tl;dr The problem with plastic is that it is expensive to collect and sort. There are now thousands of different types of plastic, and none of them can be melt

tl;dr The problem with plastic is that it is expensive to collect and sort. There are now thousands of different types of plastic, and none of them can be melted down together. New plastic, on the other hand, is cheap and easy to produce. The result is that plastic trash has few markets — a reality the public has not wanted to hear.