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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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