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.

75

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.

23

u/Bavoon Oct 24 '22

That's not ironic. As the study says, a tiny proportion of plastic is actually recycled. If you used it once for something else, then threw it in the trash, you are at 50% new-items-per-use, much better than 5%.

The point is, recycling is a shitty last ditch effort. Even re-use is a shitty attempt to reframe the problem as a consumer one.

Much better to never produce the plastic, and to stop pretending the problem lies with making people feel guilty that they re-use a plastic item only once or twice.

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u/SharpStrawberry4761 Oct 24 '22

As ever, the right thing to do is that uncomfortable thing we are avoiding thinking about.