3 ms·
That isn't really feasible due to the way plastic degrades as it is recycled. When you chop up and melt a plastic bottle the resulting material is no longer sui
by ch4s3 6y ago
That isn't really feasible due to the way plastic degrades as it is recycled. When you chop up and melt a plastic bottle the resulting material is no longer suitable for making bottles for example.
We could figure out some plastic waste scheme that works like carbon credits, and that might lead to better outcomes. You could get credits for turning waste PET into insulation or fabric, and have to buy said credits to produce bottles. Though this is sort of off the top of my head and half baked.
This is kind of a side show though in my opinion the overwhelming majority of plastic in the ocean is fishing relater (e.g. abandoned nets) and shipping material that blows off of cargo vessels.
Better monitoring and policing of fishing in international waters could kill a lot of birds with 1 stone.
- bigbubba 6y agoWhat you say is generally true of plastics, but not in the example you give. PET is in fact properly recyclable; bottle-to-bottle recycling is done with PET. (And the intent of my proposal is to render the use of plastics unlike PET uneconomical. That's the point of the proposal, not the problem with it.)
- ch4s3 6y agoYeah PET was a bad specific example. I think the issue is that plastic is useful for reasons other that just the material cost. Shipping glass is both dangerous and VERY energy intensive. Treated paper doesn't hold pressure, and is easily damaged. There are a lot of other reasons why plastic is suitable for packaging that I won't enumerate at length here, but I think it's reasonable to say that there are legitimate uses. I will wholeheartedly agree that plastic packaging is over used. That said, fishing and marine waste are still the single largest source of ocean plastic.