
Just 10% of U.S. plastic gets recycled. A new kind of plastic could change that - howard941
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/just-10-us-plastic-gets-recycled-new-kind-plastic-could-change
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andrewstuart
It's important to understand that the packaging industry, which we pay vast
amounts of money to, floods the earth with never ending flow of single use
plastic.

That industry WANTS us to keep thinking about and talking about recycling.
Don't be sucked in - recycling is the distraction that they want you to think
about.

Recycling is NOT the answer. The answer is to stop making the endless flow of
single use plastic.

If you want to fix this problem, start laying the blame at the feet of the
"garbage brands" \- the companies and brands that buy the single use plastic.
We need to start with the big, obvious targets like Coca Cola, and we need to
associate their precious logo and trademarked red swirl with ruined beaches
and reefs and oceans. That's when change will happen - when those big brands
come to be tightly associated with garbage.

~~~
newswriter99
No you're right, we should go back to not having cheap, affordable packaging
the world over. That way people in developed nations can go back to paying
through the nose for shipping products, thus making products cost more, thus
lowering the affordability of those products for the middle and working class.

And as for the developing nations who have been increasing their middle class
with affordable packaging and plastic products? Eh, screw 'em, right?

/sarcasm

I'm only using this to illustrate how you went right into the "industry bad,
four legs good" mantra of the pro-green movement without regard to an
alternative that would keep or raise the quality of living for people the
world over.

Fact of the matter is if it weren't for plastics, the everyday products that
we all consume would either cost way more, or be so expensive that quite a few
of us would never get to use them.

Stew on that before you jump to "ban all plastics".

~~~
allday
> Fact of the matter is if it weren't for plastics, the everyday products that
> we all consume would either cost way more, or be so expensive that quite a
> few of us would never get to use them.

That's fine. When the choice is not having some luxury items vs total
biosphere collapse, I'll side with the former. I guess you'd rather keep
sipping your Diet Coke while the world burns.

~~~
beat
Food is not a luxury item.

~~~
ceejayoz
_Some_ foods absolutely are. Foie gras, black truffles, Dom Perignon,
endangered tiger meat, etc.

~~~
beat
That's missing the point. The point is that the introduction of plastic
packaging has made food far safer and more accessible for billions of people.

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newswriter99
Petrochemical reporter here.

The article fails to describe whether this plastic behaves like polyethylene,
which can be pliable and flexible, or polypropylene, which is rigid and
brittle.

Or any of the other dozens of varieties of plastics, each with their own
specific use in this modern world of ours.

Every time I overhear someone at a party or gathering giving their half-baked
description of a story like this I have to roll my eyes. There's no "cure-all"
sustainable green plastic that can replace the variety we make from natural
gas. There just isn't. And even if we were to switch to bioplastics derived
from plants, it would still be too energy-intestive to be cost-effective.

~~~
frankbreetz
Too expensive? How expensive is it? If a package cost an extra couple dollars
to send we could make do.

A big part of tackling all of these environmental issues is that certain
things are going to be more expensive. If it cost 10$ to make certain a
disposable water bottle makes it to the right place a bottle of water should
cost about 11$. Same with packaging, this will of course change consumer
habits, and make people think twice.

~~~
newswriter99
You have to consider the economies of scale. A few dollars multiplied over
millions of manufacturing orders and shipping costs.

And that's just cost. The reason I'm stressing about virgin plastic over
recycled is also in consideration of the electricity you use to recycle, the
water costs, transportation costs, human labor, ect.

The same applies to glass and cardboard. That sand isn't coming from thin air.
The cardboard wasn't made from hopes and dreams. These are physical
commodities which are either as finite as natural gas (sand) or require space,
water and nutrients to grow (trees for paper for cardboard). Yes, paper is
biodegradable and plastic is not, but you're spending a LOT of time and energy
to make something that could be better served quickly via plastic.

~~~
frankbreetz
You also have to consider the cost of disposal, which isn't currently done
when creating plastics. Is it eventually going to have to be paid for by the
taxpayers of some countries? By making cheap, quick plastic we are creating a
very expensive problem. Might it be better to deal with this problem on the
front end?

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rayiner
With the exception of metal and glass, recycling is largely a myth. Most paper
and plastic that is “recycled” gets dumped in a landfill or sent overseas
where it gets dumped in a landfill:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-
landfil...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-
plastic-papers.html). It’s getting worse now that China has stopped accepting
US “recycling.”

The meal kit industry is particularly insidious for that reason. They invoke
environmental concerns heavily in their advertising, but those individually
plastic wrapped ingredients obliterate whatever incremental environmental
benefits there are from organic ingredients or substituting meat for
vegetables.

~~~
sb057
India has also stopped accepting plastic "recycling":

[https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/india-plastic-
wast...](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/india-plastic-waste-ban-
recycling-uk-china-a8811696.html)

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franch
As a European temporarily living in the US I am truly shocked by the amount of
plastic used in packaging here. Moreover, the number of plastic bags that it's
used in supermarkets is also shocking. Where I come from (Italy) we banned
plastic bags 2 years ago in favour of compostable bags with no problems.
Instead of creating a different kind of plastic, I think that we should really
enforce at least a global ban on light plastic bags.

EDIT: spelling

~~~
petschge
The other thing that is very obvious as an European currently living in the US
is the insane amount of plastic associated with food. Hotel breakfast will be
(even in relatively upscale hotels) on single-use styrofoam plates, with
single-use plastic cutlery, plastic lined single-use "paper" cups and composed
of tons of individually plastic packed items.

Food in the cafeteria (I have seen the well hated name Aramak in a few places
there) is served in single-use take-out containers, even if you explicitly
tell them it is "for here" not "to go", because the cafeteria works have no
(clean) plates at their stations. Cutlery is also plastic, since they removed
the silverware a few weeks ago after too many complaints that it had been
poorly cleaned. The disk washers are now busy taking out mountains of trash,
instead of cleaning reusable items.

Once dinner time comes around most of my colleagues eat take out, that is put
in plastic lined paper in the best case and styrofoam in the typical case. And
even if it is a single item, it will be in a plastic bag or two, along with a
large handful of napkins, ten tiny sachets of bbq and hot sauce and three
straws, even if no single drink is included.

~~~
ip26
This is America, where adding plastic always makes it better, and making it
disposable is progress.

Today I looked in the fridge at work and saw precooked hardboiled eggs in a
plastic bag.

\- Sad American

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jayess
I wish there was data out there on how much plastic _actually gets recycled._
It seems like no one can actually tell us. I'm suspecting more and more that
recycling of plastic is nearly completely a scam.

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dpflan
"""The next big question is whether manufacturers will use it and recycling
plants will accept it. Because the new plastic’s byproducts are more
valuable—and because recycling plants likely wouldn’t need a total overhaul to
process it, this sustainable plastic could one day shift the global economics
of plastic recycling."""

One question is what is the price to create this new plastic, sure the output
"recyclable" is more valuable because it's more broken down - so the process
of decomposition towards usable components is improved.

~~~
newswriter99
"One question is what is the price to create this new plastic"

You actually hit the nail on the head better than I did. Virgin resin is
cheaper than recycled plastic. Which means that manufacturers have an
incentive to buy fresh plastic pellets over more-costly recycled material
(which is usually of inferior quality anyway).

That's why lots of products you see will say "made from X% recycled parts". A
bottle that's 100% recycled just sucks compared to a fresh one.

(edited for punctuation)

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newswriter99
The amount of people posting how "plant-based plastics" are the solution goes
to show just how out-of-touch most of us are with being poor or stuck in an
underdeveloped nation.

It's easy to spend more on "sustainable" alternatives to plastic when you have
more disposable income than you know what to do with. But if you're a low-
income working class family, commodities like single-use plastics are a
godsend.

I'm not saying pollution is not an issue. I'm not saying the plastics
industries don't have an agenda to make more plastic. What I'm saying is,
you're all blind to the solutions that plastics provide to people who ARE NOT
rich white Americans.

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redmattred
This could be a good forcing function to encourage people to think about how
to reuse and recycle locally.

This open source project is interesting:
[http://www.metabolizer.org/](http://www.metabolizer.org/)

\- It uses biodegradable materials to create burnable gas \- The has to run a
generator \- The generator to power a plastic shredder \- The shredded plastic
pieces are used by a 3D printer \- The 3D printer (also powered by generator)
can print materials out of recycled plastics

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tracker1
I think the issue is probably more towards the inappropriate disposal of a lot
of things... I wouldn't mind seeing plastics heated and compressed into larger
composite cubes as part of the landfill process, and contrasting see paper
shredded and burried in layers.

Right now, so much trash is being sent in unclosed containers all around
increasing general and specifically ocean pollution. Microplastics are a
problem and likely to become bigger over time. Not just the US, but a lot of
places really need investment in trash infrastructure in general.

That doesn't even touch on electronic waste. I'd love to see a law requiring
unlocking codes for mobile devices that have active security flaws that have
been fixed for over a year, without the update released to the device. At
least then you could get a longer tail life out of a lot more devices.

Isn't most plastic a byproduct of oil/gas use anyway? All the same, would love
to see the disposable snack/beverage companies held more accountable to the
litter and waste their packaging brings. The problem is that too many people
don't care... and too many others are tired of hearing about it. Divisive
conversations and politics doesn't help here.

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eatbitseveryday
When we discuss plastics developments, I believe we should focus on their
decomposition properties, too, and whether they'll stay around forever as tiny
particles now coined as 'microplastic' particles.

------
jusob
"Five Asian Countries Dump More Plastic Into Oceans Than Anyone Else Combined"
[1] We should help these countries first to recycle and reduce their plastic
usage if we want to make a real difference.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-
asi...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asian-
countries-dump-more-plastic-than-anyone-else-combined-how-you-can-
help/#23d3bd0e1234)

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airstrike
The main point I haven't mentally solved in my use of plastic is what to do
with household trash. I live on the 30th floor of an apartment building in NYC
and there's no other way to dispose of trash other than to throw it down the
chute (though we do recycle what we can in separate bin).

Curious to hear what others think / be enlightened. Even if I move to the
suburbs, to my knowledge waste management companies rely on you packaging your
trash nicely in plastic bags, so I'm not sure what to do...

~~~
dahdum
I'm in the same situation, one chute, no recycling except cardboard. At least
we can both rest easy that none of our garbage is being dumped in the ocean.

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bananasbandanas
I genuinely find it hard to determine whether I should buy some products with
or without plastic packaging. Is it better to buy produce without plastic
wrapping, even though that means a bigger portion of it went bad and needed to
be thrown away? Should I buy some sauce in a glass instead of plastic bottle,
even though it made the transport less efficient?

There are of course the obvious ones, like those flimsy bags for loose
produce, and I try to avoid those. Any advice for the non-obvious cases
though?

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pfdietz
Make plastic easy to burn. We'll need storable fuels for use even in a zero
CO2 economy, and piles of packaging and other combustible trash could serve
that purpose.

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johnisgood
Why do not we make plastic out of hemp? Is it because of the War on Drugs?

