Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work

Post by chiefalchemist » Tue, May 31, 2022, 9:47 AM UTC

cafard wrote: post #8

chiefalchemist wrote: post #2

There are a lot things that are plastic but need to be (e.g., straws, snow shovels, etc.) but too often we as consumers don't get a choice. It's plastic. Plastic. And more plastic. The fact that many organic food products (e.g., peanut butter) come in plastic boggles my mind. What's concerning is that if we even kick our oil addiction and the bottom drops out of the price of oil, plastic will get even cheaper. What's…

Snow shovels need to be plastic? I think I was in my thirties before I encountered a plastic snow shovel. Of course, metal was a lot cheaper Back In The Day.

Oops. Should have been DON'T need to be.

Post by exabrial » Tue, May 31, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

krolden wrote: post #10

exabrial wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The driver is logistics: You can package peanut butter in plastic, and if there's something like, a shipping crisis or pandemic, it can sit in a warehouse for months without spoiling. If you can solve that problem cost-effectively, plastic packaging would disappear quickly.

Why would it last any longer than in a glass jar?

Glass also presents a logistics problem: It's quite heavy/dense! You can save a lot of fuel costs with lighter packaging, and it makes handling pallets of goods much simpler. A pallet of peanut butter in glass would require a motorized hydraulic jack, whereas in plastic could probably (guessing) be moved with a normal pallet jack.

Re: Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work

Re: Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work