https://waylonwalker.com/tags/environment/atom.xml 2026-01-08T03:16:18Z All posts with the tag "environment" Waylon Walker markata-go https://waylonwalker.com/thought-904/ 2026-01-08T03:16:18Z 2026-01-08T03:16:18Z

!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=325HdQe4WM4

<div class="embed-card embed-card-external embed-card-provider-youtube"> <div class="embed-card-rich"> <lite-youtube videoid="325HdQe4WM4" title="There&#39;s an Actual Reason You Can&#39;t Recycle Plastic" playlabel="Play: There&#39;s an Actual Reason You Can&#39;t Recycle Plastic"></lite-youtube> </div> </div> <p>In all of the documentaries I’ve seen on how hard it is to recycle plastic, how hard it is to separate all the small pieces from each other, how expensive it is, dirty it is, how just plain ineffective we are at doing it I’ve never seen this angle. In a nutshell the other side of the equation is that as we pull natural gas out of shale is that we pull ethylene out as a byproduct. We don’t even ask for it, it just comes with the methane gas that we are going for. So as we drill, Frack, and mine this out to heat our homes and create electricity we are stuck with all of this ethylene. It’s terrible for the environment, just like methane it’s a rough greenhouse gas. Companies are allowed to flare off a certain amount, they can push some down the pipe, but are still left with tons leftover that they practically give away. Turns out that this stuff is very cheap and very much wants to be turned into plastic. Very clean food grade plastic, very easily and cheaply compared to recycling. Excess is a big problem that needs solutions, but it has hard problems at both ends of the situation that don’t make it easy for anyone trying to take care of it.</p> <div class="admonition note"> <p class="admonition-title">Note</p> <p>This post is a <a href="/thoughts/" class="wikilink" data-title="Thoughts" data-description="These are generally my thoughts on a web page or some sort of url, except a rare few don&#39;t have a link. These are dual published off of my..." data-date="2024-04-01" data-preview="These are generally my thoughts on a web page or some sort of url, except a rare few don&#39;t have a link. These are dual published off of my...">thought</a>. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online <a href="/tags/thoughts/" class="hashtag-tag" data-tag="thoughts" data-count="2" data-reading-time="3" data-reading-time-text="3 minutes">#thoughts</a></p> </div> Waylon Walker hello@waylonwalker.com https://waylonwalker.com