landfills for recyclables?

[Dr.Who]

I was reading an article today about the dangers of ink from recycled cardboard getting into food packaged in that cardboard.

The words that confused me were these:

"with landfills for recycled materials as big as landfills for regular garbage."

http://www.science20.com/news_artic...d_cardboard_packaging_contaminates_food-80029

Do they just mean that the amount of recycled material going into landfills is as much as the amount of other garbage or do they mean that there are landfills dedicated to collecting recyclables?

 

[PLC1]

Apparently, no one edited this article, at least not very well. Landfills for recycled materials? If recycled materials are going into landfills, then they aren't recycled.

The article centers around "mineral oils" that migrate into food packaged in recycled containers. Now, that can't happen unless mineral oils are used in the original packaging, can it? Why do they have to use mineral oils in the first place? Why not just not recycle packaging printed with mineral oils? The article is poorly written.

 

[Dr.Who]

Apparently, no one edited this article, at least not very well. Landfills for recycled materials? If recycled materials are going into landfills, then they aren't recycled.

The article centers around "mineral oils" that migrate into food packaged in recycled containers. Now, that can't happen unless mineral oils are used in the original packaging, can it? Why do they have to use mineral oils in the first place? Why not just not recycle packaging printed with mineral oils? The article is poorly written.

I think you are right that it could have been better. before posting it I poked around a little on the net and discovered that recently there is much much more material waiting the be recycled than is actually being used. I did not find anywhere that it is being sent to special landfills but I did find that many recycling companies are either warehousing it in hopes that it will later have value or sending it to regular landfills. I started the thread because I was just curious and i was thinking that once it is sorted if it were going to go to a landfill then a special fill would allow it to be recovered someday without the need to re-sort.

Re the mineral oils that made sense to me. The oils are in the inks that are used to print on the boxes the first time around. After they get recycled the ink gets all mixed up in the new cardboard. Apparently the first time around the oils do not get into the food but the second time around they do.