
Americans' plastic recycling is dumped in landfills - srameshc
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/21/us-plastic-recycling-landfills
======
ggggtez
Just one more reason to hold corporations accountable for pollution and global
warming. The free market is not going to solve this one, even when you give
people warm and fuzzy feelings for "doing the right thing". It's just not
profitable to be Green yet, and maybe that won't change until companies have
to pay for the second order effects of their products.

~~~
mr_toad
> The free market is not going to solve this one

We’ve known this for over 100 years
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality)).
And solutions to the problem have been proposed for as long
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax)).

The problem with implementing these taxes are political; people with vested
interests will argue long and hard against any new taxes, and any working
solution needs to be global.

~~~
beefield
> We’ve known this for over 100 years

It looks to me like outside this we there is a significant bunch of people who
do not know or accept this. Actually, at some point I was pondering whether
the main distinction [1] between conservative-populist movements and "the
elite" these movements are against is exactly the point that "the elite"
understands and acknowledges the concept of externality and wants to address
this market failure with something, while the populists refuse to understand
or accept the issue.

[1] At least we can be confident that the distinction is not wealth, money or
political influence, what one could naively think elite has and non-elite not.

~~~
gridlockd
> It looks to me like outside this we there is a significant bunch of people
> who do not know or accept this. Actually, at some point I was pondering
> whether the main distinction [1] between conservative-populist movements and
> "the elite" these movements are against is exactly the point that "the
> elite" understands and acknowledges the concept of externality and wants to
> address this market failure with something, while the populists refuse to
> understand or accept the issue.

If the populists refuse to understand or accept the issue, the _population_
refuses to understand or accept the issue.

It really depends on the population. Green parties are often pretty strong in
wealthy European countries. Unfortunately, Greens also tend to be leftists
that refuse whole idea of a free market. They'd rather ban things than
handling externalities with prices.

The other problem is that externalities are hard to price. If the price is too
low, the problem isn't solved. If the price is too high, people won't want to
pay it.

In any event, the underlying problem isn't free markets itself, it's what the
people want (or think they want).

------
JulianMorrison
The correct place to take plastic out of landfills is by forbidding its use in
manufacture, for anything except unavoidable necessities such as medical uses.

You can use glass bottles and wash and reuse them.

You can package things in wax paper.

You can wear clothes made of natural fiber.

Plastic needs to be treated like asbestos: useful, but the uses do not justify
the risk in most cases.

~~~
mytailorisrich
We need to look at things in a moderate and reasonable way instead of going
from an extreme to the opposite extreme. It used to be that plastic was
fantastic. Now we arguably use too much of it so some people go to the other
extreme of wanting to get rid of it altogether.

The reality is that plastics are great materials that are very useful, the
flip side being that they need to be properly disposed of.

Yes, they are probably over-used in some cases, e.g. packaging, but that does
not mean we should treat plastics "like asbestos".

For example, you mention glass bottles: They require a lot of energy to be
manufactured, they are heavy (more energy needed to transport them), they
require energy, water, and chemicals to be washed. Is that necessarily more
environmentally friendly that plastic efficiently recycled?

You also mention wax paper, which (as far as I know) is not very recyclable
because it's waxed. Probably better to use cardboard or a type of plastic that
recycles well (and is actually recycled!)

~~~
isostatic
> plastic efficiently recycled

Plastic can be recycled, but only into lower grade plastic. Eventually it gets
burnt or buried.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Which means in practise it's not recyclable at all. I don't count something as
such if the cycle isn't fully closed. Aluminium is, glass is, plastic is not.

~~~
mytailorisrich
Explicit recycling is not necessarily the best option depending on the
resources (e.g. energy) needed.

Burning plastics is an option especially if plant-based (to be carbon neutral)
but it then raises the issue of land use.

Biodegradability/compostability is another option with new types of plastics
and/or GMO bacteria.

The point is to look at the full picture instead of claiming that all plastics
should be get rid of without considering if the alternatives are any better.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
The full picture looks pretty grim. I think y’all miss out on the bigger
picture cus y’all hit these ideological blinders, very peculiar to HN.

For example, the article is very explicit about why recycling is not working -
it has to do with economics - and y’all talking nonsense about GMO bacteria
and energy use.

------
euroclydon
Putting plastic in a landfill is not a crisis. Sending it to Asia to be
processed out in the open where storms carry it off to sea is. Just throw your
plastic in the garbage like I started doing after watching Plastic China.

Spread the word.

If you could be assured it would be burned, then separating it would make some
sense, but as long as we're looking for a cheap feel-good moment from the
recycling bin, there is no assurance of what will happen to it. A properly
designed landfill is the best place for plastic right now, unless it can be
shredded and mixed with bunker oil to provide a cheap fuel -- that might
actually make it more valuable.

------
dang
Related and recent:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20433851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20433851)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19889365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19889365)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19399543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19399543)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19346342](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19346342)

Not quite as recent:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18893252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18893252)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17841584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17841584)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17677698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17677698)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17409152](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17409152)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16174719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16174719)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888827)

~~~
blaser-waffle
We need some sort of reddit-style repost bot.

"Times we've talked about this before...

...

-Love, Repost Bot"

~~~
dang
I'm reluctant to do that because it often takes human intervention to find the
good ones or drop the bad ones. For example, in the above case I searched on
both recycling and landfills. Also, we don't allow bots to post HN comments.
For submissions, the whoishiring ones are done by software, but that's it.

~~~
pvg
Maybe you can pawn it off on the Algolia people under the guise of a Smarter
'Past' Button Challenge!

------
logifail
It's not as though this issue only affects the US:

"Between January and October 2018, Germany exported 114,000 tons of plastic
rubbish to Malaysia, an increase of 125 percent"

"Germans are great at separating their household waste, and the country is not
allowed to export plastic unless it's for recycling. So why are there piles of
German garbage all over Malaysia?"

[https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/politics/the-plastic-
trai...](https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/politics/the-plastic-trail-how-
germanys-recycling-ends-up-in-malaysian-dumps-/24037020.html)

~~~
Brotkrumen
>Schwandorf charges €150 per ton of industrial waste but this can increase to
€800 per ton depending on the material.

That's about 3 cent per package if the average package weighs 42g. That's dirt
cheap for a pretty clean solution. We suck as a society.

------
deogeo
The large quantity of plastic waste in the first place is due to plastic
industry lobbying: [https://theintercept.com/2019/07/20/plastics-industry-
plasti...](https://theintercept.com/2019/07/20/plastics-industry-plastic-
recycling/)

------
jakobegger
One thing I don't understand is why nobody seems to consider the obvious
solution: put an exorbitant tax on every piece of single use plastic.

If you had to pay $1 for your coffee cup, and $1 extra for the lid, you might
consider foregoing the lid. Or maybe you would even bring a reusable coffee
cup from home.

~~~
mavhc
Tax everything the amount it costs to clean it up. That way a) people will
reduce the pollution it causes so they can sell it cheaper, and b) people will
invent cheaper ways to clean up pollution.

If it costs $1 to clean it up, but only $0.50 to collect and recycle, problem
solves itself.

~~~
eb0la
> Tax everything the amount it costs to clean it up.

And don't forget to keep that taxes up to date so recycling still costs less
than cleaning in the future :-)

------
mc32
Isn’t burying plastics one of the better options for it in terms of
sequestering carbon? It goes back into the soil.

~~~
wmf
But you have to admit having people sort plastics into recycling bins and then
having the recycling company sort them again is a pretty inefficient way to
get to the landfill.

~~~
mc32
Yes. On the other hand, this “sorting” makes people feel better. We don’t feel
like we’re the baddies.

From a realistic POV, yes, make people put plastic in a “landfill” bin, from a
psych POV, make them do busywork so we feel better about ourselves.

~~~
cameldrv
If you look at it from the “environmentalism as a religion” metaphor, sorting
the trash is sort of a ritual penance sort of like the rosary. In Germany
there are 8 different trash cans in many places, and churches are closing left
and right. People need to feel like they are atoning for their sins.

~~~
mschuster91
8 different trashcans? I'm in Munich, the recycling stations have 3 glass, 1
plastics, 1 aluminium container.

~~~
m_rcin
no container for paper?

~~~
mschuster91
Paper, general waste and compost are collected at the house.

------
hanniabu
Wish there were separate landfills for these recyclables that aren't being
recycled so that in the future they can be dealt with in a more proper manner.
This can either be the ideal recycling we all imagine when we put a bottle in
the bin, or it could be further advanced plastic decomposing microbes and
worms.

~~~
pmontra
How about allowing only plastic that can be recycled and banning everything
else? This is also going to open a market for companies that create ways to
recycle unappealing plastic types (but beware for shady companies that pretend
to recycle and actually dump.)

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
This would be ideal but unfortunately laws are written by corporations that
profit from plastic.

------
carapace
Plastic recycling is "solved":

Thermal Depolymerization
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization)

Even better: Molten Salt Oxidation
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_oxidation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_oxidation)
this is an exothermic reaction!

I wish I had the gumption to make a start up out of MSO.

~~~
hinkley
I think you need to read that TDP article a little more closely. I followed
this story leading up to them building the first plant and for a while after
that, as the whole thing fell to pieces.

That plant had problems due to welds that weren't capable of handling the
pressure. The smell was horrible and the neighbors considered it a nuisance.
And the company went bankrupt. Ten years ago.

Has anyone else tried TDP since then? If so then please update the article.

~~~
youngtaff
Not sure whether this is TDP too but…

There's a commercial plant in the UK that's going to come online this year
that breaks down plastics into hydrogen, methane and other gases.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/20/how-
plas...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/20/how-plastic-
waste-could-heat-homes)

~~~
hinkley
Sounds interesting, but that looks like straight gasification. You have an old
“gasworks” site in your city? Before natural gas they used to gasify coal to
run the street lamps. Nasty stuff full of carbon monoxide. Lots of soil
remediation to clean them up afterward too. The one in Seattle was cleaned up,
failed inspections, was closed down and cleaned up a second time. They made it
into a park which still seems nuts to me.

~~~
carapace
I've been to Gasworks Park and I agree, it's a strange idea. Nice park though.

Reminds me of the "cookie dough" smell in Palo Alto:
[http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20130404/in-search-
of-...](http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20130404/in-search-of-the-
cookie-dough-tree/)

> So it was that while running, but not so much as to force my body into open
> rebellion, I noticed something odd. When I was heading down the gently
> sloping hill on Peter Coutts Road towards Stanford Avenue, I turned right as
> usual to head back home, passed along the edge of a grassy area, and
> smelled...cookies. But not really cookies. Raw cookie dough. Outside.

------
PeterStuer
And now you know why you have been seeing all those 'landfills are not all
that bad' spindoctor articles of late.

~~~
B-Con
It's going to landfills for a reason. This has prompted people to investigate
why and then write about it.

------
dharma1
I wish biodegradable polymers would take over non-biodegradable plastics in
many applications. There are many interesting research avenues, I wish more
money was thrown at it to accelerate the future.

Here is a good summary of SOTA -
[https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/searching-for-
biodeg...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/searching-for-
biodegradable-polymers/3010102.article)

From the article (quote by the inventor of a biodegradable foam) - ’I see now
that the main hurdle we face is financial in the sense that if you want to go
large you need to have financial guarantees because you are not yet selling
the product,’ he says. ‘That is still very hard to find – there are very few
actual risk investments in the field of chemistry… it’s very traditional.’

I think there are VC scale returns to be made if the stuff took over
conventional plastics but it seems largely overlooked by venture capital. I
think regulation could help here too.

------
Causality1
Good. The carbon footprint from recycling plastic is larger than that from
just making new plastic.
[https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_journ/774/](https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_journ/774/)

A 35 square mile landfill could accommodate the total waste of the United
States for the next thousand years.
[https://books.google.com/books/about/U_S_Wastepaper_Recyclin...](https://books.google.com/books/about/U_S_Wastepaper_Recycling_Policies.html?id=m9YsAQAAMAAJ)

It would be great to develop technologies that would allow us to efficiently
recycle plastic. We don't have them yet, and until we do, landfilling plastic
is better for the environment and the climate than recycling it.

------
Waterluvian
My understanding for a while now has been that papers and glass are pretty
recyclable, aluminum is super recyclable, and everything else is just garbage
by another name.

------
dsfyu404ed
I don't know why landfills are so controversial. Shit doesn't decompose there
which means it doesn't find its way into the ecosystem. Undisturbed in a big
pile underground is a great place for all sorts of other nasty things.

~~~
jquast
That's a rosy picture of landfills, have you heard of the one with an
underground fire approaching nuclear waste?
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2016/02/16/an-underground-fire-is-burning-not-far-from-a-
radioactive-superfund-site-the-epa-says-theres-no-
danger/?utm_term=.5499de4e3d02)

~~~
JudgeWapner
so one had a problem, therefore they're all bad? Well, here's one battery
recycling [1] plant that emitted toxins. Guess I better not recycle car
batteries anymore.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exide_lead_contamination#Los_A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exide_lead_contamination#Los_Angeles_County,_California_\(Vernon\))

~~~
hanniabu
It doesn't hurt putting a spotlight on issues rather than brushing them under
the carpet and acting like everything is well and dandy and there's no
downsides. It's a fine line.

------
ars
Why are people so against burning plastic? It's easily the most
environmentally friendly option.

Plastic has a lot of energy, burn it and use that energy. Then you don't need
to dispose of it, and you can pump slightly less oil.

~~~
hanniabu
I love plastic fumes in the air I breathe /s

~~~
ars
There are no fumes in a modern incinerator.

Is that why people are against it? They think there are fumes?

~~~
noragami
I honestly was not aware you can burn plastic with minimum air pollution.
Where I live, many people warm their homes in winter by burning plastic junk
they find on the street. I don't have to explain what sort of air it produces.
Being in it feels like washing your face with sulfuric acid.

After living under these conditions for many years, it'll be hard to let go of
stereotypes.

~~~
hanniabu
As with all things, just because it' possible to do it safely doesn't mean it
will (chernobyl anyone?). I have a recycling plant near my house and about
once a weak it smells horrible. That's just because it's strong enough to
reach me on those days, living about a mile away. Those that live near it
smell it every day. IT's been reported numerous times, but as always you're
limited to what you can do as a mere civilian (in practical terms, not
theoretical terms).

Also as the other comment stated, much of it will no doubt be shipped to burn
plants that aren't upgraded with the latest and greatest tech. Even then you
also have to worry about proper maintenance of the systems. Sure, you can
create regulation to cover all these angles, but I highly doubt that will
happen.

------
tim333
Sticking plastic in landfills is a sort of recycling - before human
intervention the hydrocarbons were in the ground as gas or oil, we bring them
up, use them a bit then put them back in the ground again.

------
stunt
You only realize how much plastic waste we are generating, when you start
separating your own plastic waste.

------
georgem4
We as a society need to train an army of material engineers that can design
new packaging solutions to minimize impact on the planet. Recyclability (and
maybe reusability), lifetime CO2 footprint, biodegradibility etc should be
carefully considered and new solutions researched where they will provide the
most benefit.

We should also look for low resistance ways to work in container/packaging
reusability into the product supply cycle. Are there cases where collection
could be done at the store with minimal effort and spare truck space could be
used to transport reusable containers back through the supply chain to the
originating factories? Are there ways this could be made to work for
mainstream products (premium milk products sold in glass are the only case
where this is being done where I live)? In Canada they return beer bottles to
the store, maybe we should do this in the US if a cost/benefit analysis shows
it would worth it.

I must not be the only one that thinks of this sort of thing regularly when
taking a product off the shelf.

------
torgian
I remember asking my parents about this in the late eighties and early
nineties. We went to the landfills several times a year, and I saw so much
plastic that I asked why plastic was being dumped here if we were supposed to
be recycling.

I think he said something that not all plastic is recycled or something.

------
Shivetya
I live in an area my friends like to tell me as, just past the banjo line of
Metro Atlanta. We have no separate pickup however our county has for ten plus
years published a list of drop offs for different items they would prefer to
not have in the landfill, from computer equipment to batteries.

the issue is that they are not widely known and to be honest they really
should be at least getting kids in school in on the act if not the schools
themselves. Used to be schools had aluminum and paper recycling bins but those
long left as people abused them with general junk. Now some fire stations do
the same.

I think more people would play along if it were easier and more well known.
Get corny if you have too, fire station drop offs, we save lives and you are
saving the planet.

------
gridlockd
> _" vast quantities of plastic are now no better than garbage"_

That's because they _are_ garbage. Anything that can't be re-used without
expending more resources than can be reclaimed is garbage.

This equation changes all the time, and it will change in the future,
depending on technology and market rates. Today, Chinese labor might not want
deal with the plastic. Tomorrow, some other country might. The day after
tomorrow, Garbagebots can do the job.

That's why stockpiling and and landfilling is exactly the right thing to do,
for the time being. Even burning for energy isn't necessarily that bad, modern
incinerators can be relatively clean.

------
linsomniac
I wonder if a deposit system or similar could help. In some ways I'm reminded
of glass bottles, littering, and encouraging the collection and reuse of them.
The core of the problem is that producers are blind to a significant portion
of the lifecycle cost, so they'll package something in plastic, inside
cardboard, inside another cardboard, inside another plastic. That's pretty
much the standard packaging for small electronics these days, and it's insane.
The only way I think we've come to accept this is that much of it is pretty
recyclable.

------
xwolfi
I cannot believe all these idiots throwing away tons of plastic in poor
countries with a big proud smile.

Makes me vomit honestly as a resident of China.

------
blisterpeanuts
Where are we with compostable plastics? For retail packaging of products that
move fairly quickly, it seems like a reasonable solution.

~~~
justin66
I recently dug a black plastic flip-close food container that was marked
"compostable" out of my parents compost pile, after burying it there almost
exactly four years ago.

It looked exactly the same as when I put it in there. Interesting experiment
but that's what I was already expecting, based on the very small amount I'd
read suggesting that one needs to put plastics marked "compostable" into some
kind of weird high-temperature bioreactor in order to get them to break down.
nkurz's article seems to delve deeper into this topic.

~~~
lh7777
We have municipal composting here in Seattle, which can handle everything from
food scraps to yard waste to bioplastics. The city incentivizes recycling and
composting by charging a lot for trash collection, less for compost, and
nothing for recycling. I’ve known for some time that much of my recycling is
really going into a landfill, but there’s still value to separating for me
because I can use a very small (low rate) trash can as there’s hardly anything
left that goes in the trash. I wonder if composting is really a net benefit,
though.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Our local council accepts food waste, turns it into compost which we can
collect for free. It can be done and the benefits appear obvious to me.

------
gingabriska
Why is it a surprise? Isn't the whole idea that at present we do not have
economically viable recycling process and it's much cheaper to set it in a pit
then dig it out later once we are able to convert plastic into something
useful for cheap.

That makes putting plastic in landfill first step towards recycling with more
steps to come later.

So I think we can call it recycling.

~~~
benj111
If that's recycling everything's recycling, rendering the word meaningless.

~~~
quickthrower2
Probably the pre separation. Mixed waste would be harder to future recycle.

~~~
benj111
What pre separation?

~~~
quickthrower2
From the article:

> A Guardian investigation reveals that cities around the country are no
> longer recycling many types of plastic _dropped into recycling bins_

So I am suggesting, on the premise that there is a system in place to separate
trash, but it is being sent to landfill - to keep it separate WITHIN the
landfill, so that a future us can potentially mine it once we have efficient
recycling tech.

------
KibbutzDalia
The woman profiled in the article would get in her car and _drive_ her
recyclables to other towns that had programs for them?

~~~
chihuahua
To some people, recycling is a religion, so they drive to the recycling center
just like other people drive to church. It doesn't matter what happens with
the stuff after she drops it off, it doesn't matter how much gas her car uses
to get there. The religion demands that certain objects are brought to the
sacred place and that's all there is to it.

------
pfdietz
Plastic (and paper, for that matter) is a good energy store, for use when
intermittent sources become unavailable. Incineration should not be seen as a
failure, but celebrated as a contribution to an integrated energy system. Of
course the plastic should be sourced from non-fossil carbon sources.

------
badrabbit
Silly question: why doesn't trash get dumped into the dessert? There will be
Minimal ecological impact if trash is dumped in places like the sahara
dessert,siberia,antarctica,etc... As opposed to the ocean or near major animal
and human population centers.

------
njreid777
The same people who make this argument usually take the view that government
can't get anything done...

Or, corporations are far far more effective at tax burden reduction than
governments are at revenue maximization, all things held equal.

------
apo
> “All these years I have been feeling like I’m doing something responsible,”
> said Pai, clearly dumbstruck as she walked away with a full bag. “The truth
> hurts.”

All is not lost. Consumers can be responsible by radically cutting
consumption.

~~~
robocat
> Consumers can be responsible by radically cutting consumption.

If I drop my consumption by $20k, I believe my extra investment of $20k will
get consumed elsewhere in the economy.

If I spend that $20k on eco-friendly shit, I believe that the people I spent
it on spend the majority of that on non-eco friendly shit (e.g. international
travel holidays).

I want a better answer - one that isn't some simplistic catchphrase.

~~~
beatgammit
Invest that money into eco-friendly companies? Or donate it to eco-friendly
causes.

~~~
robocat
Let's take an example: Greenpeace (who I do think are valuable activists): yet
I have seen their money go on boats (obvious consumption), or paying
international travelers to canvas for money (obvious consumption by the
travelers), and I have no trust that the payments by Greenpeace are anything
but average consumption.

And a lot of "eco-friendly" consumption is pure green-washing. I know people
that provide eco friendly services, and I know what they spend their money on,
and it is mostly just normal consumer consumption (e.g. international holidays
which is clearly pure "waste"). Or eco-friendly people with 5 kids - who just
can't see that children are a multiplier effect on current and future
consumption.

~~~
jnwatson
I'm not a Greenpeace fan, but the obvious argument why environmentalists take
planes is that a little energy spent now in convincing folks of the correct
path is nothing compared to the impact they are trying to impart.

------
nkkollaw
Same thing in Italy. In many regions citizens separate waste, and they mix it
back into a single landfill to save money or because they're not organized to
dispose of it properly.

------
acrossthepond10
I'm hoping that applying recent advances in Machine Learning and Robotics we
could build better, automated sorting facilities. Or is that being too naive?

~~~
xwolfi
It is, sorting could be done for cheap by humans like immigrants, elderly and
disabled, it was done by chinese in the past.

It’s a chemistry advance you need to pray for.

------
thrower123
This is obvious if you stick around to watch the garbage trucks roll by. The
blue and the green bins get dumped right into the truck together.

------
compuguy
This is why I'm looking into buying more beverage products that use aluminum
cans...they are more recyclable than plastics...

------
stesch
Americans have landfills and Germans recycle and burn the plastic.

Where is all the plastic in the oceans coming from???

~~~
neuronic
From all over the world. Germans cannot recycle most plastics - it's simply
not viable at scale at this time. Therefore things are shipped to Asia.

The plastic created and received in Asia often lands in landfills and
subsequently in rivers. A handful of major streams transport massive amounts
of plastic waste into the Pacific ocean [1].

That's at least where a good chunk of it is coming from. That's how you get US
or European plastic running down rivers in China into the Pacific.

[1] [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-
polluti...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-
our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/)

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philliphaydon
Singapore burns it all and turns it into reclaimed land.

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vectorEQ
nice, over here in my country we just burn it :D good stuff, separating trash
to have it re-combined at the burners :D

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userbinator
It is a form of recycling --- in the future, when we run out of other sources
of petroleum, we can start mining the plastic we buried. ;-)

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g00s3_caLL_x2
Whenever you try and legislate something into existence the consumer is the
one who ends up paying the cost.

I think a better method would be to incentivize using a more environmentally
responsible product ( glass? ) where applicable. Perhaps a tax break for
companies that start taking new initiatives to promote this.

A good example would be soda: being able to fill up a glass container of even
your own reusable plastic bottle. Just like many do with water at the grocery.
I've often wondered why we don't do this as a society and it ( like many
things...) boils down to cost.

Incentivize this cost and it will start happening.

Starbucks has done this with straws, and even their hot and cold cups. It
would be great to start seeing others do the same in more areas.

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jnwatson
Recycling has little to do with the environment except for the minor factor
that transfer trucks will have to drive slightly farther as the close
landfills fill up.

