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celebratedrecluse wrote

plastic recycling uses more plastic precursor (petrochemicals) than simply creating more plastic

the only solution is to develop technologies to dissolve what exists, and stop making new nonbiodegradable plastic. Even so, the use of biodegradable plastics or bioengineered bacteria to degrade plastic will have serious environmental consequences of their own, which will be very difficult to predict or handle.

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dorcass wrote

I worry that knowledge about the process of recycling is really underdeveloped in the left. Other commentors are incorrect. Recycling can be efficient. The issue is that, under late capitalism, there has been little incentive to better recycling habits because we were just sending off our recycling to developing countries. These countries no longer want to accept recyclables because Westerners can't get our shit together enough to learn what can and can't be recycled, with the result that most of it is severely contaminated. This contamination is dangerous for the people processing it in these developing countries, as well as making it impossible for to sell to the final party. Which means that the risk is too high for them to continue accepting it. As with all things, capitalism gets in the way of progress.

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celebratedrecluse wrote

recycling efficiencies and practicalities vary incredibly between different substances. While metal and glass can be somewhat straightforward, only special facilities which use large amounts of chemical reagents can recycle most plastics-- and all the plastics are chemically different, so finding a logistically feasible, let alone environmentally friendly, way to recycle plastic is usually impossible.

The use of large amounts of chemicals to facilitate recycling is not a closed loop system. It is inherently unsustainable, and in practice directly supports the petrochemical industries which are responsible for a wide variety of ecological crises.

Most plastics, in terms of discrete items, simply go to the landfill, and creating the infrastructure to recycle them instead would waste a lot of resources which could go towards reducing the need for these non-biodegradable compounds in the first place. The effect on the environment is simply prohibitive, and the only serious solution seems to be to stop making the stuff-- which is surprisingly intuitive, given that scientists have both created & observed biodegradable alternatives to synthetic plastics for a very wide variety of applications

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