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You're not convinced... because you understand the component costs and you believe they add up favorably? Or you don't know and don't care? The answers to you

You're not convinced... because you understand the component costs and you believe they add up favorably? Or you don't know and don't care? The answers to your suggestion start with knowing the volume of plastic, time to degrade, degradation byproduct toxicity, and alternative 'recycling' methods and their costs. There's also clear evidence that the 'current' model and practice for plastic disposal (that you endorse) is NOT safe and effective. Until you can suggest how to fix its demerits, it's unhelpful to blithely suggest we just keep doing it.

GhostVII 6y ago
I'm not convinced because as the article says, it's not realistic to recycle many kinds of plastic, and because I don't see the harm in safely burying garbage. In my city there is an old landfill which has now been covered in dirt and turned into a park, with a sledding hill and a bike park. If you didn't know better, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was a landfill before, and if properly managed none of that garbage will ever leak out - the city uses well water and has had no problems with contamination from the landfill. If it is less energy intensive to create new plastics rather than recycling (which seems to be the case), why not just safely bury the old plastics and make new ones, it should be better for the environment anyways. Of course you should try to reduce and reuse before throwing out plastics, but if you have to get rid of them landfills seem reasonable.
- lorenzorhoades 6y ago
  Are you talking about Tacoma/ Ruston Area? I agree with you. Recycling is stupid; weirdly enough it's a major contributor(? Totally not the right word) to homelessness. Secondly, it's allowed to be 'disposed of' internationally. Who knows what the Chinese and Indians are doing with it. Instead of CRV at the consumer level, we should have susidies or direct payments to suppliers for reusing plastic. All the plastic that isn't 'intrinsically valuable', ends up safely in a landfill.
imtringued 6y ago
Degradation only matters in nature. That plastic was taken from the earth and nobody gives a damn about the toxicity of oil sitting in the ground. Nobody worries about how long it takes for it to degrade. If you bring the plastic back to where it came from you've done enough.

GhostVII 6y ago

I'm not convinced because as the article says, it's not realistic to recycle many kinds of plastic, and because I don't see the harm in safely burying garbage. In my city there is an old landfill which has now been covered in dirt and turned into a park, with a sledding hill and a bike park. If you didn't know better, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was a landfill before, and if properly managed none of that garbage will ever leak out - the city uses well water and has had no problems with contamination from the landfill. If it is less energy intensive to create new plastics rather than recycling (which seems to be the case), why not just safely bury the old plastics and make new ones, it should be better for the environment anyways. Of course you should try to reduce and reuse before throwing out plastics, but if you have to get rid of them landfills seem reasonable.

lorenzorhoades 6y ago
Are you talking about Tacoma/ Ruston Area? I agree with you. Recycling is stupid; weirdly enough it's a major contributor(? Totally not the right word) to homelessness. Secondly, it's allowed to be 'disposed of' internationally. Who knows what the Chinese and Indians are doing with it. Instead of CRV at the consumer level, we should have susidies or direct payments to suppliers for reusing plastic. All the plastic that isn't 'intrinsically valuable', ends up safely in a landfill.

imtringued 6y ago

Degradation only matters in nature. That plastic was taken from the earth and nobody gives a damn about the toxicity of oil sitting in the ground. Nobody worries about how long it takes for it to degrade. If you bring the plastic back to where it came from you've done enough.