Sigh. I can't say that this is surprising. People treat recycling like something that will save the earth and has no drawbacks. Recycling can reduce resource and energy use, but is by no means a...
Sigh. I can't say that this is surprising.
People treat recycling like something that will save the earth and has no drawbacks. Recycling can reduce resource and energy use, but is by no means a 100% efficient process, and often involves shipping waste across an ocean. Many recycled things end up as lower grade items, and are not used to truly close the loop. This is often better than just trashing something, but there are other options.
The Three Rs of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle are in that order for a reason. It's best to reduce use of packaging or materials in the first place. I think that this is an area that has been getting worse in the past decades. Amazon gets a lot of flak for overpackaging their shipments. Many food items in stores are sold individually-wrapped, and some things are considered single-use, such as floss picks and straws. Reuse is a bit better since it prevents something from being thrown away or using energy to be recycled. This happens a bit, but most things are not designed for reuse. Glass soda bottles are still reused in parts of Mexico. I wish that more companies would consider standardized jar sizes so that they could be reused, either by being returned to a factory to be washed and used again, or reused in homes. However, most people aren't into canning.
Enough complaining. What solutions exist? Deposit systems prevent waste and could be used as part of a bottle return system. Taxing natural resources when they enter the economy would encourage development and use of recycling systems.
Yep it seems like recycling is undergoing a global shock because of China's policy change. Not that China can really be blamed in this situation for not wanting to deal with every other country's...
Yep it seems like recycling is undergoing a global shock because of China's policy change. Not that China can really be blamed in this situation for not wanting to deal with every other country's trash forever.
Even outside of recent events, so much of recycling is wasted, partly because of all the contamination due to laziness and lack of education on the individual consumer's part, but also simply because of the economics of it all. For example, I only recently learned that black colored plastic cannot be recycled by many municipalities because it requires more-or-less state-of-the-art technology to sort black plastic using special sensors/cameras; and even when properly sorted, there is very low resale value due to the coloring, versus clear or light-colored plastic.
It seems to me that the recycling industry needs a huge additional subsidy, both in terms of technology and the economics of making the material move through the system, for it to accomplish its intended purpose.
Sigh. I can't say that this is surprising.
People treat recycling like something that will save the earth and has no drawbacks. Recycling can reduce resource and energy use, but is by no means a 100% efficient process, and often involves shipping waste across an ocean. Many recycled things end up as lower grade items, and are not used to truly close the loop. This is often better than just trashing something, but there are other options.
The Three Rs of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle are in that order for a reason. It's best to reduce use of packaging or materials in the first place. I think that this is an area that has been getting worse in the past decades. Amazon gets a lot of flak for overpackaging their shipments. Many food items in stores are sold individually-wrapped, and some things are considered single-use, such as floss picks and straws. Reuse is a bit better since it prevents something from being thrown away or using energy to be recycled. This happens a bit, but most things are not designed for reuse. Glass soda bottles are still reused in parts of Mexico. I wish that more companies would consider standardized jar sizes so that they could be reused, either by being returned to a factory to be washed and used again, or reused in homes. However, most people aren't into canning.
Enough complaining. What solutions exist? Deposit systems prevent waste and could be used as part of a bottle return system. Taxing natural resources when they enter the economy would encourage development and use of recycling systems.
Yep it seems like recycling is undergoing a global shock because of China's policy change. Not that China can really be blamed in this situation for not wanting to deal with every other country's trash forever.
Even outside of recent events, so much of recycling is wasted, partly because of all the contamination due to laziness and lack of education on the individual consumer's part, but also simply because of the economics of it all. For example, I only recently learned that black colored plastic cannot be recycled by many municipalities because it requires more-or-less state-of-the-art technology to sort black plastic using special sensors/cameras; and even when properly sorted, there is very low resale value due to the coloring, versus clear or light-colored plastic.
It seems to me that the recycling industry needs a huge additional subsidy, both in terms of technology and the economics of making the material move through the system, for it to accomplish its intended purpose.