Recycling plastics has got to be one of the biggest scams in history

[DavidEaslea]

The vast majority of plastic bottles don't get recycled and it's worse for the environment to do it anyway.

[TomWanks]

Consumer recycling is pure cope meant to make soccer moms and soyboys feel like they're saving the world.

EXIBIT A: Consumer recycling represents about 3% of total waste last time anyone bothered to check 40 years ago.

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/ind...umer-recycling

Clearly, municipal recycling is not insignificant [JFL]. But is it dwarfed by industrial waste? It’s surprisingly hard to say, because nonhazardous industrial solid waste isn’t tracked as a category. The EPA’s only estimate dates back to the 1980s, concluding then that the U.S. produced some 7.6 billion tons of nonhazardous industrial solid waste per year. That’s about 45 times more material than the amount of MSW generated in 1985.

EXIBIT B: 80% of that 3% ends up in a landfill anyway.

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019...ecycle-plastic

“The vast majority of plastic that has ever been produced — 79% — has actually ended up in landfills or scattered around the world or burned, but not refashioned into new products, which is what we hope for when we talk about recycling,” Lerner says. “For plastic bags, it's less than 1% of tens of billions that are used in the U.S. alone. And so overall in the U.S., our plastic recycling rate peaked in 2014 at 9.5% so that's less than 10%.”

She says recycling companies go to great lengths to sell their products. China used to take the majority of American plastic until 2017, but it wasn’t actually recycled when it got there.

“For a long time, we've just been offloading our waste and that allows us not to see it, right?” Lerner says. “We put it in a bag. It goes somewhere else. Goodbye. And it allows us not to feel guilt.”

Mirin ability to look past the rhetoric OP and discuss the real facts ITT.

[SmillironS]

It pales I’m comparison to Covid, almost all “green energy”, ethanol, and more or less anything regarding the meat sold in supermarkets but yes, huge scam.

[A-GAME]

I've never looked into recycling, but it doesn't surprise me. All leftist policies are about making them feel good but never actually fix any problems. In fact, the majority of the time they make them worse.

[Brotatoch1p]

well thats the governments fault for not educating people about it. if it were educated in schools or u saw a commercial about it once in awhile besides all the degenerate pharmaceutical commercials and ads for pointless shiet ppl dont need maybe more people would recycle and recycle correctly and those numbers would be better.

[moosik85]

Plastics are one of the biggest scams in history.

How did we go from making things out of metal and glass that are healthier, better for the environment, last forever and in the case of food, taste better to eat from.

Plastics are poisoning us and the environment

[TomWanks]

Plastics are one of the biggest scams in history.

How did we go from making things out of metal and glass that are healthier, better for the environment, last forever and in the case of food, taste better to eat from.

Plastics are poisoning us and the environment

$$$ because it's cheaper in the short-term boyo.

[Comply_or_Die]

[GlassMoon]

I've never looked into recycling, but it doesn't surprise me. All leftist policies are about making them feel good but never actually fix any problems. In fact, the majority of the time they make them worse.

das it mane

[Procta]

it makes me feel good..ok

[HYDRAE]

OP is correct. I golfed with an executive from Waste Management last summer who wasn't shy about it either. Once China stopped accepting our trash, it all goes to the landfill now. I don't bother to separate anything anymore. There is just no market for mixed recyclables anymore. Cardboard (non-food) will still get reused though.

The whole "recycle" campaign was just an effort by industry to place the lifecycle problem of single use plastic on the consumer instead of themselves. Will go down in history just like smoking and sugar.

[phaginator]

New tech is emerging to deal with this problem but of course it will be too late.

Neo liberal capitalism that does not give a fck about anything besides profits is the culprit. And I'm far from socialist...

[8pieces]

Shh op we need the great pacific plastic patch to be recognized as a continent

[InfinityThor]

Australia just sent all their plastic to other countries (Malaysia was one) and let them deal with the environmental impact.

[Rexcalibr]

I recycle plastic and at the recycling center they just have me throw it in these giant, long dumpsters. Always wondered if it gets really recycled or just thrown in a dump. They don't ask what it is or check anything.

[InfinityThor]

I recycle plastic and at the recycling center they just have me throw it in these giant, long dumpsters. Always wondered if it gets really recycled or just thrown in a dump. They don't ask what it is or check anything.

Canada is probably like the rest of the western world, we just ship it off to some asian country and they just burn it or bury it.

[oreogasm]

If plastic comes from oil....and it is being left in a landfill....wouldn't it over time break down and turn back into oil in the deep future, thus we are recycling it back into oil ?

[Caeculus]

I worked a few months at a recycle center and I worked the conveyor belt and my job was to remove things that didnt belong there. I found tons of things people would recycle that were bad like buckets of paint, those little green propane tanks, bullets, etc. There was that one company that trades under the symbol LOOP that recently was revealed to be a fake company like that Nikola company was. They didn't create any reusable plastics or anything. They were just taking money from investors.

[HYDRAE]

If plastic comes from oil....and it is being left in a landfill....wouldn't it over time break down and turn back into oil in the deep future, thus we are recycling it back into oil ?

Doubt it will turn back into oil, BUT, it does lock up carbon and prevent it from entering the atmosphere. So of course, we are busing trying to find bio-degradable plastics that will just release the carbon into the atmosphere just like if it were combusted in an engine.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...e-environment/

Humans....when will they learn?

[cool-beans]

what? so youre telling me recycling depots (where you bring plastic bottles, glass, paper,etc) just turns around with the stuff i just brought and brings it to the dump?

[HYDRAE]

what? so youre telling me recycling depots (where you bring plastic bottles, glass, paper,etc) just turns around with the stuff i just brought and brings it to the dump?

unless they can find a buyer for it (they usually can't), then yes.

[Cleveland33]

what? so youre telling me recycling depots (where you bring plastic bottles, glass, paper,etc) just turns around with the stuff i just brought and brings it to the dump?

yes. traditionally most of our "recycling" was sent to China but they stopped accepting it a year or two ago. Which of course begs the question - would the benefits of recycling that plastic offset the damage done by shipping it to China? On top of that, I think 1/3 of stuff people recycle can't be recycled because they didn't clean it properly. Some areas it even was dependent on if the cap was separated from the bottle or not.

[Miked1978]

Consumer recycling is pure cope meant to make soccer moms and soyboys feel like they're saving the world.

EXIBIT A: Consumer recycling represents about 3% of total waste last time anyone bothered to check 40 years ago.

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/ind...umer-recycling



EXIBIT B: 80% of that 3% ends up in a landfill anyway.

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019...ecycle-plastic



Mirin ability to look past the rhetoric OP and discuss the real facts ITT.

I’m willing to bet the 3% plastic waste is a lot higher now. Back in the 80s we didn’t have plastic water bottles and the selling water scam wasn’t big. I’m willing to say that 3% is a lot higher now. Probably like 10%

I didn’t know when we recycled, it isnt actually getting recycled.

[TomWanks]

I’m willing to bet the 3% plastic waste is a lot higher now. Back in the 80s we didn’t have plastic water bottles and the selling water scam wasn’t big. I’m willing to say that 3% is a lot higher now. Probably like 10%

I didn’t know when we recycled, it isnt actually getting recycled.

Good argument brah, but if you think there hasn't been an exponentially greater increase in the amount of industrial plastics waste for precisely the reasons you mentioned (increase in the abundance of plastic materials) you're crazy.

[mvitz]

What I enjoy is the town makes us separate paper and plastic into two separate bins. When the trucks comes they dump it all together in the truck.

What was the point again? oh yeah now I dont recycle at all. Right in the garbage and it saves space in the house.

[HYDRAE]

What I enjoy is the town makes us separate paper and plastic into two separate bins. When the trucks comes they dump it all together in the truck.

What was the point again? oh yeah now I dont recycle at all. Right in the garbage and it saves space in the house.

The only things I make an effort to divert from the land fill now are chemicals (used oil/paint/etc.) and batteries. Also dispose of medicine correctly so it doesn't end up in our drinking water.

[Cleveland33]

The only things I make an effort to divert from the land fill now are chemicals (used oil/paint/etc.) and batteries. Also dispose of medicine correctly so it doesn't end up in our drinking water.

Like regular alkaline batteries? I thought they were supposed to go to the dump.

The biggest issue to me is the compact florescent bulbs going to landfills - that's gonna eff up our drinking water

[cool-beans]

i feel like this is an american thing.... or is this world wide that stuff isnt actually recycled? anyone have any good reads/sources?

[HYDRAE]

Like regular alkaline batteries? I thought they were supposed to go to the dump.

The biggest issue to me is the compact florescent bulbs going to landfills - that's gonna eff up our drinking water

no - just rechargeable ones. I don't think alkaline ones can be reused and they don't have the same heavy metals. also - good point on fluorescents. I went all LED a couple years ago and haven't had to deal with.

[TomWanks]

i feel like this is an american thing.... or is this world wide that stuff isnt actually recycled? anyone have any good reads/sources?

Strong lol @ your optimism buddy boyo.

In Europe, energy recovery is the most used way to dispose of plastic waste, followed by landfill. Some 30% of all the generated plastic waste is collected for recycling and recycling rates by country vary a lot, as shown in the infographic.


Half of the plastic collected for recycling is exported to be treated in countries outside the EU. Reasons for the exportation include the lack of capacity, technology or financial resources to treat the waste locally. Previously, a significant share of the exported plastic waste was shipped to China, but with the country’s recent ban on plastic waste imports, it is increasingly urgent to find other solutions.


The low share of plastic recycling in the EU means big losses for the economy as well as for the environment. It is estimated that 95% of the value of plastic packaging material is lost to the economy after a short first-use cycle.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/...ts-and-figures

cliffs:
- 30% of plastics are collected
- 50% of that 30% are shipped abroad (re: thrown in a landfill in a different country)
- 95% of plastics are unrecoverable