Recycling in the US (and many Western countries, for that matter) is a sham. It always was.
In reality, most of the plastic placed in recycling bins were never turned into new products.
Now China has stopped taking that waste, the myth of near infinite consumption without the guilt of waste has been exposed for the lie that it always was.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t aim for a sustainable circular economy. Of course we should.
But we’ll need much bigger changes to make it happen.
"For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships… But last year, the country restricted imports of certain recyclables… Waste-management companies are telling [municipalities] there is no longer a market for their recycling.
"These municipalities have two choices: pay much higher rates to get rid of recycling, or throw it all away.
"Most are choosing the latter.
"When [its kerbside recycling] program launched, Franklin [in New Hampshire] could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton. Now the transfer station is charging the town $125 a ton to recycle, or $68 a ton to incinerate.
“This end of recycling comes at a time when the US is creating more waste than ever. In 2015, the most recent year for which national data are available, America generated 262.4 million tons of waste, up 4.5% from 2010 and 60% from 1985.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/
#Recycling #CircularEconomy #Politics @green #ClimateChange #Environment
@Urban_Hermit @green You’re absolutely right.
There’s an absolutely massive cross-subsidy for companies that manufacture and sell products.
They’ve almost never been financially responsible for the end-of-life costs of the products they make. Or, for that matter, the full social and environmental costs of their manufacture and use.
Virgin plastic is cheaper to manufacture than plastic that has been recovered and recycled. That recovery and recycling cost is generally not paid by the original manufacturer.
Instead, some of those costs are borne by taxpayers and municipal ratepayers. But most have been carried by developing countries, which have been paid to dispose of the waste out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
I strongly suspect that if the full costs of recovery and recycling were included in the upfront cost of plastic products, many would simply not be viable. Certainly not for disposable products or packaging.
Instead, we’d have less packaging, and more products would be either reusable or biodegradable.