Do you ever wonder...

What happens to staples once they're used up?

They're too small and inconsequential to be gathered in an office for recycling. So naturally they end up in the trash. But trash does get recycled sometimes. What happens to staples then?

What I wonder about is why people
grieve about burying plastic bottles
in a landfill. We pull the oil from the
ground, make a bottle out of it, and
put it back in the ground where it
came from. This causes much hand
wringing for some reason.

I think it's the decay time for plastic. Plus I suppose it's cheaper to recycle plastic.

There's a guy who made a whole island out of plastic waste.

Quote: rxwine

I think it's the decay time for plastic.

How long does it take crude oil to
decay. What's the difference if it
decays as a bottle or as oil.

Come to think of it, we do recycle paper. Twice, in fact. first printed pages are used on the other side if it's blank (after running them through the copier to scrawl lines on the printed side; trust me, it's essential), and then one of the custodial staff takes the used up paper somewhere. The latter often includes staples, as pages stapled together aren't unstapled before being thrown in the bin (actually a cardboard box for old paper).

Since I've yet to see staples, or paper clips, embedded in recycled paper or cardboard, I assume they're removed before the paper is processed, maybe by using magnets? A large paper recycling plant could pick up several kilos of metal that way.

Quote: Nareed

I assume they're removed before the paper is processed, maybe by using magnets?

They use strong electro magnets in all
recycling to remove metal that a magnet
attracts. I've seen the operations in
person.

Quote: Evenbob

What I wonder about is why people
grieve about burying plastic bottles
in a landfill. We pull the oil from the
ground, make a bottle out of it, and
put it back in the ground where it
came from. This causes much hand
wringing for some reason.

For me it is the lack of frugality. Use a bottle once and dump it? Wasteful. I wish st least burn for the energy being thrown away.

Plastic bottle island

https://youtu.be/GnLhWpy_nqI?t=58

Quote: Evenbob

They use strong electro magnets in all
recycling to remove metal that a magnet
attracts. I've seen the operations in
person.

They can also use an eddy current separator to remove non-ferrous metals.

a plastic bottle in the ground isn't particularly useful.