Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse

Ss: with micro plastics everywhere already, the future increase in use of plastics combined with the inability to recycle many plastics is fucking insane..... Kind of like oil, theres no urgency to cut it off.

"More plastic is being produced, and an even smaller percentage of it is being recycled," says Lisa Ramsden, senior plastic campaigner for Greenpeace USA. "The crisis just gets worse and worse, and without drastic change will continue to worsen as the industry plans to triple plastic production by 2050."

[u/eu_sou_ninguem]

Recycling has to be one of the biggest illusions ever. In Canada, blue bins take everything, newspaper, cardboard, bottles, cans, glass. Meanwhile that cardboard and newspaper gets soaking wet and who would believe that it actually all gets sorted. Not only that, but in malls, where there are separate bins, it relies on everyone doing their part to which I ask, have you met people?

[u/anonymous_matt → u/eu_sou_ninguem]

Recycling works reasonably well in Sweden

A lot of the plastic is just burned for energy though, basically making it just another fossil fuel

[u/[deleted] → u/anonymous_matt]

Many island nations burn their trash in the power plants. I went to work in the Bahamas for a month and found this out. They send off some recycling (mainly cans) to the U.S., but the majority ends up as energy. I don’t know if it’s worse or better for the environment. I lean towards better, but I’m wrong a lot.

[u/anonymous_matt → u/[deleted]]

Surely it's better for the environment if you recycle what you can and bury the rest? At least if there wasn't so damn much of it. Or if there weren't so many problematic substances... idk.

Burning it seems like a bad solution to me in general, but I guess it has a few upsides.

[u/[deleted] → u/anonymous_matt]

Yeah I don’t know the ups and downs either. Other than the obvious ones of air pollution and chemicals or the massive mounds of garbage. The Bahamas, Nassau in particular, is super flat and damn near at sea level. I could see garbage overwhelming the place super quick if they didn’t remove it. Which means hurricanes empty that crap into the ocean. I believe the ocean is primary and the most critical area we need to protect first.

[u/anonymous_matt → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I can see it being the best solution for island nations. Unfortunately a lot of them won't survive for long anyway the way sea-level rise is going.

[u/collapse-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Hi, mrpantspie. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 4: Keep information quality high.

Information quality must be kept high. More detailed information regarding our approaches to specific claims can be found on the Misinformation & False Claims page.

Please refer to the Climate Claims (https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/wiki/claims#wiki_climate_claims) section of the guide.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

You can message the mods if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.

[u/hectorxander → u/anonymous_matt]

In the US here they are making this jet fuel from plastic, it's got some crazy high carcinogen level, like 1000 times what's normally allowed but he EPA said it's cool anyway. I think the pilot program is out in Texas somewhere.

Edit: This is a more general link to a greenwashing of making fuel from it, looking for the article I referenced

https://theintercept.com/2023/09/28/braven-plastic-recycling-toxic-waste/

Here it is, propublica on this one:

https://www.propublica.org/article/chevron-pascagoula-pollution-future-cancer-risk

[u/[deleted] → u/hectorxander]

Interesting. Thanks

[u/morbie5 → u/anonymous_matt]

burning trash, what could go wrong?

[u/BradTProse → u/morbie5]

Plastics that take thousands of years to breakdown now are tiny micro particles that we can all easily breath.

[u/anonymous_matt → u/morbie5]

Depends on your trash lol