I haven’t found another source refuting this, so if anyone can or does, please post.
That plastic recycling isn't cost effective is a long held truth. The bigger question is what the alternatives are.
I may be getting some numbers wrong, but here's some facts:
-About 10% of plastic is recycled. The rest is either incinerated or goes into landfill (other solutions include converting the plastic back to oil, or using it as a construction material), though unfortunately, a lot is ending up in the natural environment.
-Who's responsible for that is a matter of debate. On one hand, IRRC, MEDCs produce far more plastic. On the other, if you look at the sources of plastic pollution (via rivers), most, if not all are located in LEDCs; China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. They simply don't have the infrastructure to prevent plastics from entering the sea. That said, a lot of plastic is shipped to these countries.
-You could say "well, stop using plastic, right? Buy paper bags rather than plastic bags." It isn't that simple. Plastic has low production costs, but high disposal costs, whereas something like paper has high production costs and low disposal costs. What I mean by that is that paper comes from trees (deforestation) whereas plastic is insanely easy to make. So at the start of the lifecycle, paper does far more damage. However, plastic has high disposal costs in that it can stay in the environment for centuries, whereas paper will degrade. Similarly, cotton bags can degrade, but cotton requires an insane amount of water to produce.
So what's the solution? Dunno. I don't think recycling itself is a problem, because some materials can be recyled very easy (e.g. aluminium and copper), but plastic isn't among them. You could try subsidizing recycling, but I dunno if it's worth it in this case, because as the article points out, plastic degrades every time it's recycled. So does pretty much everything, but plastic seems to be one of the hardest because it's a combination of materials. But it's important to remember that single-use plastics are the biggest issue. Plastic in of itself is kind of a Godsend to us because it's such a versatile material, it allows us to use it in place of many other resources that would be more damaging to extract.
There's a general maxim that goes reduce-reuse-recycle, and that goes for a lot of stuff. With plastic though, as heretical as this sounds, I'm starting to think that the recycling part is a waste of time. Because there's alternatives, such as energy generation, oil conversation, or construction, and while that still requires us to make plastics and extract oil, for the oil industry, plastic production is a very small percentage of what oil is used for (something like 5%). Even landfills aren't as damaging as I was once led to believe, because when you cross-reference the amount of space they take up, plus the use of artificial layers to prevent toxin seepage, there's an argument to be made that landfills are actually better for the environment than recycling, at least for some materials.
I dunno. There isn't one answer. Any calls to "remove plastic!" is unhelpful, because the unfortunate truth is that like palm oil, plastic can help reduce environmental impact. On the other, we absolutely have to do something about single-use plastics. And relying on recycling isn't the answer. Frankly, compared to the alternatives I listed, I think it's one of the worst answers.
www.npr.org
USA
