This is the most depressing article I've read in awhile. What is preventing us from recycling a larger volume of plastic? Is it not cost effective? Is that whats holding us back?
Plastics aren't just ONE single kind of item... there are hundreds of different KINDS of plastic. All use different formulations and solvents to produce. The recylcing system that would be needed just to separate them into BASIC groups (the little numbers inside the little triangles) would be super expensive. Then THOSE would have to be further sorted by color, density, and volume, then further sorted by solvent types. And THEN further sorted by manufacturers, because different manufacturers use different formulations to produce the particular type of plastic that you'd like to recycle. Unlike cans Steel is steel and aluminum is aluminum) or glass bottles ( glass is glass, just sort by color) and remelt it and form new cans and bottles plastic is not just plastic. In the ideal world (which this is NOT) plastics would have a return postage guaranteed stamp on everything and it'd ALL go back to the manufacturer of origin and be fully recycleable. Unfortunately This would be a prohibitive cost and raise the cost of a plastic item MUCH to high to have plastic be economical to use for much of anything. Raji
It's often a business reason and what can and cannot make money- which makes sense to a reason. I worked for a local gov't one summer in their recycling plant and saw first hand how things actually work. Only some plastics are recycled (take a look at the bottom of say a shampoo bottle or laundry detergent bottle, and then say the bottom of a sour cream container). The shampoo bottle will likely have a 2 on it- thus, it makes the recycling plant more money and there is more of a market out there for them to sell it too. There are costs to keep that plant running, to pay the employees to sort through the recyclables and so forth. Granted, it was an elaborate set up and there were several different rooms- paper and newspaper sorted in one, plastics another, aluminum got pulled off by a magnet, garbage was pulled off immediately though another...but it has to be paid for. If this wasn't run at a balance or near too it- people would be crying out for fiscal irresponsibility. The environment these days is the biggest business out there. Also, to the person who said it can only be made back into plastic so many times- thats true to an extent as well. However, a lot of the buyers of plastics are from overseas (at least here in Canada)....if you ever wear a fleece jacket- that's made from recycled plastic materials....or even plastic pellets, again recycled plastic. Recycling is a business. Plain and simple. It may make us feel good to do so- and it really is a GOOD thing to do at the end of the day...but it boils down to money.
in most cases plastic can only be reused about 3-4 times before the company has to trash the material unlike aluminum cans which can be used again and again :o) it's such a shame that people can just ruin the ocean with all of our trash... isn't it bad enough that we're chasing animals off land to make new urban areas and houses but now we're actually chasing animals out of the ocean too! it's so sad... I think once school starts again, I'm going to do a postsecret idea and put that pic of the turtle on a note card that says please Recycle need to all of our vending machines on campus... it may not be much but if 1 person does recycle then it'll be worth it :o)
I grew up on the Pacific Ocean. I once thought that it was too big to be affected by man. Then, I got a job working in the ocean. Man is an awful affliction. Jacques Cousteau pointed this out to us 30 years ago, in the Mediterranean. He had photographed it (actually, he was the first) and knew it when it was full of life. During his career, he watched it turn into a barren underwater desert. What to do? Waiting for God to play his hand is a terrible idea. What actions can be taken to cure the problem? Will fishing for garbage become an industry? Not until we find a way to profit from it. Our politics must change. There's a flip coming. When the oil runs low, there will be no reason to spend billions protecting its flow. When the defense budget becomes mute (ha ha) we can address these and the rest of the cleanup projects left over from industrialization. For now, what we can do is stop coveting things in pretty little packages. I know this is suicidal for the economy, but let's at least look at new ways, new materials.
Well as already mentioned most plastics can only be recycled a few times, some not at all, whilst others are designed to bio degrade not recycle. PE plastics can be recycled 4-5 times, then make excellent fuel replacement for power stations (only giving off water and CO2 nasty but nothing worse less, than CO2 than wood of the same weight). but how do companies know how often something is recycled? Also often plastic is used in Food and Chemical packaging. Generally it is safest to use Virgin plastic. Before this is then recycled it must be non hazardous and that's expensive. We could help by making sure all recyclable plastic is clean before we send it off, and keep asking manufacturers for goods made with recycled products.
