The plastic-in-the-environment problem is mainly about collection. Collect it, bury it, and it will eventually turn back into oil.
But IMHO manufacturers should be on the hook for the lifecycle of their products. Either through taxes, or some kind of market-driven bidding mechanism, they should have financial penalties (or even rewards), based on product environmental impact.
The whole recycling movement seems to me to be a way for companies to palm off this responsibility onto the public, and then win 'green publicity' when they deign to make their products slightly more amenable to the (usually public-funded/volunteer/coerced/etc) recycling system.
> The plastic-in-the-environment problem is mainly about collection. Collect it, bury it, and it will eventually turn back into oil.
This is incredibly uninformed and misleading. Burying it will not solve any problems, a PET bootle takes something like 450 years to fully breakdown, on top of that the particles released as it breaks down will be washed away into the subsoil and end up in ground water, then rivers, water supply, and eventually then back into the oceans.
Most plastics also have a hazardous health side effect they act as hormone disruptors, effectively mimicking estrogen. Having any additional plastic purposefully break down and leak in even greater concentrations, into our water supply, sounds like a remarkably poor idea.
But my point is less to do with how to treat waste, than the fact that the most important first step is to actually collect it. In much of the world, collection is not happening properly, which is why we see so much plastic waste washed into rivers and oceans.
Of course if we create less waste to start with, that also helps, but that will only happen if manufacturers are pressured where it matters, the bottom line.
But IMHO manufacturers should be on the hook for the lifecycle of their products. Either through taxes, or some kind of market-driven bidding mechanism, they should have financial penalties (or even rewards), based on product environmental impact.
The whole recycling movement seems to me to be a way for companies to palm off this responsibility onto the public, and then win 'green publicity' when they deign to make their products slightly more amenable to the (usually public-funded/volunteer/coerced/etc) recycling system.