Think your plastic is being recycled? Think again. (link added)

[Omaha Steve]

X post in Environment


attribution: Michal Maňas


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/18/1239747/-Think-your-plastic-is-being-recycled-Think-again?detail=email

Think those plastic items you carefully separate from the rest of your trash are being responsibly recycled? Think again. U.S. recycling companies have largely stayed away from recycling plastic and most of it has been shipped to China where it can be processed cheaper. Not anymore. This year China announced a Green Fence Policy, prohibiting much of the plastic recycling they once imported:

For many environmentally conscious Americans, there’s a deep satisfaction to chucking anything and everything plasticky into the recycling bin—from shampoo bottles to butter tubs—the types of plastics in the plastic categories #3 through #7. Little do they know that, even if their local trash collector says it recycles that waste, they might as well be chucking those plastics in the trash bin.

“[Plastics] 3-7 are absolutely going to a landfill—[China's] not taking that any more… because of Green Fence,” David Kaplan, CEO of Maine Plastics, a post-industrial recycler, tells Quartz. “This will continue until we can do it in the United States economically.”

U.S. recyclers are scrambling to come up with a solution now that China is drastically cutting back on their top import from the U.S.:
China's demand for low-cost recycled raw materials has meant waste shipments from Europe, the US, Japan and Hong Kong have arrived thick and fast, with scrap becoming the top US export to China by value ($11.3bn) in 2011.

FULL story at link.

[JimDandy]

1. I'll read the rest later if you have the link. n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Sigh.

Although I have to admit, thinking that it WAS being recycled was incentive to keep buying things in plastic. Time to work harder on finding products in paper, glass, metal.

[PoliticAverse]

3. The economics of recycling plastics have always been a bit dicey. n/t

[MFrohike]

4. I've been wondering about this

I recently wondered if the things that go into the blue pail actually get recycled or not. It was just a random thought, but I haven't been able to shake it. Thanks for this.

[starroute]

10. I've wondered too

But since we have to pay for the trash we put out but don't have to pay for recycling, it made sense on a personal basis to keep doing it.

I should start checking more closely for what's 1-2 and what's 3-7 and see if I can minimize the latter.

[RufusTFirefly]

5. Everyone needs to stop drinking bottled water!!

One way to significantly reduce plastic consumption (and prevent the privatization of precious aquifers) is for everyone to abandon the bottled water fad.

Buy a reusable container and fill it with tap water.

What? You say you're afraid of your tap water? First of all, bottled water companies have been working overtime to elicit precisely that reaction. Mission accomplished.

And if for some reason your tap water truly is unsafe to drink, think about what that says about your local government. We need to demand that our local water supplies are safe to drink. City or county governments that have bottled water at their meetings should be ashamed of themselves. They are undercutting one of their own core responsibilities.

In the mean time, you'll still be wasting far less plastic and saving a lot of money as well if you buy a filter. How much you spend depends on how paranoid you are.

[mrmpa]

9. My 84 year old mother...........

lives with me. She has to drink 8-10 glasses of water a day (medications & medical need) for this. I live in a high-rise with terrible tasting water. I would gladly put a filter onto my kitchen faucet, but I know my mother due to mobility issues will not trek into the kitchen for water, therefore not drinking as much as she should. Therefore, I unfortunately buy bottled water.

I have looked at buying a water cooler, but the cost for that is more than what I pay for water by the case. We of course do recycle, down the hall to the recycling bin. But until I can come up with an alternative for my mom, I am where I am.

[RufusTFirefly]

12. I'm sorry about your mom

I know there are extenuating circumstances for some people.

The key is to stop making bottled water the default choice for so many people who don't need it and who aren't gaining any tangible benefit from it. (Much bottled water, rather than coming from pristine mountain springs, is merely tap water with a sizable surcharge).

In your mother's case have you considered getting 8-10 reusable bottles that you can fill up for her through your (newly) filtered kitchen faucet and then have nearby so she can easily drink from them without having to maneuver herself into the kitchen each time?

Just a thought. The transition may require some adjustment, but if she's like my mother (who's slightly older), once a new habit is established it becomes fairly easy to maintain.

I've found the best way to make such changes is to phase them in gradually but with a pledge to yourself that although you may move slowly, you will always move forward. What's that old saying? "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Good luck, regardless. (And say "hi" to your mom!)

[pansypoo53219]

6. i try to avoid plastics. now i can tell this to my mother. ugh. maybe we need to go back to powders

[valerief]

8. I use Liggett's shampoo. In addition to being pure, it comes in a bar.

No plastic bottle weighed down with water that adds weight to shipping.

BTW, for the first time in years, my hair doesn't feel filmy anymore.
http://www.amazon.com/J-R-Liggett-Shampoo-Jojoba-Peppermint/dp/B001W2K51O/ref=pd_sim_bt_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0K0AMWCVAYVBYZT7NV9H
There are several types.

[valerief]

7. Thank you, oil industry, for all this plastic. nt

[hunter]

11. It makes you think clean incineration plants would be a good thing.

Unfortunately, here in the U.S.A. our political and corporate leaders are frequently too corrupt to run incineration power plants cleanly.

In some places even dead people get recycled, leaving only energy and ashes.

Better that than Soylent Green.

When I abandon my own body it will probably be too toxic for any food use, not even for the dogs in the animal shelter, or hungry polar bears.