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Comment by mirekrusin | Hacker News Reader

If you go to Switzerland it opens your eyes a bit - there's no plastic recycling, there's only PET plastic recycling. If the bottle/whatever is not PET, it's not recycleble and you have to buy special, taxed bag that's used for "everything else" that gets burned/whatever. PET plastic can be recycled to lower grade plastic used for outdoor mats etc.

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Same in Japan.

I also noticed that only PET plastic was recycled in Japan.

Is PET really more recyclable or is that just PR?

It is really more recyclable. It is still not infinitely recyclable so personally I'd prefer paper, glass, cloth, etc.

On the other hand, packaging (and thus plastic waste) in Japan is next-level ridiculous. A fancier food present will be often wrapped in at least 3 layers, and I've counted u to 5: bag, present paper, normal box, group package, individual package.

On the other foot, Japan is next-level clean and don't think I've ever seen trash there on the streets, especially not like in South America. So more plastic in packaging but more goes into bins, wonder if it equalizes out on harm-done compared to Japan?

> So more plastic in packaging but more goes into bins, wonder if it equalizes out on harm-done compared to Japan?

in japan, most trash is incinerated... ive never looked into it, but i suspect that some amount of that turns into fine-grained soot (e.g not very healthy)

They have these very fancy incineration towers distributed around Tokyo, I suspect they do filter a lot of the stuff being burned since I have never even seen them throw smoke nor smelled any burning:

https://www.tokyotimes.com/mysterious-tower-in-tokyo/

thats good to know, i wonder if there are some differences between older and newer inceneration facilities...

when i lived near the ocean in kawasaki there was always some black fine-grained soot that would slowly build up over the year on a veranda, and wondered if it wasnt the nearby incinerators...

Hm, harbour, ships? And in general dust from the tires and brakes of cars and trucks? In 2014 one container giant coming into the port here had a little mishap, burning heavy bunker oil which is only allowed at high seas. Turned on the fire alarms in a hospital 1 km away from the river, and several others too :-)

https://www.fotocommunity.de/photo/schwefelpilz-ms-yang-ming...

https://www.mopo.de/action/mopo/23044568/search?query=yang+m...

> Hm, harbour, ships? And in general dust from the tires and brakes of cars and trucks?

hmmm that probably makes more sense, yea

Also, you can bring back hard plastic packaging to grocery stores, they are supposed to handle it.

It looks like this has changed in the last few years.

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