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You're greatly misunderstanding that second link: that's the breakdown of what happens to collected municipal waste within each country (notice they all add up
by gryson 4mo ago
You're greatly misunderstanding that second link: that's the breakdown of what happens to collected municipal waste within each country (notice they all add up to 100% for each country). That says nothing about total amounts of plastic waste collected or recycled.
See Table 1 here and its sources:
https://circulareconomy.earth/publications/how-japan-is-using-the-circular-economy-to-recycle-plastics https://circulareconomy.earth/publications/how-japan-is-usin...
Japan recycles about 24% of its used consumer plastics into new products, while the US recycles about 8%. That's NOT factoring in thermal recycling, which Japan is far better at than the US.
- curio_Pol_curio 4mo agoThermal recycling is a classic Japanese euphemism for burning plastics. Yes, for energy, but it's still misleading https://www.mitsui.com/solution/en/contents/solutions/circular/how-is-plastic-recycled https://www.mitsui.com/solution/en/contents/solutions/circul... >it produces CO2 and toxic substances when it is burned.
- dcrazy 4mo agoYes, the bin for general waste is even labeled “burnables,” and in my experience that is where non-rigid plastic films go. (Films are very difficult to sort automatically; we landfill them here in SF.)