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Because new plastic creation doesn’t include the cost of disposal, as the poster above mentioned. In theory, the cost of manufacture a new piece of plastic sho

Because new plastic creation doesn’t include the cost of disposal, as the poster above mentioned. In theory, the cost of manufacture a new piece of plastic should pay for the recycling of that same piece of plastic.

akiselev 4y ago
It’s not just the cost of disposal. Recycling aluminum or steel works because the alloys can be separated into their constituent parts and recombined into an alloy of the same or higher quality. That recycling them is cheaper than extracting it from ore is just a nice bonus that obviates the need for political incentives. Recycling plastics breaks down the polymers into smaller ones which degrades the quality in almost every respect. The cheapest way, for example, is literally just shred the plastic into lower quality injection moulding pellets.
philwelch 4y ago
There is an entire waste disposal industry that can economically bury your broken plastic stuff in landfills, and which most people already pay for. This is a perfectly fine solution; we’re at no realistic risk of running out of landfill space. If you live in a particularly corrupt country where your waste disposal industry is run by gangsters who dump your garbage off the coast of Somalia, I would suggest solving the gangster problem.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  America exports a lot of plastic to countries that dispose of it problematically. (while pretending it's going to be recycled). Less since China stopped taking it to dispose of much of it problematically. I agree we should stop. Perhaps we are the corrupt country who exports it's waste to places where disposal is controlled by gangsters. Supply and demand. Why don't we just put all that garbage into big pits domestically, instead of exporting it? I guess you need to convince voters to like this solution better. I think it's important that we don't just dump the trash in poor and politically unpowerful neighborhoods and regions to (which is kind of what we do now, just internationally). https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/05/huge-rise-us-plastic-waste-shipments-to-poor-countries-china-ban-thailand-malaysia-vietnam https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/05/h...
  - philwelch 4y ago
    I agree that we should stop pretending to recycle plastic. I do my part by throwing my waste plastic into the garbage instead of the recycling bin.
jrochkind1 4y ago
I agree that new plastic sale ought to include the cost of disposal. I wonder if anyone has calculated approximately what that cost might be. I suspect it would make plastic much less attractive than it currently is. Which would, I guess, result in significantly less plastic use. Which is good, because plastic recycling is not an answer, it's basically a myth, it's not affordable, it's not currently hardly done (which actually makes it hard to estimate what the cost would be to include as a 'tax' in original price -- we don't actually have the infrastructure available to reclaim and sort and do all that recycling. What the cost would be is kind of a guess). We need to significantly reduce plastic use, recycling isn't really the answer. Now, if including cost of recycling in all plastic sales also would be likely to result in a giant economic recession, that's a problem to solve too. (I am not arguing for continued plastic use the way we do now. I agree the cost of recycling should be borne by original sales. I am however saying that this is not in fact a simple fix and recycling is probably not the answer, at least not in the present environment. Perhaps if we invent more recyclable types of plastic, use fewer kinds of plastic to make them easier to reclaim/sort, etc. And use a lot less plastic).

akiselev 4y ago

It’s not just the cost of disposal. Recycling aluminum or steel works because the alloys can be separated into their constituent parts and recombined into an alloy of the same or higher quality. That recycling them is cheaper than extracting it from ore is just a nice bonus that obviates the need for political incentives. Recycling plastics breaks down the polymers into smaller ones which degrades the quality in almost every respect. The cheapest way, for example, is literally just shred the plastic into lower quality injection moulding pellets.

philwelch 4y ago

There is an entire waste disposal industry that can economically bury your broken plastic stuff in landfills, and which most people already pay for. This is a perfectly fine solution; we’re at no realistic risk of running out of landfill space. If you live in a particularly corrupt country where your waste disposal industry is run by gangsters who dump your garbage off the coast of Somalia, I would suggest solving the gangster problem.

jrochkind1 4y ago
America exports a lot of plastic to countries that dispose of it problematically. (while pretending it's going to be recycled). Less since China stopped taking it to dispose of much of it problematically. I agree we should stop. Perhaps we are the corrupt country who exports it's waste to places where disposal is controlled by gangsters. Supply and demand. Why don't we just put all that garbage into big pits domestically, instead of exporting it? I guess you need to convince voters to like this solution better. I think it's important that we don't just dump the trash in poor and politically unpowerful neighborhoods and regions to (which is kind of what we do now, just internationally). https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/05/huge-rise-us-plastic-waste-shipments-to-poor-countries-china-ban-thailand-malaysia-vietnam https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/05/h...
- philwelch 4y ago
  I agree that we should stop pretending to recycle plastic. I do my part by throwing my waste plastic into the garbage instead of the recycling bin.

jrochkind1 4y ago

I agree that new plastic sale ought to include the cost of disposal. I wonder if anyone has calculated approximately what that cost might be. I suspect it would make plastic much less attractive than it currently is. Which would, I guess, result in significantly less plastic use. Which is good, because plastic recycling is not an answer, it's basically a myth, it's not affordable, it's not currently hardly done (which actually makes it hard to estimate what the cost would be to include as a 'tax' in original price -- we don't actually have the infrastructure available to reclaim and sort and do all that recycling. What the cost would be is kind of a guess). We need to significantly reduce plastic use, recycling isn't really the answer. Now, if including cost of recycling in all plastic sales also would be likely to result in a giant economic recession, that's a problem to solve too. (I am not arguing for continued plastic use the way we do now. I agree the cost of recycling should be borne by original sales. I am however saying that this is not in fact a simple fix and recycling is probably not the answer, at least not in the present environment. Perhaps if we invent more recyclable types of plastic, use fewer kinds of plastic to make them easier to reclaim/sort, etc. And use a lot less plastic).