‘Recyclable’ Plastics Are Often Rejected by US Recycling Plants, Greenpeace Says
20th February 2020
Notice that articles such as this always frame the situation as being either the fault of (a) consumers who are bad people for improperly recycling things or (b) manufacturers who are somehow at fault for how they mark stuff as recyclable or not.
Perhaps we ought to give some thought to creating recycling centers who could actually recycle more kinds of stuff?
February 20th, 2020 at 11:03
As long as the public is convinced that putting things in a recycling bin is “recycling”, then the trash handlers will happily collect the stuff and send it to a landfill after charging extra for the warm and fuzzy “recycling” feeling.
Nobody asks, “What do you make from my discarded milk jugs?”
Another issue: plastics are just long polymer versions of oil – without the sulfur and minerals. So with the exception of some chlorinated polymers (PVC, for example), the stuff that can’t be recycled could be burned for generating electricity. Same is true for tires (which have less sulfur than coal, but nearly the same Btu value.) But the nannies in government won’t let most places do that because it’s considered incineration and requires permitting under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which despite it’s name actually discourages recycling or re-use.