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Is recycling plastic bad? What environmental issues need to be focused on right now?

• foobarbaz33 2y ago
  Much plastic recycling is a sham. 1st world business pays 3rd world business to take their plastic for "recycling" (mandatory air quotes). The 1st world gets credit for being a responsible environmentalist. The 3rd world business then dumps the plastic in a river or other convenient but totally not enviro-friendly dumping spot. It's sort of an open conspiracy at this point. Putting your plastic in the trash may be better for the environment overall.
  • lmpdev 2y ago
    To self-checkout at my local grocery store, I have to clear a reminder that any soft plastic recycled through the store over the last x years was in fact not recycled and stockpiled around Australia in warehouses “waiting” for it to become economically feasible (it never did) REDcycle (effectively Australia’s lone large-scale soft plastic recycling effort) folded and it was a big brouhaha Source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/30/redcycles-collapse-and-the-hard-truths-on-recycling-soft-plastics-in-australia https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/30/redcy...
• jl6 2y ago
  “Recycling” sometimes (often) includes burning it in waste-to-energy incinerators, which emit CO2 and other pollutants just as if the original oil had been burned directly instead of taking a detour via a plastic product. It would be better to put waste plastic in a carbon storage device, a.k.a. a landfill. At least that way we are caching a little bit of easy-access fuel to help re-bootstrap civilization in case of global catastrophe.