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Plastics recycling is fundamentally a technological issue. Europe doesn't have any magical technology that the US doesn't have. PET is the only plastic for whi

Plastics recycling is fundamentally a technological issue. Europe doesn't have any magical technology that the US doesn't have. PET is the only plastic for which there is any industrial process that exists anywhere on the planet for closed-loop recycling. Europe has great rates of recycling collection, but processing remains just as much of a problem there as it does anywhere in the global market for recycled plastic. Quite a bit of recycling that is collected does not actually end up being recycled. Furthermore, Europe's recycling rate has declined over the past decade? Why? Probably the same difficulties that the entire globe faces -- China stopped allowing "recycling" imports because much of it ended up in the Yangtze. Now, a lot of the "recycling exports" are sent to countries in Africa with the same issues. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/ https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/06/90-of-plastic-pollut... The reality is that the promises made by recycling companies in developing nations that accept the western world's recycling are not very rigorous to say the least. Much of your recycling sent to Africa is picked through for the most valuable stuff and the rest is burned or dumped.

ZeroGravitas 5mo ago
> The EU recycled an average of 246 kg per person in 2023. This means that 48.0% of the total amount of municipal waste generated was recycled, compared with 37.2% in 2013 (199 kg per person). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250213-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d... Also, Starbucks apparently introduced a different compostible cup in the EU just as new rules took effect after promising for 20 years to introduce them https://packagingeurope.com/news/starbucks-to-roll-out-home-compostable-takeaway-cup-in-europe/12798.article https://packagingeurope.com/news/starbucks-to-roll-out-home-... They also have stronger regulations about making claims like "widely recyclable" without evidence. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy-topics/green-claims_en https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy-top... Maybe the magical technology is the regulations we made along the way.
- kube-system 5mo ago
  That 48% includes materials sent to overseas "recyclers" who are notorious for burning it or dumping it in the ocean. https://www.ban.org/plastic-waste-project-hub/trade-data/eu-export-data https://www.ban.org/plastic-waste-project-hub/trade-data/eu-... Don't get me wrong, the EU does a great job at reducing waste. But plastics recycling is primarily false propoganda created by petroleum and plastics industries in the 1970s. Most plastics are not meaningfully recyclable. Those recycling symbols you see on the bottom of your bottle was invented by a US plastics industry lobbying group as propaganda to make you think all of the plastic you put in your recycling bin is being recycled. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/plastic-wars/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/plastic-wars/
  - ZeroGravitas 5mo ago
    I refer you to my first comment: Are you regulating the companies that did all this propaganda to make them either do it or shut up? Or are you getting angry at the abstract concept of recycling? You keep talking about plastic recycling, but the EU rules made Starbucks stop using plastic for these cups! In America they use a hard to recycle plastic and lie about it to their customers. Make the corporations pay for it with Extended Producer Responsibility laws and they'll use less plastic. They'll make what they do use easier to recycle. Because it will cost them money if they don't. If the companies ship stuff abroad and that's bad then ban it. Like the EU has done. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/waste-shipments_en https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/... > The new Regulation on waste shipments entered into force on 20 May 2024. It aims to: > Ensure that the EU does not export its waste challenges to third countries and contributes to environmentally sound management of waste. > Strengthen enforcement to prevent illegal shipments of waste occurring within the EU, as well as from the EU to third countries. > Increase traceability of waste shipments within the EU and facilitate recycling and reuse.
    - kube-system 5mo ago
      My beef is specifically with plastics recycling. Aluminum/steel recycling is, for example, a very real thing. The issue with "plastics recycling" is that it mostly doesn't exist. The plastics industry wants people to think it exists so that they don't realize the only real solution to plastic waste is to ban single-use plastics. > If the companies ship stuff abroad and that's bad then ban it. Like the EU has done. > Regulation on waste shipments entered into force on 20 May 2024. First of all, as that page says, they didn't ban it, they implemented new regulations on it. And the impetus for those new regulations was, as I said above, the realization that foreign "recyclers" are not recycling, they are dumping/burning/etc. Unfortunately, those new regulations will probably make no difference, because guess what? The EU is allowing the exporters themselves to commission their own audits. Now, they could have banned exports entirely, but they didn't. And the reason they didn't is because they can't do it domestically. And they can't do it domestically because the technology to recycle them at industrial scale doesn't exist.. The entire concept is built on fraud. There is only one type of plastic that can be recycled closed-loop at industrial scale: PET. Literally every other plastic mathematically is guaranteed to create waste. Even other plastics deemed "highly recyclable" at best require 80-90% virgin feedstock, and so the total possible amount you can recycle is only 10-20% of what is produced. There are multiple solutions to "plastics recycling" and all of the answer are "do something else", e.g.: switch to a different material, incinerate, sequester in a landfill, ban their use, etc.

ZeroGravitas 5mo ago

> The EU recycled an average of 246 kg per person in 2023. This means that 48.0% of the total amount of municipal waste generated was recycled, compared with 37.2% in 2013 (199 kg per person). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250213-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d... Also, Starbucks apparently introduced a different compostible cup in the EU just as new rules took effect after promising for 20 years to introduce them https://packagingeurope.com/news/starbucks-to-roll-out-home-compostable-takeaway-cup-in-europe/12798.article https://packagingeurope.com/news/starbucks-to-roll-out-home-... They also have stronger regulations about making claims like "widely recyclable" without evidence. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy-topics/green-claims_en https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy-top... Maybe the magical technology is the regulations we made along the way.

kube-system 5mo ago
That 48% includes materials sent to overseas "recyclers" who are notorious for burning it or dumping it in the ocean. https://www.ban.org/plastic-waste-project-hub/trade-data/eu-export-data https://www.ban.org/plastic-waste-project-hub/trade-data/eu-... Don't get me wrong, the EU does a great job at reducing waste. But plastics recycling is primarily false propoganda created by petroleum and plastics industries in the 1970s. Most plastics are not meaningfully recyclable. Those recycling symbols you see on the bottom of your bottle was invented by a US plastics industry lobbying group as propaganda to make you think all of the plastic you put in your recycling bin is being recycled. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/plastic-wars/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/plastic-wars/
- ZeroGravitas 5mo ago
  I refer you to my first comment: Are you regulating the companies that did all this propaganda to make them either do it or shut up? Or are you getting angry at the abstract concept of recycling? You keep talking about plastic recycling, but the EU rules made Starbucks stop using plastic for these cups! In America they use a hard to recycle plastic and lie about it to their customers. Make the corporations pay for it with Extended Producer Responsibility laws and they'll use less plastic. They'll make what they do use easier to recycle. Because it will cost them money if they don't. If the companies ship stuff abroad and that's bad then ban it. Like the EU has done. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/waste-shipments_en https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/... > The new Regulation on waste shipments entered into force on 20 May 2024. It aims to: > Ensure that the EU does not export its waste challenges to third countries and contributes to environmentally sound management of waste. > Strengthen enforcement to prevent illegal shipments of waste occurring within the EU, as well as from the EU to third countries. > Increase traceability of waste shipments within the EU and facilitate recycling and reuse.
  - kube-system 5mo ago
    My beef is specifically with plastics recycling. Aluminum/steel recycling is, for example, a very real thing. The issue with "plastics recycling" is that it mostly doesn't exist. The plastics industry wants people to think it exists so that they don't realize the only real solution to plastic waste is to ban single-use plastics. > If the companies ship stuff abroad and that's bad then ban it. Like the EU has done. > Regulation on waste shipments entered into force on 20 May 2024. First of all, as that page says, they didn't ban it, they implemented new regulations on it. And the impetus for those new regulations was, as I said above, the realization that foreign "recyclers" are not recycling, they are dumping/burning/etc. Unfortunately, those new regulations will probably make no difference, because guess what? The EU is allowing the exporters themselves to commission their own audits. Now, they could have banned exports entirely, but they didn't. And the reason they didn't is because they can't do it domestically. And they can't do it domestically because the technology to recycle them at industrial scale doesn't exist.. The entire concept is built on fraud. There is only one type of plastic that can be recycled closed-loop at industrial scale: PET. Literally every other plastic mathematically is guaranteed to create waste. Even other plastics deemed "highly recyclable" at best require 80-90% virgin feedstock, and so the total possible amount you can recycle is only 10-20% of what is produced. There are multiple solutions to "plastics recycling" and all of the answer are "do something else", e.g.: switch to a different material, incinerate, sequester in a landfill, ban their use, etc.