4 ms·

The market for post-consumer recycled plastic materials is arbitrarily close to zero. Plastic recyclables just go into a different landfill than regular waste.

by yodon 4y ago

The market for post-consumer recycled plastic materials is arbitrarily close to zero. Plastic recyclables just go into a different landfill than regular waste. The recyclable symbols on the things you buy are there to make you feel better about buying plastic products, not because there's an actual functioning recycle usage chain. Edit added: According to the EPA data less than 9% of plastic put into recycling bins is actually re-used (and most of that re-use is of much cleaner and more uniform manufacturing waste, not actually post-consumer waste)[0] [0]https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...

tokai 4y ago
This is because people don't want to make it work. It works in plenty of European countries.
- yodon 4y ago
  The issue isn't whether people put plastic waste into recycling bins, it's about whether any of that plastic gets taken out of the bins and re-used in commercial processes. Today, across the entire world, that answer is essentially no. Yes, there are products made with recycled plastic (Coca Cola is the current poster child). They are rare because its considerably more expensive and more difficult to work with recycled plastic, and most are made primarily with waste from manufacturing processes not post-consumer waste (I suspect Coke's volume is high enough that they need to tap the post-consumer stream but I haven't found any data on that).
  - tokai 4y ago
    >The issue isn't whether people put plastic waste into recycling bins Thats not what I'm saying. The bottle are being reused here. What makes it rare other places can and have been solved many other places. That your system is bad is not an argument against a working system.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The coca cola plan to make all their bottles from 100% recycled plastic was apparently delayed because they couldn't buy enough recycled plastic, which suggests there is a chicken and egg aspect to this.

by yodon 4y ago

tokai 4y ago

This is because people don't want to make it work. It works in plenty of European countries.

yodon 4y ago
The issue isn't whether people put plastic waste into recycling bins, it's about whether any of that plastic gets taken out of the bins and re-used in commercial processes. Today, across the entire world, that answer is essentially no. Yes, there are products made with recycled plastic (Coca Cola is the current poster child). They are rare because its considerably more expensive and more difficult to work with recycled plastic, and most are made primarily with waste from manufacturing processes not post-consumer waste (I suspect Coke's volume is high enough that they need to tap the post-consumer stream but I haven't found any data on that).
- tokai 4y ago
  >The issue isn't whether people put plastic waste into recycling bins Thats not what I'm saying. The bottle are being reused here. What makes it rare other places can and have been solved many other places. That your system is bad is not an argument against a working system.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The coca cola plan to make all their bottles from 100% recycled plastic was apparently delayed because they couldn't buy enough recycled plastic, which suggests there is a chicken and egg aspect to this.