🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1j7cp7INN8s5@gap.caltech.edu> tylerh@cco.caltech.edu (Tyler R. Holcomb) writes:
>mikea@zorba.gvg.tek.com (Michael P. Anderson) writes:
...
>Most plastic products are made from blends of various high purity feedstocks.
>The processing technologies are very sensitive to changes in purity 
>and composition of these feedstocks....

>                     ...    Clearly, before recycling is economic,
>one must reduce the variance of the feedstock....

Here's something I wonder about: Suppose government were to restrict 
the variety of plastics which may be used in non-durable containers.
(OK, so I'm a damn Liberal for thinking gov'ment can solve ANYTHING :-)
Suppose even that there were a small number of permitted COLORS in
the plastic.  Marketeers would probably HATE that idea, but maybe they
could get into distinctive shapes for bottles, or maybe they could
even sell products based on superior performance of the product rather
than more distictively colored packaging...

Would such restrictions on the materials "out there" make it possible 
to separate the different kinds at (consumer's) recycling time, so that
PET can be returned to PET, and HDPE to HDPE, etc.?  How restrictive
could the "list" of allowed plastics be before consumers see a 
significant constriction of products available on supermarket shelves?

I suppose glass recycling might be a model for this.  Does anyone
have numbers demonstrating the success (or lack thereof) of glass
recycling?

>Whatever happened to personal responsibility?  If you choose to buy something,
>why are you free of all moral taint while the manufacturer, which has devoted
>great effort to responding to the public taste, must bear all moral
>responsibilty?  I have always thought that constructive effort was
>more useful for solving a problem than just trying to find someone
>else to blame.

Presumably the manufaturer is making a profit by selling massive
quantities of the same product.  He is in a much better position
technically and financially to figure out how to responsibly deal
with the wastes left behind, or to modify the product so it leaves
fewer or more benign waste.  I nonetheless believe that it's
fundamentally the consumer's responsibility to care about what
he buys and does with his purchases:  Don't buy from manufacturers
whose products trash the Earth.