Plastic Recycling Rates Drop As 76% Ends Up in Landfills

submitted by infocom6502 from naturalblaze.com

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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I once made a change.org petition to make it mandatory that non-reusable plastics, such as wrapping materials, shopping bags and water bottles be made out of biodegradable plastics. I got all of 7 votes.

It shows one thing: people don't give a shit. To them, so long as they put the plastic in the recycle bin, it's out of sight and out of mind, and don't bother me with this shit again. That's the kind of attitude people have. And I can't really blame them: everybody's busy. But it's been known since the beginning that recycling wouldn't work over the long haul, not without major innovation in the field. It was the wrong path to begin with.

[–]infocom6502[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

yes that would have been nice. I'm worried that all this going into landfills will sometimes wash into the seas over geological time. not all of it will remain buried. That's the problem.

If it can be turned into a form that is unlikely to wash from a landfill and contain almost all of the plastic then the problem is solved imho. An example would be if they could admix some gunk derivative of the plastics into asphalt.

Microplastics are also a issue. Even for biodegadable.

There are however new bacteria that have evolved that break down some plastics like some organisms break down waxes. The enzyme is called 'petase' among other names:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/scientists-create-mutant-enzyme-that-recycles-plastic-bottles-in-hours

I like you focus on packaging material. The point that's important here is that the mass of plastic is not a good measure for damage. surface area is a better measure. You can have a solid cubic meter block of plastic and it will do practically zero environmental damage. However, turn this block into a bunch of foil and bags and wrapping material and the damage will be extensive with today's recycling and WM infrastructure.

[–]infocom6502[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The point that's important here is that the mass of plastic is not a good measure for damage. surface area is a better measure. You can have a solid cubic meter block of plastic and it will do practically zero environmental damage. However, turn this block into a bunch of foil and bags and wrapping material and the damage will be extensive

Some weird semi-related news. A cargo ship spilled untold amounts of lentil sized plastic pellets off the coast on New Orleans during a storm in early August. https://weather.com/science/environment/video/nurdle-apocalypse-in-mississippi-river-after-plastic-spill