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@nonfedimemes Did you know that if you or your neighbors don't properly separate recyclables, the whole truck probably just goes to the landfill anyway?
@nonfedimemes I have to be That Guy and point out that glass, paper, metal, and battery recycling are all very Good and Necessary, and it's just plastic we need to boot into the sun.
@MichaelTBacon @nonfedimemes
Totally agree.
Just one idea: Why not add some big oil execs and billionaires to the plastic, while we are at it?
@ClipHead @MichaelTBacon @nonfedimemes
Yeah we need to "upload" oligarchs and their servants to plastic drives and send 'em on up.
Recycling is good and necessary, period. And in the long run processes that lead to more efficient recycling also lead to redesign and ultimately #circularEconomy.
Plastics degrade though, making them poor products for recycling.
@jaxroam @nonfedimemes I’ve now been fully convinced by numerous arguments that plastic recycling does more harm than good. Plastics are better just sent to the landfill where they can do the least harm, and all our efforts should be focused on eliminating plastic use rather than trying to recycle it and making things worse in the process.
@MichaelTBacon @nonfedimemes Any solution is sub-optimal, and plastics is too useful with too many valuable properties to go away for many decades yet.
One problem is we don't know what the plastics have been in contact with.
The traditional landfill (the dumping ground) is bad due to methane and toxins.
Speciality plastics landfill could work.
There are a number of half-good/half-bad solutions, incinerators, dissolving chemically or biochemically,, even reuse in speciality cases. All a question of cost-effectiveness, which changes over time.
Any use of any material should prepare for responsible disposal.
Currently it's the irresponsible disposal that is the overwhelming problem.
I have several issues with this reply.
The advent of plastic recycling correlated with a big uptick in plastic use because people stopped avoiding plastic. As to being "too useful," I don't imagine plastics disappearing, but single use plastic bottles for things like water or soda has an immediate replacement in aluminum cans which recycle nearly perfectly.
So that's one big problem. 1/2
The other one is the comment about landfills.
Methane from landfills is from organic waste, not plastic, which is a big argument for why we should be spending limited waste redirection dollars on composting rather than plastic recycling, which generally costs municipalities money.
And we "recycle" way more plastic than can currently be used so plastics are now dumped in non-sealed heaps in developing countries when they would be better buried. Like in landfills. 2/2
Largely I concur.
There are many issues with waste management, but the primary issue is when waste is not managed at all. This is a passing phase, but not one that passes quickly. It takes about a generation. Monetary incentives, profit, helps a lot.
Even when it is managed, it is imperfect. Composting is good, but while Sweden has been doing so for 30+ years, only about half can be used directly for money crops. The other half has additives that could potentially be toxic (some of that is plastic), and has to be treated separately.
That is a solvable problem, e.g. through a multi-stage cycle. Still, it needs to be solved.
Except for some known chemistry, anything toxic is probably best treated with incinerators.
It is of course easier when we know the provenance, or that the waste in question is free of dangerous components. But that goes for recycling too.
Recycling plastic is in effect downcycling it, as the recycled product will invariably be of poorer quality than the original.
Aluminium cans might be better than plastic in regions where recycling rate is high, but the environmental cost of producing aluminium cans is higher than plastics (unless you see plastics as driving the fossil fuel industry rather than the reverse).
Bottles and cans are a very small part of total plastics use though.
@nonfedimemes So... what you're saying is either way you're Wiliem Dafoe. Nice.
@nonfedimemes Just wait until the third panel, in which the meme guy discovers capitalism!
OhOkKay 
@nonfedimemes
Everybody forgot the two first Rs 'cos those are not profitable.
