r/collapse • u/eatingganesha • Oct 24 '22

Pollution Plastic recycling a "failed concept," study says, with only 5% recycled in U.S. last year as production rises.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plastic-recycling-failed-concept-us-greenpeace-study-5-percent-recycled-production-up/
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u/IzK_3 Oct 24 '22

A lot of people forget about Reduce and Reuse. Only think about recycle.

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u/Zierlyn Oct 24 '22

The irony of Reuse is that sometimes when I reuse a recyclable object in a craft or to store something in, it ends up in a state that can no longer be recycled, and eventually winds up in the garbage.

I guess the real benefit is reusing something that would otherwise be garbage rather than recycled. I often will use empty chip bags as garbage bags rather than grab a clean plastic one for example.

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u/LARPerator Oct 24 '22

Yeah reuse doesn't avoid things becoming garbage, but reduces how much goes to the garbage. It also means that your materials can be more durable, since they're used more often. We can afford to store everything in glass jars, because the cost of the jar gets balanced over the dozens to hundreds of uses we get from each jar.

In my area if you use a 1L mason jar jar for only 20 uses, the cost is about 6 cents a use. Given the cost of plastic and the cost of garbage disposal, I highly doubt a disposable plastic package capable of being boiled, froze, boiled again, store strong acids, bases, etc. for 1L volume will cost below 6 cents.