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TIL Only about 9% of plastic ever produced has been recycled.
(en.wikipedia.org)
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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That's a bit cynical take. In many countries, including mine, there are dedicate bins for plastic waste which is the majority of waste from your typical household. It's all being recycled into new products, not being shipped anywhere. Also, when it comes to plastic bottles for example, close to 100% of them are returned and recycled into new bottles. I've got a tiny-ass bin for the stuff that ends up in landfill because I separate and recycle it all as does most other people.
EDIT: Nevermind then. It's all apparently dumped into the ocean. Sorry about the attempt in some positivity.
https://www.plasticexpert.co.uk/what-country-recycles-the-most-plastic/#:~:text=the%20most%20plastic%3F-,The%20Countries%20With%20The%20Highest%20Plastic%20Recycling%20Rate,recycling%20rates%20in%20the%20world.
Germany has the highest recycling rate for plastics with 65 %. Not everything you put in the recycling bin is being recycled.
Seems far more likely that the recycling rate is low because not every piece of plastic waste is put into recycling. Not that they simply don't recycle it.
The problem is that there are quite some different sorts of plastics and that plastic containers are not standardized. If you mix different kinds of plastics or plastics with other materials you can't use it anymore in an automated processing and it usually gets burned. Also mostly recycling is a downgrade, so usually if you recycle some packaging, it is not made into packaging again but into things like pallets or construction fence bases.
I'm afraid its not. There are many plastics that don't have any method of recycling, and plently more that require specific machinery for their "one time" recycling that just isn't being used.commercially.
Even the PET bottles can only go through the process once or twice before becoming too degraded. That's not even taking into account that most manufacturers want white or clear plastic, and recycled does not work that way.
The separation and recycling that you do is mostly gaslighting and green washing.
Haha.. yeah I live in the Netherlands. And my city started separately collecting plastics.
Here's the kicker: because there is no more plastic in our waste, the energy value of the waste went down. The city sold these waste "rights" to an incineration plant that reclaims heat and energy who now cannot use the waste. So to avoid contractual fines, our city now imports plastic waste from elsewhere in Europe to be mixed in with the waste and then incinerated.
Well fuck me!
But I'm sure they meant well.
Even if you look the Scandinavian countries which generally does better than the rest of the world, you are looking at only a 25% recycle rate.
https://finland.fi/business-innovation/finnish-innovations-for-overcoming-plastic-waste/
In my country (Aus), last I heard our recycling was mostly shipped off to Indo or somewhere else in SEA (previously China before China banned it).
I suspect very little ever sees recycling, but the neoliberal model means privatised companies paid by government, so they’re out to cut expenses to maximise profits and shipping it off to someone else to do the illegal thing where it’s not illegal isn’t illegal.