Staten Island, NY – How many plastic cans, bottles, and containers have New York City recycling over the last few decades been rinsed, placed in recycling bins, and left on curbs?
Thousands? tens of thousands? Millions?
For a long time it turned out to be a waste of time.
that’s not what i’m talking about. That’s a free conclusion to draw from a new study by environmental activist Greenpeace. The report has a really eye-catching top line: “Plastic recycling is a dead end.”
“Let’s stop pretending that plastic is recyclable,” says the report. “We have to stop producing them.”
According to the report, “mechanical and chemical recycling of plastic waste is difficult because plastic waste is very difficult to collect, virtually impossible to separate for recycling and difficult to reprocess. It fails because it is harmful to the environment, is often made with toxic substances, is polluted, and is not economical to recycle.”
Now they tell us No, it wasn’t always like that.
Research shows that recycling in the United States began to accelerate in the mid-1990s, making the country dependent on China for plastic imports due to lower shipping and labor costs.
But that started to change in 2013 when China began restricting pollutant imports under the country’s Green Fence policy and later National Sword policy, Greenpeace says.
Among them, not only paper but also plastic products were included.
All of this has led to a decline in plastic waste exports, “which has had a significant impact on the recycling collection systems of American municipalities,” the report said.
With China no longer buying, suddenly there was no place to ship anything recyclable.
Another monkey wrench thrown into the system is: New plastic is cheap to produce, making it cheaper than making a new plastic water bottle out of recycled materials. It hit the market for recycled plastics.
The report draws on the 2014 documentary “Plastic China” and more than 60 surveys and surveys that “show millions of tons of exported plastic waste are being dumped or incinerated rather than recycled.” pointing out the article.
This was also the case in cities across the United States, according to a Greenpeace report.
I mean, we all think we’ve done our bit to save the planet by recycling plastic, but what really happened was that our mess was taken into someone else’s jurisdiction. And when it was no longer profitable, plastic waste was simply dumped in landfills or incinerated.
So for a long time there was no difference between sorting, rinsing and recycling plastic juice bottles and throwing them away with the rest of your household waste. In fact, it’s better to keep the bottle in the kitchen trash bag.
Greenpeace said companies that produce plastic should support the Global Plastics Treaty, which Greenpeace said would significantly reduce production and increase refilling and reuse.
i don’t know about it PET bottles and containers are everywhere. If you can’t recycle them, you’ll have to come up with another method.
Sooner or later, we will run out of landfill space. Or the shipping process becomes very expensive. Or other cities and states no longer want our trash to destroy the environment.
Incinerator technology has changed. You may have to burn all your garbage. Not that environmentalists get excited about it.
It turns out being green was a lot harder than they told us.
