From: bretcahill@aol.com   
      
   > >> >Optical taggants might be more realistic, even cheaper for the plastic   
   bottle manufacturer as well as the separation equipment manufacturer.  Lasers   
   on the separation machine see the right color reflected from a water bottle   
   and a short compressed    
   air blast knocks it off the conveyor belt.  Skippy peanut butter does   
   something similar with burned peanuts.   
   > >>    
   > >> In the UK they look at the bottles with UV (I think) and it tells them   
   > >> what type of plastic it is. It doesn't work with black plastic since   
   > >> the carbon used to blacken it absorbed the UV. The machines here   
   > >> already sort the types of plastics they can recycle out without any   
   > >> additional stuff on the item.   
   > >   
   > >Maybe the UK is more diligent but in the U.S. that's "aspirational"   
   recycling.  You put the stuff in the blue bin and pretend it's being separated   
   and recycled.  In reality no one separates the stuff so 80% ends up in a   
   landfill.   
   >    
   > It doesn't happen everywhere but you do see on the news occasionally   
   > that somewhere has just installed a waste separator that does this. Our   
   > supermarkets are trying to get rid of the black food trays, plastic   
   > packaging in general, because of the recycling problem. I noticed that   
   > our local council tip now has a bay for 'burnable' items that are burnt   
   > to generate power.   
      
   Except for endocrine issues plastic is a great packaging material, convenient,   
   cheap, etc.   
      
   If it can be easily and cheaply recycled, then there is no reason to get rid   
   of it.   
      
   For awhile the Chinese were paying kids to take off the caps which are made of   
   a different material.  Japan and other places make the consumer take the caps   
   off.   
      
   No one should waste even 2 seconds taking off caps.   
      
   A 300 watt juicer takes about 4 seconds to shred a carrot down to cellular   
   bits -- $0.00002 of electricity.   
      
   Recyclable bottles could be designed to be strong as today but under certain   
   conditions created by the machine, break predictably into several uniform size   
   pieces.   
      
   After the pieces are rinsed several times counter current flow and dried they   
   are separated optically or by other means and then melted or shredded.   
      
      
   Bret Cahill   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)