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Good timing, the latest Skeptoid podcast takes a critical look at recycling: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4932 https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4932 tl;dr - PET

Good timing, the latest Skeptoid podcast takes a critical look at recycling: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4932 https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4932 tl;dr - PET and LDPE are worth recycling in the US, those have 1 and 2 in the recycle symbol Other countries check your local area. Different local government can recycle different things.

autoexec 3y ago
> PET and LDPE are worth recycling in the US What does "worth recycling" mean? I see a lot of people make the claim that if it's ever more expensive to recycle something than it would to make something new it's not "worth it". Recycling rarely makes sense from a purely economic sense. I still think there might be value in other things like not using up/wasting new raw materials when we could recover them from old products, or most importantly limiting the amount of brand new plastics we're feeding into the environment knowing that it will never go away just break down into micro/nano plastics that will end up in our soil/air/blood/organs/newborns/food or that it's better to recycle as much as we can to keep plastics out of incinerators where they poison our air and out of landfills where they take up space without breaking down efficiently like other trash and can still leach chemicals into our ground/water. Even if recycling or reducing plastics could result in a larger carbon cost it might still be worth doing it if those negative costs could be more easily mitigated or controlled for than the harms caused by the increase in new plastics.
- gruez 3y ago
  >or most importantly limiting the amount of brand new plastics we're feeding into the environment knowing that it will never go away just break down into micro/nano plastics that will end up in our soil/air/blood/organs/newborns/food If the plastic made it into a recycling plant, chances are it's going into a landfill or an incinerator. In that case the amount of microplastics being generated is likely negligible. All the microplastics in the environment today is either generated from plastic in use experiencing wear (eg. tires on cars or synthetic fibers being washed), or from mismanaged plastic in the environment decomposing. Properly managed plastic is a negligible source of microplastics, and recycling it or not doesn't make a difference. >incinerators where they poison our air this is a non-issue in modern incinerators because they burn hot enough to avoid generating toxic emissions and/or have pollution abatement technologies. >landfills where they take up space without breaking down efficiently like other trash and can still leach chemicals into our ground/water Can't speak for other countries but at least in the US we're not going to run out of land any time soon, so "take up space" is a moot point. Landfills are also lined so it's unlikely to affect the water supply.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Most of the microplastics in our groundwater comes from landfills. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9602440/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9602440/) leached plastic pollution into spoil and air is a big problem. Incineration isn't perfect either (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721015965 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...) but it seems like burning wins over landfills as long as there are very strict requirements for emissions and the ash/filters are properly collected and disposed of. It seems like the best thing we can do is reduce the amount of plastic being made and introduced into our environment, but since we don't want to go without it we should try to get as much use out of what plastic we've made as we can. The break down of plastics into microplastics is inevitable one way or another.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >Most of the microplastics in our groundwater comes from landfills That's almost true by definition, but how worried should we be about groundwater microplastics vs other sources?
- suprjami 3y ago
  I linked to a podcast with transcript and scholar-quality research references which answers your question. Here on HN we actually read links in full before commenting. Please ensure you do the same. You also might want to look into the existential threat of putting high-recycle-cost plastics into landfill where it doesn't do anything (low/zero) vs doing literally anything else with it including recycling (high).

autoexec 3y ago

> PET and LDPE are worth recycling in the US What does "worth recycling" mean? I see a lot of people make the claim that if it's ever more expensive to recycle something than it would to make something new it's not "worth it". Recycling rarely makes sense from a purely economic sense. I still think there might be value in other things like not using up/wasting new raw materials when we could recover them from old products, or most importantly limiting the amount of brand new plastics we're feeding into the environment knowing that it will never go away just break down into micro/nano plastics that will end up in our soil/air/blood/organs/newborns/food or that it's better to recycle as much as we can to keep plastics out of incinerators where they poison our air and out of landfills where they take up space without breaking down efficiently like other trash and can still leach chemicals into our ground/water. Even if recycling or reducing plastics could result in a larger carbon cost it might still be worth doing it if those negative costs could be more easily mitigated or controlled for than the harms caused by the increase in new plastics.

gruez 3y ago
>or most importantly limiting the amount of brand new plastics we're feeding into the environment knowing that it will never go away just break down into micro/nano plastics that will end up in our soil/air/blood/organs/newborns/food If the plastic made it into a recycling plant, chances are it's going into a landfill or an incinerator. In that case the amount of microplastics being generated is likely negligible. All the microplastics in the environment today is either generated from plastic in use experiencing wear (eg. tires on cars or synthetic fibers being washed), or from mismanaged plastic in the environment decomposing. Properly managed plastic is a negligible source of microplastics, and recycling it or not doesn't make a difference. >incinerators where they poison our air this is a non-issue in modern incinerators because they burn hot enough to avoid generating toxic emissions and/or have pollution abatement technologies. >landfills where they take up space without breaking down efficiently like other trash and can still leach chemicals into our ground/water Can't speak for other countries but at least in the US we're not going to run out of land any time soon, so "take up space" is a moot point. Landfills are also lined so it's unlikely to affect the water supply.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Most of the microplastics in our groundwater comes from landfills. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9602440/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9602440/) leached plastic pollution into spoil and air is a big problem. Incineration isn't perfect either (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721015965 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...) but it seems like burning wins over landfills as long as there are very strict requirements for emissions and the ash/filters are properly collected and disposed of. It seems like the best thing we can do is reduce the amount of plastic being made and introduced into our environment, but since we don't want to go without it we should try to get as much use out of what plastic we've made as we can. The break down of plastics into microplastics is inevitable one way or another.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >Most of the microplastics in our groundwater comes from landfills That's almost true by definition, but how worried should we be about groundwater microplastics vs other sources?
suprjami 3y ago
I linked to a podcast with transcript and scholar-quality research references which answers your question. Here on HN we actually read links in full before commenting. Please ensure you do the same. You also might want to look into the existential threat of putting high-recycle-cost plastics into landfill where it doesn't do anything (low/zero) vs doing literally anything else with it including recycling (high).