U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
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Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#2> "Recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that," said report author Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator.
Yet cross-checking a few other countries, Germany seems to be leading and its plastic recycling rate seems to be close to 100% according to statista.
Am I missing something?
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#3> "Recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that," said report author Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator. Yet cross-checking a few other countries, Germany seems to be leading and its plastic recycling rate seems to be close to 100% according to statista. Am I missing something?
What does it mean to be close to 100%? Is it that people “put the plastic into the recycling bin”? Because I fear that is what it means.
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#4> "Recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that," said report author Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator. Yet cross-checking a few other countries, Germany seems to be leading and its plastic recycling rate seems to be close to 100% according to statista. Am I missing something?
You are not missing anything. If Government doesn't step in and force oil companies and businesses to be more responsible for recycling and reducing plastic waste, then as far as they are concerned, anywhere on our planet is a good place to "take a dump". Nothing like plastic sh*t in birds, fish, and even in the blood of unborn babies.
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#5Too bad we spent so much time getting people to be really good at recycling. It turns out that municipalities making recycling free was just a subsidy for more plastic. (I mean, I'll still recycle. It's free garbage service!)
I think if we just made it clear that plastic is garbage and goes in a garbage bin and needs to go to a landfill and you have to pay for the garbage bin, we may be surprised by how much needless low quality plastic packaging would disappear.
But still - plastic is pretty dang useful stuff. I'm sitting in a faux leather chair typing on a 15 year old plastic keyboard wearing comfy polyester-blend clothing. I don't begrudge oil companies for somehow forcing me to buy this stuff. And I would rather oil get used for stuff like this than burned and turned into CO2.
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#6More on this topic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/single-use...
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#7> "Recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that," said report author Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator. Yet cross-checking a few other countries, Germany seems to be leading and its plastic recycling rate seems to be close to 100% according to statista. Am I missing something?
German plastic is what is burning weekly in Polish illegal garbage dumps. https://portalkomunalny.pl/gospodarka-odpadami/pozary-sklado...
one example https://portalkomunalny-pl.translate.goog/dolnoslaskie-na-pl...
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#8> "Recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that," said report author Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator. Yet cross-checking a few other countries, Germany seems to be leading and its plastic recycling rate seems to be close to 100% according to statista. Am I missing something?
Must be a misunderstanding or different definition of recycling.
Each time plastic is recycled it degrades and becomes less fit for the original use. At some point the degradation is so large that the degraded plastic must be replaced with newly produced plastic. 100% recycling of plastic is not possible.
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#9Too bad we spent so much time getting people to be really good at recycling. It turns out that municipalities making recycling free was just a subsidy for more plastic. (I mean, I'll still recycle. It's free garbage service!) I think if we just made it clear that plastic is garbage and goes in a garbage bin and needs to go to a landfill and you have to pay for the garbage bin, we may be surprised by how much needless…
The underlying premise of all that is that Americans are really good at recycling, good enough that that has an effect. Well, are they? Compared to Canadians, Mexicans, Portuguese or Japanese for example? (Those are just four countries directly-ish north, south, east and west.)
Re: U.S. plastic recycling rate drops to close to 5%
#10> "Recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that," said report author Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator. Yet cross-checking a few other countries, Germany seems to be leading and its plastic recycling rate seems to be close to 100% according to statista. Am I missing something?
What does it mean to be close to 100%? Is it that people “put the plastic into the recycling bin”? Because I fear that is what it means.
That's what it is. The effect is a bit complicated. Nowhere near 100% of what's in that in that bin is made into new plastic, only about 20% in the city where I live. But the near-100% has two additional effects: there's little other than plastic (and metal) in that bin and there's little plastic in the other bins. Both of those have practical benefits.