I pretty much stopped using my recycling bins... except for aluminum.
91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
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Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#82Since no one comments on the precise content of the article, I'll do it.
First of all, it's mostly based on a paper "published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances". Unfortunately, there is no link to the article. The exact title is not even given. The date is unclear since the magazine published this in 2017 and updated some (undetermined) content in 2018. Most links are dead (home page of the lead author, web site of an association about statistics).
The basis is scientific, but this National Geographic article is not. For instance, the title is misleading: "91% of plastic isn't recycled" means "an estimated 91% of all the plastic ever produced has not been recycled as of today (2017)". Another dubious sentence is: "79 percent is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter." Since 12% were incinerated and 9% recycled, it assumes that the rest (100-12-9) is just garbage. I suppose the reality is that a large proportion of the plastics produced is still used.
They mention that 40% of plastics are for packaging. According to PlasticsEurope, 20% for construction, 10% for vehicles. People often focus on packaging and forget the variety of plastics and their usages.
What surprised me was that the USA were so bad at recycling (9%) while Europe and Asia were far better (30% and 25%). I had read that some American soda producers were mostly using recycled PET, so I wondered if there was a contradiction. I've just read more about it, and these companies recycle in many countries but not much in the USA because there is no large-scale infrastructure to do so. The lack of national leadership means it can only exist locally, with varying quality and lack of long term committing. Even when the recycling exists, consumers in the USA do not behave as well as they do in Netherland, so the recycled PET is more costly with a lower quality.
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#83As I have said before the solution is compostable plastic. It solves the problem with the smallest net change in behavior of the affected parties. As we have regrettably seen with the coronavirus changing the behavior of large populations is incredibly difficult even if there are dire repercussions for failure to change. The cost of compostable plastic is slightly higher than the usual plastic, so the governments wil…
I disagree. The solution is burning plastic for energy.
You get to use the oil from the ground twice: Once as plastic, and again for energy. It's a win/win since you reduce oil you burn and get rid of plastic waste.
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the goals are to cut fossil fuel consumption and/or dispersal of waste into the natural environment, it ain't that simple. The best option by far is to not consume things. Don't buy stuff. That's working out really well for us, isn't it? Next best in many places is single use followed by incineration for district heating and electricity. Third, in many places, is single use with well managed collection and disposa…
You surely have a source for this right?
Dammit, I knew you would ask that.
I'll have to dig back through my paper notebooks going back over about 20 years. (My ex-wife was a virtue signaler, and I had started to be sceptical. I used a university library, but I don't live near a university any more.)
Probably there's a lot better research to be had now, refined! Updated! With 20% lower error bounds!
But I doubt very much the conclusions have changed, especially given the world's dependence on Chinese manufacturing and China's dependence on coal.
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#85The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…
Most glass and paper doesn't get recycled either. Recycling is broadly speaking nonexistent. Most ends up in the landfill or incinerated.
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#86The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…
I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…
> For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of bottles around the world, it will take more energy to move glass bottles.
This is true, but it (mostly) not an externalized cost. By forcing environmental costs to be internalized by industry, the market should guide industry away from damaging the environment. Of course that would require honest, complete, and well enforced regulation.
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
They lied about the recycling potential to encourage widespread adoption of plastics. I don’t think consumers are blameless, but you can’t get everyone in the world to change their purchasing behavior without regulation, which is necessary when lower prices are subsidized by huge externalities that have negative consequences for the world at large.
>huge externalities that have negative consequences for the world at large. What are these negative consequences? The only ones I can think of are related to improper disposal (eg. littering), and would be present regardless of whether the material was recyclable or not. ie. if we replaced all the non-recyclable plastic bottles with 100% recyclable aluminum cans, the littering problem would still be there.
An idea is to get the companies to internalize these costs through a carbon tax which can be invested into climate change action (which is another story). At the moment, the consequence is that companies have zero incentive to act for the planet, so they will continue their behaviors.
Perhaps they pass some of these costs down to consumers which makes them less likely to purchase (and then litter) non-biodegradables. Or they can provide a cheaper good to avoid a carbon tax which encourages consumer to buy that alternative.
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. At the risk of sounding like an industry shill: why is it being characterized as an cost externalization by the petrochemical/packaging industries, rather than the consumers? I agree that any pollution generated during extraction and manufacture can be attributed as an externaliz…
The industry and their advocacy groups reduced their costs by switching to packaging, proceeded to lie to consumers and government that all this new packaging was going to be easily recycled and not to worry. I don't see where consumers are on the hook? We were told that plastic was better (e.g. the switch from paper bags to plastic). As a comparison to electronics industry in many jurisdictions there are recycling f…
>I don't see where consumers are on the hook? We were told that plastic was better (e.g. the switch from paper bags to plastic).
No, that's just fraud. Externality has a very specific meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality. In this case a third party isn't bearing the cost. It's still the consumer (via taxes or garbage disposal fees).
>As a comparison to electronics industry in many jurisdictions there are recycling fees paid at the time of purchase.
That's simply a different way of raising funds for waste disposal. I suspect it's not used for other forms of packaging because they don't require special handling, and therefore the cost is so marginal that it's not worth collecting.
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the goals are to cut fossil fuel consumption and/or dispersal of waste into the natural environment, it ain't that simple. The best option by far is to not consume things. Don't buy stuff. That's working out really well for us, isn't it? Next best in many places is single use followed by incineration for district heating and electricity. Third, in many places, is single use with well managed collection and disposa…
You surely have a source for this right?
Here's [0] a write-up from NPR, with links to several studies comparing the life cycle costs of plastic and alternative materials, and noting that from a climate change perspective, plastic comes out ahead in most analyses, but that plastic has much larger cleanup costs:
[0] https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/735848489/plastic-has-a-big-c...
Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)
#90The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…
I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…
> hauling millions of bottles around the world
How much of those bottles are single-use bottles for water? We can cut that portion entirely. 100%.
Either install filters (ideal) or use reusable 5-gal plastic bottles and water dispensers.