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The difficulty is that recycling is a mixed bag. Recycling of aluminum is a resounding success environmentally and economically. Steel recycling seems to be a p
by ashtonkem 5y ago
The difficulty is that recycling is a mixed bag. Recycling of aluminum is a resounding success environmentally and economically. Steel recycling seems to be a pretty good deal for everyone, and last time I checked glass was environmentally good and economically break even.
Unfortunately the term and concept of recycling covers all of these plus plastics, which have been largely a failure. This confuses both consumers and policy makers.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoThis is a "motte and bailey" rhetorical trick they use. The people against any kind of market regulation will argue that all recycling is inherently inefficient if the market doesn't do it spontaneously. This is obviously undermined by the obvious success of many metal recycling schemes where the regulations created a market. So they then flip from recycling to "plastic recycling". If you then point out the many plastic recyling successes they'll jump to specific plastics and ways of using plastics that make it harder to recycle them. The obvious solution of using further regulation to get people to update their processes to use the easily recyled plastics is mysteriously avoided even though it has literally been done for decades across the globe, sometimes led by corporate co-operation (e.g. milk in various countries is in semi-standardized containers). If you have a gut reaction that recycling, or just plastic recycling is a bad thing, you've been conned by fossil fuel producers who compete with recycled plastic as a feedstock.