Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Cyprus ranks 23rd among the 27 EU member states as regards the use of recycled materials in their economies....

Read the article and chat about it below...
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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It is probably too late now for Cyprus to catch up the rest of Western Europe. Their efforts have been abysmally poor from the start and they are no better today than they were many years ago. A proposal to generate 9% of the country's energy requirements from waste was made in a White Paper nearly 15 years ago: result? Zilch! This was despite a major reduction in landfill capacity, a substantial subsidy from the EU, 24-hour electricity availability and demonstrated total incompetence at both government and parliamentary levels.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by Dominic »

Cyprus isn't in Western Europe.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by Devil »

Dominic wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:22 pm Cyprus isn't in Western Europe.
Duhhh! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by Dominic »

The problem in the article isn't new. I remember reading a while ago that they were having to bury the recycled plastic they had made, as they didn't know what to do with it.

In the UK it gets turned into benches and swings, stuff like that. It happens here too, to a degree, but if they went at it with a bit of conviction they could soon make a dent in the figures and benefit the tourism industry etc.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Dominic wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 2:38 pm In the UK it gets turned into benches and swings, stuff like that. It happens here too, to a degree, but if they went at it with a bit of conviction they could soon make a dent in the figures and benefit the tourism industry etc.
There is a big problem with recycling plastics in Cyprus. It's called economy of scale. Firstly, automatic pre-sorting requires large, expensive equipment. The alternative is manual pre-sorting – no comment! The best that can be done is to export used sorted PET and polyethylene bottles. The rest, consisting of about 20 different types of plastic is uneconomical at the scale of the island. That leaves landfilling with all its disadvantages, including long-term disintegration potentially causing harm to fish and animals including humans. Coming back to my earlier post, Cyprus missed the bus nearly 15 years ago – we could be enjoying low cost electricity if we had acted then. Even China is on the bandwagon with almost 400 waste to energy plants scheduled (I think several tens already in service!)
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Your remarks notwithstanding, Cyprus has been recycling its plastics. As I said, the problem was that they don't know what to do with the end product of the recycling. This whole article is about the reuse of recycled materials.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Dominic wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 6:55 pm Your remarks notwithstanding, Cyprus has been recycling its plastics. As I said, the problem was that they don't know what to do with the end product of the recycling. This whole article is about the reuse of recycled materials.
For example, bottle caps. A lot of people mistakenly collected them, mixing those from milk bottles, mineral water bottles and household cleaning products bottles, each with potentially a different composition. It was thought that they would be recycled but they weren't; like many other things, they ended up in a landfill. By definition, plastics don't have a true melting point but they may soften at temperatures as low as about 50° C (PVC), whereas some may still be solid at 250° C (PTFE). Moulding items from mixed chipped waste is hair raising, producing heterogeneous results; this limits their use to low cost items, such as toys (or a can of worms!). Not counting milk or drink bottles, most plastic items end up in landfills.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Nonsense. They make furniture out of plastic waste. They have been doing it for years in the UK.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by cyprusmax47 »

Dominic wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 1:06 pm Nonsense. They make furniture out of plastic waste. They have been doing it for years in the UK.
The well known "Frosch" company, Germany, which products one can buy also in Cyprus, is proud to promote that their plastic bottles are made from....
https://frosch.de/Nachhaltigkeit/Saubere-Meere-2.html

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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Dominic wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 1:06 pm Nonsense. They make furniture out of plastic waste. They have been doing it for years in the UK.
Who is talking about the UK? The subject of the article is CYPRUS lagging, just in case you missed it. Yes, Cyprus does make things out of plastic waste but those things are called landfills. The words "economy of scale" spring to mind, remembering we are talking about a ratio of nearly 100:1.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by jeba »

The very least and easy to do thing would be introducing a deposit on plastic bottles. That way they wouldn´t be found littering the landscape at least.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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jeba wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 7:58 am The very least and easy to do thing would be introducing a deposit on plastic bottles. That way they wouldn´t be found littering the landscape at least.

You haven't been in Cyprus very long, have you? Many people would simply leave their empty bottle, rather than be bothered to collect it's worth!
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Devil wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 8:29 am
jeba wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 7:58 am The very least and easy to do thing would be introducing a deposit on plastic bottles. That way they wouldn´t be found littering the landscape at least.

You haven't been in Cyprus very long, have you? Many people would simply leave their empty bottle, rather than be bothered to collect it's worth!
I´ve lived here long enough to be a MEU3 holder (granted, a recent one). You just have to choose the deposit high enough. In Germany it´s 25 Cents for plastic bottles and that seems to be enough of an incentive. If necessary, raise it to say 1 €.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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It's not just the money that is the incentive; in a country which is noted for people not using their feet to walk, 200 m is already too far to justify a return of the deposit.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by trevnhil »

'Farm workers' around us just throw the plastic bottles out of vehicles and onto the sides of the tracks or
even into the fields
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by bromerzz »

Over the years when sweeping up outside my house, I have had empty plastic bottles thrown out the window of cars and pickups for me to remove and save the fffing daft bastards the job.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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Devil wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 11:57 am It's not just the money that is the incentive; in a country which is noted for people not using their feet to walk, 200 m is already too far to justify a return of the deposit.
You wouldn't have to extra walk anywhere, you could just return it when you replace your empty bottles with full ones. E. g. in Germany you'll find a machine taking them back (and giving you a voucher you can get cash for at the till) at every supermarket.
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

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I'm sorry but your "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" attitude doesn't go down too well here or in a number of other countries. Please be careful when comparing what goes on in Germany when outside. To get back to the subject, imagine a family picnic on the beach well away from any building. Nowadays, many Cypriots would pick up their empty bottles and take them back with them but there will always be some who will just leave them there, deposit or not. When a 1.5 L bottle of water costs only 20 or 30 cents, do you think that it would be acceptable to put a deposit of 50 cents on it?
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Re: Cyprus lagging in reuse of recycled materials

Post by Dominic »

Devil wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:49 pm
Dominic wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 1:06 pm Nonsense. They make furniture out of plastic waste. They have been doing it for years in the UK.
Who is talking about the UK? The subject of the article is CYPRUS lagging, just in case you missed it. Yes, Cyprus does make things out of plastic waste but those things are called landfills. The words "economy of scale" spring to mind, remembering we are talking about a ratio of nearly 100:1.
No I didn't miss it. But quite frankly I don't want to continue this conversation because you are such a cantankerous old goat that it brings me no pleasure whatsoever.
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