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This reinforces my perception that plastics recycling is mostly a ploy by the plastics industry to make themselves appear less wasteful while shifting the burde

This reinforces my perception that plastics recycling is mostly a ploy by the plastics industry to make themselves appear less wasteful while shifting the burden and the blame to the customer. Some things we're encouraged to do, like carefully washing out plastic peanut butter jars, seem like they're probably a net waste of resources.

ams6110 8y ago
Yeah I don't recycle anything that needs to be washed first. Quick rinse OK, but if I need hot water and soap it goes into the trash instead.
- noxxten 8y ago
  It's exactly this mindset that creates such a huge plastic problem. You aren't wrong, and you shouldn't feel guilty either. People in charge of deciding packaging should be taking their end customer's ideas and habits in mind. Why are all my vegetables and fresh foods packaged on styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic, and packed home in a plastic bag? At least the plastic bag can be reused, but the rest has zero hope of being reusable. It's also a huge problem to recycle plastics that have food waste on them. All in all, plastics are really not needed in most of the things we buy.
prolepunk 8y ago
Reading this article it seems that there needs to be fewer types of plastic for certain products so recycling going to be easier. Second there are containers -- like bags of chips, or flower pots that shouldn't be made of plastic at all and instead of biodegradable material. The whole plastic waste seems like a tragedy of commons -- plastic manufacturers make cheap plastic because they make profit, consumers buy it because it's convenient, as the result we have plastic pollution. The government needs to step in and set the rules of what can and cannot be made out of plastic, and what kind of products can be made out of which kind of plastic, invest in research of making packaging so it could be easily recycled or reused. In addition the market for secondary plastic is really underdeveloped, even if the plastic gets recycled it's another challenge to have it used by manufacturers to make products. From my locale, city of Toronto contemplating banning black plastic containers and coffee cup lids -- even though this these things are recyclable, the scanners at recycling plants can't read markings of black plastic.
stephengillie 8y ago
I always figured a recycling system would rinse their inputs before melting them down, and that any remaining food or labels would be burned up while melting them down, and end up as slag. The only reason to wash your recycling is so they don't attract bugs - because for some reason our culture don't put recycling in any kind of bag or proper refuse bin.

ams6110 8y ago

Yeah I don't recycle anything that needs to be washed first. Quick rinse OK, but if I need hot water and soap it goes into the trash instead.

noxxten 8y ago
It's exactly this mindset that creates such a huge plastic problem. You aren't wrong, and you shouldn't feel guilty either. People in charge of deciding packaging should be taking their end customer's ideas and habits in mind. Why are all my vegetables and fresh foods packaged on styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic, and packed home in a plastic bag? At least the plastic bag can be reused, but the rest has zero hope of being reusable. It's also a huge problem to recycle plastics that have food waste on them. All in all, plastics are really not needed in most of the things we buy.

prolepunk 8y ago

Reading this article it seems that there needs to be fewer types of plastic for certain products so recycling going to be easier. Second there are containers -- like bags of chips, or flower pots that shouldn't be made of plastic at all and instead of biodegradable material. The whole plastic waste seems like a tragedy of commons -- plastic manufacturers make cheap plastic because they make profit, consumers buy it because it's convenient, as the result we have plastic pollution. The government needs to step in and set the rules of what can and cannot be made out of plastic, and what kind of products can be made out of which kind of plastic, invest in research of making packaging so it could be easily recycled or reused. In addition the market for secondary plastic is really underdeveloped, even if the plastic gets recycled it's another challenge to have it used by manufacturers to make products. From my locale, city of Toronto contemplating banning black plastic containers and coffee cup lids -- even though this these things are recyclable, the scanners at recycling plants can't read markings of black plastic.

stephengillie 8y ago

I always figured a recycling system would rinse their inputs before melting them down, and that any remaining food or labels would be burned up while melting them down, and end up as slag. The only reason to wash your recycling is so they don't attract bugs - because for some reason our culture don't put recycling in any kind of bag or proper refuse bin.