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There is a lot of misleading and false statements in this article. They claim plastic recycling doesn't work. It's true that most plastic isn't recycled, but t

There is a lot of misleading and false statements in this article. They claim plastic recycling doesn't work. It's true that most plastic isn't recycled, but that's because of lackluster government involvement, not some technological barrier. British Columbia has the most sophisticated recycling equipment in North America. Two plants there first use lasers to identify different types of plastic (PP, HDPE, PET, etc) in the incoming stream and then use air blasts to categorize it. These streams are then separated by color. The material then goes to a plastics reclamation facility where the material is shredded, washed, dried, melted and forced through a filter, and turned to pellet. The result is that 74% of plastic beverage containers in BC are recycled. Why isn't this done elsewhere? It's because BC has a tax on plastic packaging, and this tax money is then used to subsidize the loss from converting recyclables into new plastic pellet (the cost is higher than the revenue). And other governments don't want to do it, partly due to lobbying from plastics packaging manufacturers. Plastic recycling does work when society wants it to. But instead we turn to paper. Paper produces double the CO2 emissions of plastic, and it requires vastly more energy: a European study showed that switching to paper in Europe would consume 57% more energy and 61% more greenhouse gases from packaging than are produced today. In a world where human existence is threatened most likely from runaway climate change, this seems like a bad idea. And while we're so focused on transitioning plastic packaging to paper, we ignore the real problem with plastic in the oceans: plastic netting dumped from illegal fishing. Plastic netting wraps around animals and drowns or suffocates them. It can also drag along a seabed, killing the seabed life. But this is considered a difficult problem to solve (international waters, policing is difficult, etc) so we ignore it. The idea policy would be: 1. Tax plastic packaging. Use the tax money to pay for recycling that works, which has been proven to work. 2. Develop international treaties and enforcement mechanisms to prevent illegal fishing and find ways to reduce fish consumption. 3. Implement carbon taxes that reflect the cost to human survival imposed by any kind of packaging, or other activity, in accordance with the degree of GHG emission.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
74% is still a far cry from a solved problem - what do they do with the quarter that can't be recycled? Aluminium is actually 100% recyclable with some countries approaching 98%. Plastic has symbols that tell you what kind of plastic a given piece of packaging is made of, and the consumers need to figure out which kind are recyclable in their particular state or local area. Then some plastics are thermosetting and therefore unrecyclable - they have to be broken down through pyrolysis or similar. So while it's true that plastic recycling is possible, you have to: 1) sort out the random mish-mash that is the recycling system which vary by local area and are incomprehensible to consumers for the purposes of sorting. 2) Increase that 74% number to something in high-90's. Probably forbid unrecyclable plastics for single-use consumer goods and packaging, and somehow constrain the wild variety of plastics that enter the waste stream to a few known varieties that can be sorted 3) forbid items that shed microplastics like there is no tomorrow. This would include clothing made out of nylon? This seems very unpopular.
- mediaman 5y ago
  We should absolutely push for even higher rates of recycling. High 90s would be fantastic. But even 74% is already much higher than we get with aluminum cans. You say aluminum cans are "100% recyclable", as if they are 100% recycled, but that's a sleight of hand. PET, PP, PE is also "100% recyclable" but the issue here is what actually gets recycled. For aluminum, the actual recycle rates are less than 50% in the US. Aluminum is an interesting example because it is intensely GHG emitting. Because of how energy intensive smelting is, an aluminum can produces five times the GHG of plastic, and more than double paper. If you wanted to choose the worst technology possible (with respect to the climate) to make containers from, aluminum is king.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    It appears to be 82% in UK and over 90% in brazil. But also Aluminium is not toxic and does not disintegrate into microscopic particles that accumulate in your organs. Unlike plastic, it can be recycled perfectly and produce a product as good as the original, so long as people are bothered to drop it into the bin. Most types of plastic are only 'downcycled' -> bottles become carpets, and carpets become garbage. I think CO2 is a red herring when it comes to packaging, most of world GHG emissions are not from packaging production - it's energy, transport, heating, etc. If tomorrow all packaging had zero CO2 emission, we would have made no real difference.
  - 8note 5y ago
    You're talking about Canada though, where aluminum is produced through existing hydro power
dataflow 5y ago
"There is a lot of misleading and false statements in this article"? > The result is that 74% of plastic beverage containers in Canada are recycled "Canadians dispose of about 3.3M tonnes of plastic each year [...] almost 50% of which is packaging. Well over 75% currently goes to landfills, a small proportion is incinerated and about 1% ends up directly in the environment. Only 9% — or 305,000 tonnes — is recycled, the 2019 study found." [1] Seems rather misleading to focus on one region's moderate success with beverage containers when there have been such massive failures with larger issues, no? It's not like the problem was even unforeseeable [2]. [1] https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/09/canada-drowning-plastic-waste-recycling-wont-save-us https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/09/canada-drowning-... [2] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...
- mediaman 5y ago
  The 74% recovery rate was in reference to BC only, not all of Canada - I updated my comment which mistakenly referred to all of CA for that recovery rate. The reason to focus on BC is because they are the only province to have passed EPR that allowed these facilities to be built. The point is that EPR, taxing plastic packaging, and investing in recycling works, and BC versus the rest of Canada is the prime example of that. Also, the study from the National Observer cited national data from 2016, which was only two years after BC passed the EPR bill. So it's old data and mostly covered provinces with no EPR policies. As for BC, yes, beverage containers are the highest rate at 74%. But all rigid plastic still achieved a total recovery rate of over 55% in 2019, and the rates are increasing. Should it be higher? Absolutely! And it's getting higher. But I'm mystified by so-called environmentalists who look at this success and cognitive-dissonance themselves into emitting more carbon and accelerating climate catastrophe because "plastic is bad", instead of asking how we can push for legislation to replicate BC's success everywhere.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > so-called environmentalists who look at this success and cognitive-dissonance themselves into emitting more carbon and accelerating climate catastrophe because "plastic is bad" I don't understand what this means or whom or what you're talking about, but regarding your general sentiment: What you're doing is making some very generous extrapolations that are rather dubious and going to need a lot of evidence to make a compelling case for. Examples include: - That all plastics are fundamentally recyclable with success comparable to some subset of them if only we care to invest more in it. - That the rates will increase to be much higher than they are. (Because frankly I do not find it plausible that even 55% recycling globally across all plastics is going to do anything but stretch the deadline for a real solution a little bit.) - That other countries that are still developing won't end up increasing global wastes N-fold, which would easily eat through any moderate 50% or 70% rate or whatever moderate amount you hypothetically manage to achieve. (And it's not even really a "budget" to begin with, given this stuff lingers around.) - That if only environmentalists cared to spend time lobbying legislators, you'd see legislators across the world react the same way as they appear to have in BC, and on a short time scale. (i.e., you're basically ignoring differing politics, economics, and competing interests.) By all means, we should make progress on every front we can. But we also don't want to let that distract us or get deluded by half-baked solutions with questionable scalability (and whether it's physical vs. economic vs. political barriers doesn't really matter here). Frankly I cannot fault anyone for believing we do not have the luxury to keep betting the future of the planet on an asymptotic solution. We need drastic global changes fast, and the average person has only so much bandwidth to spare. Giving people a false sense of optimism about recycling can (and has) made everyone too comfortable with plastic consumption, which has been vividly damaging.
tekstar 5y ago
Is plastic still that much less energy usage compared to paper when you include the energy needed to recycle it?
hedora 5y ago
We should greatly reduce fishing. This would also help human reduce trafficking, since international fishing boats are often run with slave labor. As for taxing the containers: I think a market based approach would be better. Regardless of what you use in your packaging, you have to pay for it “cradle to grave”. Companies could use whatever packaging they prefer, on the condition that they recapture 100% of the waste, and are carbon / landfill neutral.
- wernercd 5y ago
  > often run with slave labor Can that be an excuse to stop any industry? Might as well stop selling phones, books, shoes, clothes and... really any industry. I'm sure they can all be traced back to "slave labor" somewhere.
  - hedora 5y ago
    It’s a bigger issue with fishing than other industries. The slave boats stay in international waters indefinitely, and they hand the fish off to other boats to bring it into port. Some clothing is sewn in route in international waters, but I get the impression it’s less feasible to transfer the contents of container vessels in open water. Also, it’s harder to conceal the slave labor on those boats: You’d need to make the paperwork match on both sides of the journey if you left with a “skeleton crew” and a load of textiles, and arrived with products ready to sell. There’s no source port for the fish, so that problem becomes easier. You just need to conceal one way shipments of supplies into the ocean. Clothing manufacturing is also an abusive industry, but I get the impression that fishing wins out in terms of absolute number of literal slaves (not “slaves”, as you put it).
Jarwain 5y ago
Re: plastic netting, couldn't we also try encouraging the use of other materials for making fishnets? I wonder if that would be an easier target than shifting consumer behavior and illegal activity
dehrmann 5y ago
I'm not all that concerned with plastic recycling rates; I'm more worried about how much gets into the environment. Bringing recycling into the debate feels like misdirection, and I'm not sure why.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

74% is still a far cry from a solved problem - what do they do with the quarter that can't be recycled? Aluminium is actually 100% recyclable with some countries approaching 98%. Plastic has symbols that tell you what kind of plastic a given piece of packaging is made of, and the consumers need to figure out which kind are recyclable in their particular state or local area. Then some plastics are thermosetting and therefore unrecyclable - they have to be broken down through pyrolysis or similar. So while it's true that plastic recycling is possible, you have to: 1) sort out the random mish-mash that is the recycling system which vary by local area and are incomprehensible to consumers for the purposes of sorting. 2) Increase that 74% number to something in high-90's. Probably forbid unrecyclable plastics for single-use consumer goods and packaging, and somehow constrain the wild variety of plastics that enter the waste stream to a few known varieties that can be sorted 3) forbid items that shed microplastics like there is no tomorrow. This would include clothing made out of nylon? This seems very unpopular.

mediaman 5y ago
We should absolutely push for even higher rates of recycling. High 90s would be fantastic. But even 74% is already much higher than we get with aluminum cans. You say aluminum cans are "100% recyclable", as if they are 100% recycled, but that's a sleight of hand. PET, PP, PE is also "100% recyclable" but the issue here is what actually gets recycled. For aluminum, the actual recycle rates are less than 50% in the US. Aluminum is an interesting example because it is intensely GHG emitting. Because of how energy intensive smelting is, an aluminum can produces five times the GHG of plastic, and more than double paper. If you wanted to choose the worst technology possible (with respect to the climate) to make containers from, aluminum is king.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  It appears to be 82% in UK and over 90% in brazil. But also Aluminium is not toxic and does not disintegrate into microscopic particles that accumulate in your organs. Unlike plastic, it can be recycled perfectly and produce a product as good as the original, so long as people are bothered to drop it into the bin. Most types of plastic are only 'downcycled' -> bottles become carpets, and carpets become garbage. I think CO2 is a red herring when it comes to packaging, most of world GHG emissions are not from packaging production - it's energy, transport, heating, etc. If tomorrow all packaging had zero CO2 emission, we would have made no real difference.
- 8note 5y ago
  You're talking about Canada though, where aluminum is produced through existing hydro power

dataflow 5y ago

"There is a lot of misleading and false statements in this article"? > The result is that 74% of plastic beverage containers in Canada are recycled "Canadians dispose of about 3.3M tonnes of plastic each year [...] almost 50% of which is packaging. Well over 75% currently goes to landfills, a small proportion is incinerated and about 1% ends up directly in the environment. Only 9% — or 305,000 tonnes — is recycled, the 2019 study found." [1] Seems rather misleading to focus on one region's moderate success with beverage containers when there have been such massive failures with larger issues, no? It's not like the problem was even unforeseeable [2]. [1] https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/09/canada-drowning-plastic-waste-recycling-wont-save-us https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/09/canada-drowning-... [2] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

mediaman 5y ago
The 74% recovery rate was in reference to BC only, not all of Canada - I updated my comment which mistakenly referred to all of CA for that recovery rate. The reason to focus on BC is because they are the only province to have passed EPR that allowed these facilities to be built. The point is that EPR, taxing plastic packaging, and investing in recycling works, and BC versus the rest of Canada is the prime example of that. Also, the study from the National Observer cited national data from 2016, which was only two years after BC passed the EPR bill. So it's old data and mostly covered provinces with no EPR policies. As for BC, yes, beverage containers are the highest rate at 74%. But all rigid plastic still achieved a total recovery rate of over 55% in 2019, and the rates are increasing. Should it be higher? Absolutely! And it's getting higher. But I'm mystified by so-called environmentalists who look at this success and cognitive-dissonance themselves into emitting more carbon and accelerating climate catastrophe because "plastic is bad", instead of asking how we can push for legislation to replicate BC's success everywhere.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > so-called environmentalists who look at this success and cognitive-dissonance themselves into emitting more carbon and accelerating climate catastrophe because "plastic is bad" I don't understand what this means or whom or what you're talking about, but regarding your general sentiment: What you're doing is making some very generous extrapolations that are rather dubious and going to need a lot of evidence to make a compelling case for. Examples include: - That all plastics are fundamentally recyclable with success comparable to some subset of them if only we care to invest more in it. - That the rates will increase to be much higher than they are. (Because frankly I do not find it plausible that even 55% recycling globally across all plastics is going to do anything but stretch the deadline for a real solution a little bit.) - That other countries that are still developing won't end up increasing global wastes N-fold, which would easily eat through any moderate 50% or 70% rate or whatever moderate amount you hypothetically manage to achieve. (And it's not even really a "budget" to begin with, given this stuff lingers around.) - That if only environmentalists cared to spend time lobbying legislators, you'd see legislators across the world react the same way as they appear to have in BC, and on a short time scale. (i.e., you're basically ignoring differing politics, economics, and competing interests.) By all means, we should make progress on every front we can. But we also don't want to let that distract us or get deluded by half-baked solutions with questionable scalability (and whether it's physical vs. economic vs. political barriers doesn't really matter here). Frankly I cannot fault anyone for believing we do not have the luxury to keep betting the future of the planet on an asymptotic solution. We need drastic global changes fast, and the average person has only so much bandwidth to spare. Giving people a false sense of optimism about recycling can (and has) made everyone too comfortable with plastic consumption, which has been vividly damaging.

tekstar 5y ago

Is plastic still that much less energy usage compared to paper when you include the energy needed to recycle it?

hedora 5y ago

We should greatly reduce fishing. This would also help human reduce trafficking, since international fishing boats are often run with slave labor. As for taxing the containers: I think a market based approach would be better. Regardless of what you use in your packaging, you have to pay for it “cradle to grave”. Companies could use whatever packaging they prefer, on the condition that they recapture 100% of the waste, and are carbon / landfill neutral.

wernercd 5y ago
> often run with slave labor Can that be an excuse to stop any industry? Might as well stop selling phones, books, shoes, clothes and... really any industry. I'm sure they can all be traced back to "slave labor" somewhere.
- hedora 5y ago
  It’s a bigger issue with fishing than other industries. The slave boats stay in international waters indefinitely, and they hand the fish off to other boats to bring it into port. Some clothing is sewn in route in international waters, but I get the impression it’s less feasible to transfer the contents of container vessels in open water. Also, it’s harder to conceal the slave labor on those boats: You’d need to make the paperwork match on both sides of the journey if you left with a “skeleton crew” and a load of textiles, and arrived with products ready to sell. There’s no source port for the fish, so that problem becomes easier. You just need to conceal one way shipments of supplies into the ocean. Clothing manufacturing is also an abusive industry, but I get the impression that fishing wins out in terms of absolute number of literal slaves (not “slaves”, as you put it).

Jarwain 5y ago

Re: plastic netting, couldn't we also try encouraging the use of other materials for making fishnets? I wonder if that would be an easier target than shifting consumer behavior and illegal activity

dehrmann 5y ago

I'm not all that concerned with plastic recycling rates; I'm more worried about how much gets into the environment. Bringing recycling into the debate feels like misdirection, and I'm not sure why.