so so.
twin sister. Love you. Thanksfor listening.
(39:23):
Thank you.
Alright, thanks everyone elsefor listening to and we'll see
you next week for paper. Yep. ITIFF, bye
Hi Ken hatIve how are you?
I'm so happy to be back.
Oh my gosh, me too. It's just soso good to be back in front of
the microphone.
needed all I need the attentionfrom our massive mountain fans.
Huge Hi, mom. Actually, I don'tthink my mom even listens so
(00:29):
high 10 sister.
I don't know. I don't think mymom knows how to listen.
I don't I don't blame her. Yeah,my neither.
Yeah, break was good. I did alot of things. It's very
specific. I went to NorthCarolina that was nice. Went to
the beach. I'm actually 100% nota beach person. So yeah, it was
(00:51):
a family trip, though. So it wasactually really fun to just have
Charlie hanging out with hercousins. And oh, that's cool.
Yeah, it was adorable. We saw adouble rainbow and we have this
video of Charlie just shoutingrainbow.
Like that. Did you remember thatvideo that came out of the guy
was like a double rainbow. Andhe's like, freaking out.
(01:12):
No, but that was pretty muchwhat was happening. And all the
people from the house next doorwere like adults shouting that
thing. It has an effect. Yeah, Ican see that.
How was your break? was good.
I went home to Albuquerque forone of my really good friends.
We just have a party every yearcalled eating day. Which is
(01:33):
exactly what it sounds like.
Love it day devoted to eatingand we hadn't done it in since
before the pandemic because hisfather had passed away. So it
was our first time back and fiveyears and everybody had four
year old children. I don't knowwhat happened. But there were
400 Am that weren't there. So,which was cool, but we taught
them about eating day thetradition continues. So it was
(01:54):
great. That's adorable. Yeah.
You're like, Wait a minute.
You weren't here before? Yeah.
Though, you know, in my mind,they all were just born. So I
don't know how they're walkingand talking. So
Right. Probably neither know howto read almost. I
know. Oh, my God. Don't tell methat. But uh, Hey, Welcome to
(02:19):
Season Two of greening up my actwith this season, we're talking
about waste, which, you know,that means we're gonna get
wasted with you. Just kidding.
It's not about that kind ofwaste. So what are we doing this
season? Tiffany,we are talking about lots of
things. If you're the teaser,you'll know a little bit but
(02:40):
we're talking we're gonna startwith recycling. And talk about
how how do you describe it? Howridiculous it
was? Because I was like,corrupt, Meaningless,
meaningless. I mean, it's not wenot all of it is I think we need
(03:02):
to narrow that down to plastic.
Yeah, other recycling is pretty,not well, some of its some of
its actually really good andinteresting and, and helpful.
And, you know, great forcommunities. And then plastic
recycling is a sham. I'm justgonna throw it out there a sham
100%. That was a great word todescribe it. Yeah, we'll get
(03:24):
into that. And I'm pumped forthat episode. But yeah, cuz I
had just been reading all thesearticles about recycling. And
now it's a broken system. Andthen we found some things that
you recycle, or actually, itworks relatively well. Not like,
it can't be improved.
But right. Yeah. But it's reallyinteresting process. Because,
(03:46):
you know, you think you justthrow everything in that blue
bin and it goes in, it's fine.
But that's not how it works. SoI'm gonna say after that, we're
going to talk about other waysto dispose of waste that aren't
your city municipal recyclingprogram, or your landfill or
landfill. Yeah. So Beyond TheBeyond the bin, I think that
section, but we're calling thisthe first four episodes of the
(04:06):
season, the four horsemen of therecycle apocalypse, because of
that sham factor, I think,really? You and I have both on
our research on aluminum andpaper, and they're probably not.
They're not plagues. Really. Butglass and plastic. Plastic is
definitely death. 100% and glassmight be famine. I think that
(04:27):
that's appropriate. The othertwo are like my little ponies.
So yeah. It's like sparkle ponyand paper pony. I don't know.
Sorry. I didn't mean to remove.
Sparkle is definitely aluminumthough.
It's shiny, bony, shiny.
But yeah,yes. Yeah. And then later in the
season, we're gonna talk aboutlike, composting. We're gonna
(04:50):
try our hands at that. Andalthough it's kind of, we should
probably start now because ittakes a while but yeah, there's
A municipal recycling program inmy city. So my my recycling
program is putting it from thelittle thing on my countertop
into the green bin outside whereall right, good, takes it away.
(05:12):
Okay, I have that option too,but I have to drive it. I'm not
going to do that. So I'll justtry it at home. Yeah, there you
go. And then yeah, some reusablethings that everybody seems to
love. And we're gonna explorethem like reusable stasher bags,
like Ziploc bags or reusablestraws. Yeah.
So how to reduce your use.
Yeah, and then you're gonna getinto food waste, which is going
(05:33):
to be reallyinteresting. Yeah, finding out
ways to quit throwing all yourfood in the trash America.
Yeah, and exploring whether ornot they actually like these
tactics or hacks or whateverwill actually work. Yeah.
Because I'll be honest, I'm abig food waster. And I'm not
proud of it. But I've been a lotbetter lately. So
(05:57):
that's good. I'm, I'm the sameway I have my eyes for
vegetables are bigger than mystomach. And I like look
broccoli, that's gonna last forsix months, right? And then No,
it doesn't generally last forsix months, maybe in the
freezer, but not in your fridge.
So Right. Gross.
Gross ease. You Yeah, but do youwant to just jump dive into
(06:17):
running a sparkle pony? Sparklepony number one. Aluminum
recycling? Yeah.
Well, should we talk about therecycling industry? A little
bit?
Yeah. Can we dish a little?
Because I know you've you've duginto it? And I want to know,
yes. So this is something that Ithink surprises a lot of people
because it surprised the hellout of me when I first learned
about it. But basically, therecycling industry in general is
(06:42):
kind of shady. Because it wassupported very much so by big
industries, like Coca Cola, likeI think some oil companies,
because they wanted to be ableto create disposable, like to
(07:04):
veer away from glass bottles,you know, like your coke used to
come in glass bottles,because it's expensive. And
they're delicate. Yes. Yeah. Andthey were responsible for taking
them back and cleaning them. Andthat was expensive. And they
didn't want have to deal withit. So they sort of jumped on
the recycling bandwagon. This isspecifically for plastic, but I
think it kind of, you know,other to the rest of it. Yeah.
(07:29):
And, yeah, they basically hadlots of ads. Like I found this
NPR article that pulled out thisad that said, the bottle may
look empty at its anything buttrash. And it's this ad from the
1990s says it's full ofpotential, we've pioneered the
(07:49):
country's largest, mostcomprehensive plastic recycling
program to help plastic fill,fill valuable uses and roles.
But the whole time they the samearticle quoted another former
president of the Society ofplastics industry, saying that,
if the public thinks thatrecycling is working, then
(08:10):
they're not going to be asconcerned about the environment.
Because they knew classicspecifically, plastic recycling
wasn't going to work. No. And somuch. And like I haven't done
the research yet on the plasticepisode, but so much of it goes
straight into the landfill. Soand, and it's just the American
(08:30):
public is like, Oh, well, numberone, the companies that are
producing the plastics should bein charge of recycling it.
Yeah. Like they used to be. Theyused to be responsible for
making sure that all of thoseclass coke bottles weren't
littering the beaches. And nowit's like, they basically sold
us a bag bag of goods is that atrash bag, bag of friggin
(08:54):
literally a bag of trash. And itreally like shit really hit the
fan in 2018. When we used tobefore then, basically China
decided in 2018, that theydidn't want to accept most of
our recyclables a lot ofplastic. But because we as
Americans were so bad atrecycling, because I think we
(09:16):
just have this idea thatanything's recyclable, throw it
all in. And we were sending themour garbage. Like it wasn't
right. I understand why Chinadid it. But they basically, they
didn't necessarily ban importsof recycling from the US, but it
feels like a bank because Ithink it dropped from like 90%
to 10%. Wow. So we ran into thisissue where we still haven't
(09:38):
really solved it. And it's like,we don't have anywhere to send
this stuff. And it basicallyturned from a profitable
industry into a not profitableindustry.
The opposite and expensiveexpense and expense communities.
Yeah, so it's, it's pretty wild.
And yeah, we're kind of in thiswild Last of we don't really
(10:01):
have all the solutions yet, butBut yeah, so that's why we
wanted to look into recyclingbecause it's like, everybody,
everybody thinks that it's theright thing to do that it's
good. That it's a solution thatit's like,
way better for the environmentthat it's yeah, if you don't do
(10:22):
it, you're evil. Yeah. Andsomebody's taking care of it.
Yep. Yes. That's the bigthing. It's like, just a
Starbucks cup is definitelygonna be recycled. Absolutely.
And it's like, probably not.
Plastic doesn't go away.
No, eternal plastic is forevermore than diamonds. Plastic is
(10:42):
forever. More than diamond.
Tell the beersthat should be like this society
of plastics slogan more thantime. But anyway, onto aluminum.
We were chatting a little bitand it seems like some
recyclables are okay. And hopingaluminum is one of them.
(11:07):
Yeah, so I'm going to take youon a ride about our sparkle pony
aluminum. So first, I just wantto go through my billion sources
here.
Yes, I started with the aluminumleader. What is aluminum? They
also have How is aluminumproduced? I then I went to
Gabriel, which has an articleabout how you pronounce
aluminum. Is it aluminum oraluminium? Learn about the
(11:30):
middles fascinating spellinghistory. That's our actual
article and only, you knowfunny. Well, depends where you
live, right? Yeah, well, good.
Well, oh, wait a minute. Okay.
Then. Green Citizen is aluminumfoil recyclable, which I believe
you found. And then in a littlearticle from better meets
reality is how much aluminum isleft in the world will we run
out and what happens if we dowhich is really just a bunch of
(11:50):
aggregated articles from otherplaces. The week had a YouTube
video about why we will neverrun out of aluminum. I hate to
do spoilers here. Green tumbleis how is aluminum recycled the
recycling process. The recyclingpartnership had a an article
about recycling initiative thatcaptures 4.1 million new pounds
of aluminum annually annually,which I didn't get into too
(12:12):
much. But I thought it was aninteresting piece. Republic
Services has an article on twothings you should always recycle
to help the planet with someinteresting statistics. Now we
get into kind of the deep divehere studies on the impact of
bauxite mining activities on theenvironment of coal have poor
district in India. That's aresearch article. We had an
article from the Columbiaclimate school state of the
(12:34):
planet project Dr.
Sustainability commitments fromGuinea's bauxite mining
industry, then the Institute ofPhysics had processing red mud
as a factor of removing the riskof environmental disasters. So
I'm telling you what directionthis article is going right. And
then tomra had a thing aboutbottle bills, bottle bill states
and how they work. The SeattlePei had an article on
(12:55):
environmental problemsassociated with the recycling of
aluminum. And then Uber cut areally great article about which
states are the best or worst forrecycling. Oh, wow, that's
interesting. You might want tosee as well, I think, yeah. Some
details about aluminum. We'regonna go into people in the UK
call it aluminium. Because abunch of British chemists in the
(13:16):
19th century thought it soundedmore classical. That's it. They
just liked because when theywere naming it, the British
chemists were like aluminium andthe Americans were like
aluminum. And so that's whythat's it.
So. So typical.
Well, you can read thefascinating history from jbn.
But that's not why we're here.
Right? Right. So aluminum is anelement, it was discovered in
(13:38):
the 1824. So it's the 13th. It'snumber 13. On the periodic
table, it's a metal. As youknow, it's the most widespread
metal on the planet. It makes up8% of the earth's core mass,
according to aluminum leaders.
So that's a lot. That is a lot.
But it doesn't occur naturallyin its pure form, because it
binds too easily with otherelements. So in order to get
(14:00):
pure aluminum, you have toprocess it. And this is done
using electricity. So there wasno aluminum before there was
electricity. So you can thinkHey, Tesla and Edison for that,
right?
Yeah, historic viewed.
Yeah. We're not a Tesla anyway.
But yeah, but go Tesla. Thefirst time anyone produced pure
(14:23):
aluminum was 1824. But it wasn'tthey didn't create an industrial
process for it until after 1870.
So it's known for beinglightweight, durable, easy to
process, and it's resistant tocorrosion. It also doesn't catch
fire, and it's not toxic, likeother metals. So it's kind of an
ideal material catch fire. Yeah.
Okay. I don't I don't know whatmetals catch fire. That's
(14:46):
interesting. Yeah. It doesn'tconduct electricity unless it's
combined with other elements. Soif you combine aluminum with
other elements, you can make allsorts of stuff like the wires In
your phone, they say it couldreplace copper. They also make
alloy aluminum alloy wheels foryour car. They make engine parts
(15:07):
from it. automobiles andairplanes are all like
everything around you is builtfrom aluminum. On some level,
you've probably seen aluminumdoors, you've seen aluminum
ladders. They're usuallyaluminum alloys because pure
aluminum will be a little bittoo lightweight for those
things, but there's a lot ofeverywhere. Okay, so the most
common form of aluminum thatoccurs naturally is aluminum
(15:29):
sulfate. And that's used as achemical to clean water to cook.
They put it in medicine andcosmetics. But for our purposes,
today, we're going to talk aboutpure aluminum that the quote
unquote tin foil uses andactually aluminum foil and your
household cans. Okay. Okay. So,again, I'll go into the process
(15:51):
of how you make aluminum later,but most of this aluminum comes
from an ore called bauxite ore.
Okay? A big statistic. If youjust Google aluminum recycling,
or just aluminum in general,every article will say 75% of
the aluminum that has ever beenproduced since 1880. is still in
(16:12):
use today.
What? AmazingYeah, that Bud Light you were
drinking? Probably made uppartially of Alumina was in
created in. Yeah.
I was thinking was made into mynext but like, but yeah,
yeah, well, that too. But Idon't even like Bud Light. The
(16:33):
Bud Light. I know. I don't drinklight either. But it's just you
know, it's a can. The LacroixLacroix that you're drinking.
Yeah, right now, it's one of thesustainability of these drinks
we're drinking. The one thing Iwant to point out here is don't
be confused, you would thinkthat would mean that 75% of
aluminum is recycled. But that'snot a fair statistic. It's just
75% of the aluminum that hasever been created. Since it was
(16:56):
started in 1874. Whenever isstill in production today. So
but that's not from recycling.
What it is from recycling. Butthat doesn't mean that 75% of
all aluminum is recycled. Okay.
There's a false statistic there.
They're not correlated.
correlated correlation. There'sno correlation necessarily.
(17:17):
Yeah. Sounds right. To me,recycling aluminum. It's one of
the most recyclable materials onthe planet. It doesn't break
down during the process. It's apretty straightforward process.
You sort it, first of all,right? You shred it, you clean
it, you melt it down, remove anybyproducts. So anything else
that shows up in it? You createan alloy, and then you compound
(17:39):
it. This is done. Actually, youknow, we were talking about
China takes most of our plasticare used to there's a lot of
recycling actually done in theUnited States is a simple enough
process that they can go to theUnited States.
Okay. Do they have to doanything to get like the colors
off them?
That would be removing thebyproducts? Okay. Yeah, the
paint and stuff? Yeah, yeah.
Aluminum recycling rates in2018, which is the most recent
(18:01):
data? Well, that I found fromthe EPA, they said 3.9 million
tons of aluminum were produced,including 1.9 million tons of
aluminum containers andpackaging, and then 2 million
tons of durable and non durablegoods that would be like your
wheels and your letters. And sothe total recycling rate of
aluminum containers andpackaging, so that's your Bud
(18:23):
Light cans and your foodcontainers and your tin foil or
excuse me, aluminum foil was34.9% 35%. That's pretty low.
Yeah, but if you just look atbeer and soft drink cans, we
recycle those at 50.4%. Hmm. Butthat still means that in
2018 2.7 million tonnes ofaluminum went to the landfill.
(18:47):
I was gonna say that's stilllow, like 15%. Yeah,
I did. There may be reasons forthat. Okay. But interesting. I
was like one out of every, somesome places said that 65% of
aluminum is recycled. So thatthat's apparently so green
tumbles, stated that, and thatwas 67% of aluminum cans in the
world. So two out of threeworldwide, which means, you
(19:13):
know, probably Holland is doinga lot better job than we are.
Generally they do Europe ingeneral. Yeah, recycles a lot
more than we do. So whatever thereasons are for that. Only 50%
of our soda cans are recycled inthe US. Step up your game.
Yeah, especially if it actuallyfunctions. Yeah, like if the
system works.
(19:33):
Yeah. Then we wanted to get intowhy you might not want to
recycle aluminum. Okay, so firstof all, as with any
manufacturing process in theUnited States, aluminum
recycling can also causeenvironmental issues. Okay,
according to Seattle PII, thiscan include there's toxic melted
waste. There's a toxic cake thatis created by the recycling
(19:57):
process that's made of salt Thatdisposing of it is difficult and
toxic. There's also the burningof fossil fuels to run the
machines and the electricityneeded to do that. And then of
course, air pollution frommelting the aluminum down. Those
are all reasons why you mightnot want to recycle aluminum.
Right.
(20:17):
Okay. I'm curious to see how itstacks up against.
Well, I'll keep going new. Yeah.
Okay. Another reason you mightnot recycle aluminum is, it's
really difficult for recyclingfacilities to separate out clean
aluminum from dirty aluminum. Soit's really easy for it to get
classified as contaminated bythe recycling facility during
pre sorting. And if they call itcontaminated, it's gonna get
(20:42):
thrown in the trash anyway,dirty aluminum can't be
recycled. And we're talkingabout your lasagna topper when
you're baking, and it's gotcheese and grease in it. That
stuff can be recycled gums upthe works. Also, you can rinse
that before you throw it in therecycling bin, you can clean
aluminum foil before you tossit. But if it's got grease on
(21:04):
it, I mean, in general, justeverybody knows. oil and grease
is not allowed in recycling. Soyour pizza boxes also, I'm not
sure you're going to talk aboutthat. But we talked about it.
Glass bottles that had essentialoils in them can't be recycled
because of the oil, right? Sojust know that you have to throw
(21:24):
it away. If you can't scrub itdown. Also, it needs the
aluminum should be separatedfrom any other recyclable or
trash materials. So forinstance, you know, sometimes
you get those food containersthat are aluminum foil, and then
on the top, they have like apaper that's gotten like
aluminum. Yeah, you probablycan't separate the paper from
the aluminum in that. So you'rejust going to throw it away. Oh,
(21:46):
gotcha. Yeah, on top of rightthere, if it's combined or
something if you if it comesattached to plastic and you can
safely remove the plastic fromthe aluminum, then you can
recycle the aluminum if it'sclean, again, no big. But
otherwise, it's just gonna gettossed out. Anyway, another
thing to note, if you if you dowant to recycle your tin foil,
(22:06):
crunch it up, it may seem likeyou want it to be as pristine as
possible, but they said that thesheets get caught up in the
recycling turnstiles and thingsand so it's better to have it
crumpled up. Which is probablyalso why you want to crush your
cans.
Do you crush your cans?
I do. You well do? I do when I'mwhen I'm out with the Hash House
(22:28):
Harriers I crushed my hands whenI'm really at home. I don't.
Okay, my grandma used to and itwas like she got well she
actually did the smart thing andcrushed like, gallons and
gallons and gallons of you knowbags. Yeah. And took it to the
recycling center and got moneyfor it. Well now goes like
(22:49):
couple cents per can.
Yeah, that's what I'm going totalk about that in a minute too.
So, but that those would bereasons why you don't recycle
aluminum is I mean, personallyfrom your own house. If it's
dirty, just don't do it. Butalso because it does there are
environmental issues with therecycling process. It's
something to be aware of, butokay. Why should you recycle
(23:10):
aluminum? Number one, it'sactually better for the
environment than making newaluminum.
Okay, this is what I assumed.
Yes.
The process of extracting purealuminum from or is extremely
energy intensive. I mean,there's a lot of other aspects
that go into it. So number one,you have to mind the bauxite, so
(23:30):
that usually occurs in tropicaland subtropical areas. That's
where most of the box ideas areChina. According to a little bit
of leader 73% of bauxite isfound in five countries in the
world, including Jamaica,Guinea, Brazil, Australia, and
India. Whoa, now mining, it'sall a pit mine. So there's
(23:51):
concerns about deforestation,water contamination, and of
course, human rights violations,right. A lot of the mining that
is done in furnance blue, a lotof places said that Guinea has
the largest concentration ofbauxite ore in the world, but
it's usually outside companiesthat come and do the mining and
they don't actually help thelocal community very
(24:12):
much. Well, yeah.
There's that from there, theBauxite ore has to be processed
into alumina, which is a whitepowder to create aluminum. This
takes. Yeah, yeah, that was mymind. Yeah. Well, it takes a
very high temperatures, and thenthey have to also use a
concentrated toxic soda. Andthis creates something called
(24:33):
red mud, which, according to theInstitute of Physics is toxic to
humans and the environmentbecause it's extremely
corrosive. So they use a toxiccorrosion chemical and very high
temperatures to separate thealumina from the bauxite, and
it's the process of it goes backand forth several times. So then
you have to dispose of the redmud properly in a mud disposal
area, which means more land andyou have to make sure that the
(24:57):
mud disposal areas won't allowthe alkali So the corrosive
elements to get intogroundwater. So you have to very
much trust that the industrythat's doing this is following
all the procedures and incertain deregulated areas where
perhaps all of this is takingplace, that might not be so Wow.
But apparently, if it's doneproperly, aluminum leader says
(25:18):
the red mud can be reused as araw material because the Bauxite
turns into different components,and you can get those out of the
red mud later. Also, these mudareas can be reclaimed once
they're full, by burying the redmud in sand, ash or dirt, and
then planting trees and plantsgrowing on top of it. Okay, but
(25:40):
still, it's a toxic by seep downinto the water. Yeah, it's a
concern, right. And thenfinally, you've got to have
another element cryolite to makethe right environment for the
electrolysis that it takes tomake aluminum. It's a rare
natural fluoride mineral,they've started making it
artificially, I didn't go verydeep into the process of how if
(26:00):
that's sustainable or not, butit's another environmental
impact. There's this otherelement that you have to eat?
Well, I don't think cryolite isan element. It's a missing a
fluoride mineral. There we go.
Okay. It's a thing. But yeah,it's a thing. And then also,
again, high amounts ofelectricity to create the
aluminum from the Illumina.
(26:22):
These things always make mewonder who the hell did this
first suitscientists in the 19th century,
were just running around likecrazy. Like, if you look there,
they just like let's setsomething on fire. I mean, like,
Oh, this is radioactive. Let mekeep it in my bedroom. And keep
screwing around. And I mean, itwas a great time for science,
but it's also like, well, you'relosing your hair. Marie Curie,
(26:44):
you know? You gotta thinkelectricity. So exciting. You
know, you're right.
Let's turn this white powderinto a showing that Oh,
yeah. And call it aluminium. No,aluminum, aluminium, aluminium.
You know, it was like, just theWild West. I mean, literally,
that's when the Wild West was soright. Yeah. And they definitely
(27:06):
didn't have you know, protectiveeyewear. Right? This is why
those things exist. Those arefor forefathers and foremothers
walks so we could run withoutscissors. But yeah. Okay, so
there you go. According toRepublic Services, recycling
aluminum takes 95% less energythan making new cans from raw
(27:30):
materials. Whoa, that's huge.
That's a pretty bigsustainability thing. Also,
another reason you want torecycle it aluminum is
infinitely recyclable. You canrecycle it for the next billion
years. If we do that. It doesn'tbreak down during the process.
And again, that that can haveLacroix or drinking probably
contains aluminum that wascreated in 1880. Probably. Yeah.
That's so cool. Yeah. It's weirdto think about, but it is, it's
(27:55):
this product that is so integralin our lives, and it's only
existed for 250 years.
I know. It's like, what the heckdid people drink out of
your wooden cup, right? Justleaking all over you coconut
shells. Couldn't even have hadcarbonation. You know, you had
(28:16):
to carbonate on the premises.
Right? You couldn't you couldn'thave originated
beer. You couldn't even haveLacroix. What was life, like?
Just the word sounds horrible.
Well, okay,so there you go. But another
reason. And you just touched onthis. Basically every state in
the US offers some form ofaluminum recycling. Okay. You
may have to bring it inyourself. But most places have
(28:39):
come because it's so easy. It'slocalized. They have the
programs in place. But as youwere talking about bottle bills,
which are state laws thatrequire recycling facilities to
pay people when they bring backcertain recyclable goods, you
can make money off of it. 10states have bottle bills
(28:59):
currently, you can get cash forcans in California, Connecticut,
Hawaii, Iowa, Maine,Massachusetts, Michigan, New
York, Oregon and Vermont.
Oh, so they used to do it inIndiana, because my grandma did.
Yeah, a lot of places got rid ofit. But according to Oberg, the
state that recycles the mostaluminum cans is Michigan. I
(29:22):
don't know if that's becausethey drink the most beer or what
but they recycle the most cansand they get money for it. Okay.
Now, another reason some, thisis back and forth. The scare
factor is that there's someconcern that we could run out of
bauxite ore to make new aluminumwithin the next 80 years. But
most scientists think there areanother there are enough other
(29:45):
sources of aluminum that wewould figure out how to get it
out of there because again, itmakes up 8% of the earth's core
mass. So probably, we're notgoing to run out of aluminum
anytime soon. It's just we'regonna refine new processes to
make Get hopefully moreefficient, you know, less Miney
and less. Yeah, we'll see. We'rejust gonna take it out of the
(30:06):
air. Just kidding. There's noaluminum in there. Yeah, but you
said it likes to clean to otherthings, right? So it's there's
so many aluminum, aluminum,aluminum alloys aluminum
combinations in the world thatyeah, we have lots of options
apparently. Okay. As always,we're going to say, when you
(30:28):
think about your concerns withaluminum production, and
secondary aluminum, which isrecycling, those all cause
environmental concerns, so useit as sparingly as you can. and
reuse it. Some of the ideas thatgreen citizens said were that
you can, you know, obviouslyrinse it, wash it, reuse it. You
(30:51):
can also bunch it up and use itto scrub your dishes.
Oh, the aluminum foil? Yeah. Oh,it's reusable sponge.
Yeah, I was like, it's probablyless less gross than reusable
sponge. Right.
Whoa, interesting. I wonder howlong that would last seems like
it would fall apart prettyquickly. Yeah,
I wonder. But you could also useit to polish your silverware. I
(31:12):
mean, there's all kinds of usesfor aluminum foil. I know
people throw it in theirdishwasher. And supposedly it
polishes their silverware. Well,yeah.
Yeah, there's some interactionthat happens. You can like put a
piece of aluminum foil in athing of water and add I forget
baking soda or something andleave your silver in it. And
it'll remove the what you callit, the green or whatever,
(31:36):
oxidation from your server. Sothat's something
Oh, cool. I think I've heardthat before. I think I tried
that on my like,I tried it once too. And it
actually silver. Oh, yes. It'speeled off the outer layer. It
was like that thing and then youbroke up with whatever boy
bought it for you. Did? Good.
Anyway, but yeah, America. Putdown that Bud Light, pour it
(32:00):
out, rinse it out, throw it inyour recycling can in your ears
like Lincoln, recycling bin,sorry. recycle the cans. And Can
Can Can Can Cal cans. You cancan recycle can cans.
Yeah. So my question is like,you might not have the answer to
(32:20):
this. But a lot of people saythey try to come up with
strategies for like wasting lesswater while they're rinsing off
their recyclables. Especially ifyou say it's like not even going
to do anything like it soundslike if I wanted to recycle
lasagna tray, I'd really have toscrub it. And that might not be
like is that I wonder if that'sworth the water?
(32:42):
Well, that's what Green Citizenwas saying. If you're already
washing dishes, and you're doingthe to pan method that we talked
about, you know, you might aswell you can watch it there too.
And that might be worth it. Ifyou're already washing. I mean,
like my grandmother's lasagnapan. I'm already watching that.
So why not wash the aluminumfoil? I put on top of it,
right? Yeah, I can wash it soyou actually wash your aluminum
(33:05):
foil?
No, this is ladies andgentlemen. It has poked his head
in the door. Hey, dog. He'sdecided he doesn't. He doesn't
want he just wants the door openanyway. Okay, we're gonna leave
it open until something crashesin the kitchen. He's lying
between my room and my roommatesrooms. And you can watch both of
(33:27):
us. But my roommate has his doorclosed and Oh, sad. Boy.
He's so ugly. That's why I'm inthe basement. I only have
spiders tobow Yeah, you're friendly
spider. No, Ruby for us to playwith. No, it's for the best.
Yeah. But yeah, I, I use mygrandmother's lasagna pan is
like a old cast iron thing. Sookay, I watched that. And then
(33:49):
why not watch the lasagnatopper. You know, while I'm at
it, I can scrub that. And butagain, there are other things
you can use instead of aluminumfoil for your lasagna. There's,
you know, reusable method.
Things You Can Use. Is there.
Yes. And I don't have them inhere. But I need Oh, no, that's
fine. Yeah, there's like paper.
(34:12):
Paper because it would catch onfire. But there's, there's
there's reusable you can doparchment paper, but I don't
know if that's any better. Yeah,it won't be as good as aluminum
because like, Yeah, but you canuse a lid, you know, like a pan
lid. They make them.
Okay, so it's interesting. Oh,yeah. Cuz some are covered are
like a Dutch oven.
Yeah, like a Dutch oven. Andthen you just Yeah. So look into
(34:34):
those methods. Yeah, that'saluminum.
That is very interesting. Thankyou.
Well, now we must rate it on ourgranola system.
Oh my goodness.
So we're talking about aluminumrecycling, not aluminum itself.
And, again, our granola ratingsystem because we're a couple of
dirty hippies is on a scale ofone to five granolas with one
(34:55):
being soggy and five beingbreaker tooth off because the
crunchy or the better. I wouldgive this aluminum recycling.
And it's the first one thatwe're doing with the season.
It's either a four or a five,either crunchy or break your
tooth off. I say crunchy again,because there are other concerns
with the environmental aspectsof the process of recycling
(35:17):
aluminum that are problematic.
Yeah. But the alternative,right, it's so easy to recycle.
Yeah, and better than creatingnew aluminum. So and it's so
easy to do. So I kind of want togive it a break your teeth off.
Oh, that's so cool. I wouldagree with that. The only caveat
(35:38):
would be does this system eventhough it works well incentivize
people to use more than theywould otherwise? And
there's a question and again,the same thing we're talking
about with plastic. If you don'tknow that, you can't throw dirty
aluminum in the you know, you'rejust going to gum up the works
anyway. So it does it justencourage people again, out of
sight out of mind to use moretrash, so that might be a four
(36:02):
in that sense. It might be acrunchy, okay. Yeah, let's just
give it a crunchy because fiveshould really be one of our
other fives. Canyou think the only one I can
think of is DIY laundrydetergent?
Yeah. Yeah, we didn't even giveit to dish or to
don't say dishwasher didnot dish No, definitely not
screw dishwasher detergent,obviously. But we didn't even
give it to glass cleaner. Oh,yeah. Glass Cleaner.
(36:26):
That was a four.
I think it was before. Wehaven't ever done a three
before. Oh, really? Let's findsome threes. Yeah, I
think we'll have some thisseason. But yeah, update on my
dishwasher. Dirty labs. Shoutout to them.
Is it working?
It works really well. Oh, whenit's more expensive than like
making you're making ityourself. But it also functions.
(36:47):
So actually does this jobrushing.
I know and I tried today thewhole or last night I tried no
rinse, no pre rinsing. And itworked. So because on their
packaging, it says you don'thave to pre rent and I was like,
I don't believe it because I'vebeen so screwed. But it actually
did work. And I once a week willuse like citric acid in my food
(37:13):
grade citric acid works for hardwater deposits, at least works
for me. So like once a week I'lluse it maybe once every two
weeks. But other than that, likethings are good. Also, I am a
fan for life. As long as acompany is around.
I have to a friend of minetexted me the day before our
dishwashing detergent one cameout. And I was like well I may
(37:34):
have some recommendations foryou. But I need you to listen to
the podcast tomorrow. So I'lltext them tomorrow and be like
dirty labs dude, because he waslike I don't like these water
spots on my dishwashing Yes, Iknow situations that deal you've
man.
Yep. Awesome.
That's so well there you go.
Aluminum recycling. It works. Doit America. Do it better.
(37:54):
Grunty starting the season offgood.
Yeah, feels feels good. I'mgonna go throw some beer cans in
the trash. Another trash in therecycling.
Not that trash.
So, what's up next week,Tiffany?
Yeah, I'm gonna be talking aboutpaper recycling. We're
continuing with our four tohorsemen and to
these colonies. These are the MyLittle Ponies. Recycle applet
(38:18):
recycle apocalypse. Recyclepsychological. Have you seen the
Robot Chicken? My Little PonyApocalypse pony? No. I'll have
to send you that. We might haveto post it on Instagram too. I
love it. I'm pestilence. Oh,yes. I'll have to show it to
you.
(38:38):
Well, that's definitely plastic.
So here we come. Yeah, we'retalking about paper paper
recycling. So excited. Yes. Sothat's, that's what's coming up.
So there's like work done here.
Done a little bit. Um, if youlike us, leave us a review. Five
(39:01):
stars are great. That's sayinganything acceptable review,
right. Ifyou don't like us, don't leave a
review. Please don't leave butit does. It does help other
people find us. That's how thealgorithm decides what to
present to people. So radius ifyou like,
me like being popular, so so.
twin sister. Love you. Thanksfor listening.
(39:23):
Thank you.
Alright, thanks everyone elsefor listening to and we'll see
you next week for paper. Yep. ITIFF, bye
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