A Green Peace study finds only about 5% of recycled plastics are repurposed

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A Green Peace study that only about 5% of plastic winds up being recycled/repurposed. Said too many different types of plastic and people mixing things like plastic shopping bags with other plastics. Said laundry detergent and soda bottles are best for recycling but only 5% actually gets recycled. They say to be considered effective it should be around 30%. . One of the issues with plastic recycling the process is too cumbersome including trying to sort all the plastics ie the different numbers/types of plastics.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131...y-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse

I've been hearing for years now that most cities and towns are lucky to have about 50% of their collected recycling accepted. Dirty loads with trash or unacceptable plastics a big issue. It also sounds like the recycling industry hasn't done much upgrading or expanding since the initial push in the post hippie era last century. With the amount of plastics out there now they need to apply more technology to sort and process. Could turn into profit for some.

It's frustrating because of all the time sorting or taking the blue bin to the curb one day and trash on another. I even tried recycling plastic bags but after I store employees putting collected or blowing around bags in the trash that was it for me.
 

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Yeah, I saw a news report about that. The gov't has been told for decades that recycling doesn't work and has virtually no effect. People have even come up with solutions, but the gov't isn't listening. Apparently solutions would cost their "friends" a lot of money.
 
The bulk of our recycling is cardboard. When it comes to plastics it doesn‘t get recycled if it lacks a triangle. Is the problem inaccurate triangles, or just ignoring those marks?
 
Why can't plastic just be ground up along with some bonding agent and turned into plastic furniture and other useful items?

If someone knows the answer to that, please respond.
 
SeniorBen said:
Why can't plastic just be ground up along with some bonding agent and turned into plastic furniture and other useful items?
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Some of it is, the problem is there are many different plastics with different compositions. Not compatible to mix in recycle. A lot of products even contain several different plastics, often layers. And in household waste plastic products can be hard to clean.
 
SeniorBen said:
Why can't plastic just be ground up along with some bonding agent and turned into plastic furniture and other useful items?

If someone knows the answer to that, please respond.
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The big thing are the different types. For instance many municipalities won't take number 6. The numbers in the triangle are the types of plastics. If one looks at the local recycling literature you'll see a list of what they won't take.

To me if they could come up with automated sorting beyond what it is now. Also many machines don't like plastic bags or bottle caps even though they are considered recyclable. I've been hearing for years the process they use when recycling is very consuming. Throw in environmental or pollution regulations the recycling industry has probably been slowed down or priced out.

I will say couldn't ground up plastics be used as some kind of fill? In the 1970s they tried recycling the rubber from sneakers for roads. I try to 'salvage some plastic by saving spray tops from window cleaner etc and/or clean one good for just water for cleaning or plants and use some Pringles or Coffee can lids as coasters but can only salvage and store so much.

The capability is there but the process must streamlined with the use of modern technology and not the tech hippies/yuppies came up with decades ago.
 
If there is any loose plastic in our blue bins, the whole load in declined. Same with dirty container.

Our drink bottles have a refundable deposit.

If anything is dirty, I garbage it rather than waste water trying to make it acceptable.
 
I mentioned before I don't like the banned plastic single use bag policy in my city/state, but my neighborhood is so much cleaner. I thought the law was just enacted to bother me, but it actually seems to be a good thing! Hated seeing all those plastic bags in our trees looking like so many burst balloons
 
I recycle everything that's on the list from my council... but it makes no sense to me that the next county's council have a different list of items they'll accept in the recycle bin.. so I've always wondered just how much of it is really recycled to use again..
 
SeniorBen said:
Why can't plastic just be ground up along with some bonding agent and turned into plastic furniture and other useful items?

If someone knows the answer to that, please respond.
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I think one of the problems is "food contamination." The plastic has to be clean or it causes all sorts of problems.
 
Pepper said:
What kind of chemicals go into making plastic? Is that a factor, the release of toxic chemicals?
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I'm way out of my depth here, but I know that post-refinery remnants of the catalytic cracking process for crude oil are important feedstocks for some types of plastic. So is cellulose from wood pulp. So is natural gas. And of course chemical plants pose a health hazard so there is no reason to think that recycling plastics wouldn't pose some types of hazard as well.
 
Pepper said:
What kind of chemicals go into making plastic? Is that a factor, the release of toxic chemicals?
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My guess is that the recycled plastic might not hold together. It has to be broken down into basic components. Dirt, chemicals etc might mess up a recycling machine or create pollution especially if they have to heated/melted.

Toxins would be an issue as far as pollution regulations. They probably require all sorts of filters in the plants along with being strict on waste disposal not just from dirty loads but the process it's self.

Trash to steam power would be an alternative for the volume of plastics but they'd probably burn better in combination with other trash.
 
My main focus is recycling aluminum, but in recent times we've been using more plastic containers which I'm saving for the recycler. But there's so many different types of plastic, and differing rules, I don't even try to understand, just let the recycler figure it out.
 
ElCastor said:
The bulk of our recycling is cardboard. When it comes to plastics it doesn‘t get recycled if it lacks a triangle. Is the problem inaccurate triangles, or just ignoring those marks?
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Incredibly, there are 5 types of triangles. They all have 3 sides identically, but the numbers and letters in the triangles differ according to how much PBA, stabilizers, lubricants and etc. it contains.
 
It appears that the vast majority of plastic waste is winding up in the oceans and/or washing up on the beaches. As this waste accumulates, it is finding its way into our food supplies as microplastics. One of the biggest sources of these microplastics is bottled water. The long term effects of this "consumption" may become the source of future health problems.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517
 
Don M. said:
It appears that the vast majority of plastic waste is winding up in the oceans and/or washing up on the beaches. As this waste accumulates, it is finding its way into our food supplies as microplastics. One of the biggest sources of these microplastics is bottled water. The long term effects of this "consumption" may become the source of future health problems.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517
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The US and other countries most wind up in landfills but the illegal dumpers or ignorant dump in the ocean from ships, liners or even other countries. They might not be as vast as the US and have to do something with it.
 
Don M. said:
It appears that the vast majority of plastic waste is winding up in the oceans and/or washing up on the beaches. As this waste accumulates, it is finding its way into our food supplies as microplastics. One of the biggest sources of these microplastics is bottled water. The long term effects of this "consumption" may become the source of future health problems.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517
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Not the vast majority, but a whole lot of it.

Interestingly, marine biologists studying "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch" (huge island of plastics located halfway between Hawaii and California) have found tiny ocean creatures that have evolved the capability to consume plastic, just like when they found that oil-eating marine algae bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico. The problem is, these creatures also poop plastic, it's just way small ...microplastics. Some scientists are calling it nanoplastics. They said it's everywhere.
 

This article does a pretty good job of explaining the plastic recycle problem.​

Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work​

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...e-plastic-chemical-recycling-disposal/661141/

Pepper said:
What kind of chemicals go into making plastic? Is that a factor, the release of toxic chemicals?
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Most plastics are petrochemicals, made from oil. And most are pretty inert, much of the plastics problems come from their physical not chemical nature. And they don't usually biodegrade. Billions and billions of small plastic particles, that kind of thing. As @JimBob1952 said a recycling problem is that many household plastics are contaminated with food and food waste, making recycle difficult and cleaning expensive.
Murrmurr said:
Most US plastics - like 90% - is shipped to Poland and a couple other places.
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I saw a presentation by a Polish government worker once who explained that they considered landfilling to be a form of recycling. Just returning the waste to where it came from... sort of. Actually landfilling is probably the safest way to dispose of a lot of plastics.
 
I recycle everything and it has been about 4 years since I used plastic bags.
Over here we have 3 bins, a red lid one for normal garbage a green one for food scraps/lawn clippings and wood, a yellow lid one for glass, tin cans cardboard, and plastic bottles.
 
Maybe plastic packaging should be standardized to make it easier to recycle. That would require government regulations, though, which is difficult if not impossible in this day and age.
 
Alligatorob said:
Most plastics are petrochemicals, made from oil. And most are pretty inert, much of the plastics problems come from their physical not chemical nature. And they don't usually biodegrade. Billions and billions of small plastic particles, that kind of thing. As @JimBob1952 said a recycling problem is that many household plastics are contaminated with food and food waste, making recycle difficult and cleaning expensive.

I saw a presentation by a Polish government worker once who explained that they considered landfilling to be a form of recycling. Just returning the waste to where it came from... sort of. Actually landfilling is probably the safest way to dispose of a lot of plastics.
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I agree, but some plastics contain higher levels of particular ingredients than others; levels classified as air pollution - not necessarily toxic to people, but to the environment. And some physicians claim these pollutants are causing irreversible respiratory and liver diseases.

Yeah, almost nobody wants to wash their garbage. And I agree about the landfill "solution" but the issue I see there is that rain and below-surface waterflow can move that stuff along for thousands of miles. I'm in favor of a barrier of some sort.

The convenience/liquor/grocery store me and a cousin owned up in the NoCal hills was built on a giant pile of trash, parking lot and all. Over time, the building's foundation seemed fine, but the parking lot developed several large low spots. So I guess the surfacers could have done a better job.
 

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