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mechoman444 ,

The other 91% end up in the Pacific ocean.

BastingChemina ,

It’s because plastic is do durable that 91% of the plastic ever produced is still in use, right ?

Right ???

Nightwingdragon ,

Think of all the energy used in collecting the plastic (gas, oil, and emissions from dump trucks that pick it up, for example), sorting it, disposing of what isnt recyclable, and actually recycling the stuff.

Im no expert but I believe that overall recycling as we do it is actually a net negative on the environment. We’re probably doing more harm than good.

Notyou ,

We’re probably doing more harm than good.

That’s probably an extremely underrated statement that you can use to describe many topics.

Aurora_TheFirstLight ,

Well we can move cars with electricity so i guess it could do some good as some point

That said I’m in the train of let’s actually accelerate climate change it’s not like no one is going to move a finger till it gets really bad so why should we extend the suffering

BradleyUffner ,

That’s significantly more than I was expecting.

HappyTimeHarry ,

This is why I pretty much ignore whatever my recycle pickup says is “not recyclable”. They say for example not to put used pizza boxes into recycling, even though pretty much every pizza box says “please recycle”. Fuck that, If something has that arrow label on it, I don’t care what number it is it’s going in “recycling” and they can deal with it.

exanime ,

Those arrow cycle logo are part of the problem. It’s a plastic classification system and has nothing to do with recycling; the industry made them so similar to the recycling logo to confuse people into thinking all plastic can be recycled

scala ,

It’s amazing we stopped using the “plastic” from plant matter, which is renewable vs petroleum plastic.

RizzRustbolt ,

Petro-plastics got (and continue to recieve) massive government subsidies in order to be “competetive” against bio-plastics.

gandalf_der_12te ,
@gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

… well, in its defense, if it weren’t subsidized, renewable plastics would indeed be cheaper, but only at the expense of huge areas of farmable land and the rainforest. So it’s either “consume 300% of the planet’s fertile land to produce plastics” or “subsidize oil”.

gandalf_der_12te ,
@gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Well yeah, “renewable” in itself is only good in certain contexts, such as solar and wind energy.

When it comes to renewable biomass, which by definition is renewable too, it’s not so friendly to the environment anymore. It consumes huge areas and destroys the rainforest to plant even more economically usable plants. Such as soy, cotton, …

So i’d rather see huge amounts of underground oil being consumed, than the same amount of biomass out of the rainforest being consumed.

Canis_76 ,

So. We have been making plastic for something like 75 years now. We have been recycling for about half that. Have the recycling plants ramped up to anywhere near the level of plastic production? What precisely is the point of this?

A_Random_Idiot ,

None of the garbage companies want to spend money processing/seperating plastics, Doesnt matter how much you ramp up recycling plants if the plastic gets diverted to the dump/incinerators instead cause its cheaper/less cost for the waste company.

Especially with how cheap plastic is to make from scratch.

Pika ,
@Pika@sh.itjust.works avatar

not to mention it doesn’t matter where it goes, most plastic can’t be recycled or is not efficient to recycle it. Really need to just not use plastic as a whole

13esq ,

Easy in principle, tough in practice. Plastics are extremely useful in a huge range of applications.

orrk ,

sure, but do we really need plastic wrapped apples

TokenBoomer ,

My testicles agree 👍

SomeAmateur ,

Yeah plastic is great for a lot of stuff. Car parts, backpack clips, buttons, trash cans etc. But one time use plastic is EVERYWHERE.

SomeAmateur ,

Right? Why do gatorade and pedialyte bottles have to be in crazy over engineered compared to cheap crinkly water bottles? Both one time use which isn’t ideal but thinner bottles would save the company money right?

I wonder if it’s a psychology thing, like having a high quality bottle means people thing whatever is inside is equally higher quality?

tilefan ,
@tilefan@lemm.ee avatar

80% of the shit you put in your recycling bin goes straight into a landfill. plastic recycling was a giant greenwashing scam by the oil industry

OlinOfTheHillPeople ,

Do you have a source for that?

tilefan ,
@tilefan@lemm.ee avatar

sorry, it’s 50% to the landfill, 22% illegally dumped or burned, and 19% incinerated.

oecd.org/…/plastic-pollution-is-growing-relentles…

piecat ,

Quite honestly, going to a landfill seems so so so much better than the alternative: going into the environment and oceans, turning into microplastics and getting into food chains.

At least landfills are contained. Bury the shit until we have the tech to deal with it.

Some day, between the plastics, nutrients from organics, e-waste, landfills are going to be a goldmine.

exanime ,

Quite honestly, going to a landfill seems so so so much better than the alternative: going into the environment and oceans, turning into microplastics and getting into food chains.

Eh, it pretty much does all that bad stuff from the landfills

piecat ,

How does buried plastic cause microplastics to leech everywhere?

Weathering (sun, exposure, abrasion caused by plastic being moved by wind and sea) is a significant part of microplastic formation.

exanime ,

Here you go:

www.sciencedirect.com/…/S2468584422001088

You may have a misinformed concept of what landfills are; most garbage is not buried and covered, it is mostly exposed in open pits and just plain old mountains of garbage everywhere. However, even buried, it still decomposes into microplastics as explained in the paper linked

piecat ,

I read the snippets and abstract. I’m not seeing how these micro plastics are getting out of the landfills.

Environmental risks of microplastics in landfills

In landfills, microplastics are not standalone pollutants. Generally, such tiny particles can adsorb various harmful chemicals due to its large specific surface area [54].

Never knew that!

In this case, microplastics generally served as the vector for migrating adsorbed pollutants including heavy metals, antibiotics and other pharmaceutical and personal care products [55].

That’s scary, microplastics can absorb and spread pollutants!

But I’m not seeing anything about how they’re getting out from a landfill. I even read a few of the referenced articles. But nothing about if or how they’re getting out.

exanime ,

Landfills leak all the time. There is no actually contain all the toxic pollutants in there, specially not the microscopic stuff

www.colorado.edu/…/hidden-damage-landfills

piecat ,

Fair enough, there’s potential for landfills to leak.

But if its between that, dumping it in the ocean, or exporting it, the landfill wins.

yamanii ,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

Quite honestly, going to a landfill seems so so so much better than the alternative: going into the environment and oceans, turning into microplastics and getting into food chains.

Why are we full of microplastics then?

sus ,

Most microplastics come from car tires and washing of clothing with plastic in them. (both abrade the plastic causing uncountable tiny pieces of microplastics to enter the water or the air)

Then there are a lot of places that dump plastic into rivers or the ocean instead of into landfills.

Landless2029 ,

I recall a episode of penn and teller that goes over this in detail. Even talks about how landfills are engineer to gather the gasses that are released to reuse as fuel.

FeelzGoodMan420 ,

Yep. I don’t even bother recycling plastic anymore. It’s fucking pointless. I just recycle glass and tin cans.

h3mlocke ,

9% sounds a lot higher than I’d previously heard

A_Random_Idiot ,

thats globally, though, in America its only about half that.

Riven ,
@Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yea I was about to mention. Japan is probably propping up that number since they recycle pretty much everything.

just_another_person , (edited )

Noooooo, noooooo. Where’d you hear that?

Japan packages EVERY.THING. in plastic. They have a plastic problem, actually.

Edit: downvote all you want, but: iges.or.jp/…/PlasticAtlasAsia2022_en_WEB_1.pdf

Riven ,
@Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yea I’m aware they use plastic for everything, but they also recycle everything possible.

www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/…/z1304_00252.html

SocialMediaRefugee ,

Part of me thinks we’d be better off just burning most of it at this point. Maybe work on bacteria that can break down the plastics in specific environments like seawater.

allan ,

I’d we could just make it all from 100% bioplastics, we could just burn it for heating/power when done with it and regrow it

FiniteBanjo ,

More than I assumed, tbh. We need to start taxing plastic bottles.

Plopp ,

How the hell are plastic bottles going to pay taxes? Let’s not even think about giving them jobs when unemployment is already high.

DJDarren ,

I mean, we can’t even tax billionaires properly!

FiniteBanjo ,

If you make a plastic bottle you get taxed. If you put something in a plastic bottle to resell, you get taxed. If you import a plastic bottle for any reason, believe it or not, taxed.

UncleGrandPa ,

Meaning almost 90 percent of everything ever made of plastic is still around

FiniteBanjo ,

The other 10% is also still around just in different shapes.

Gumus ,

Most of plastic trash is burned, so it’s around only in the form of CO2 and other chemicals in the atmosphere.

Katana314 ,

I have gradually wondered if the issue has not been in our obsession with plastic specifically, but our need for sanitation of every object. “We need a material that will preserve its shape in transit and operation; but we then want it to gently break down into nature when we’re done with it.” No matter what materials of what strength we invent, that’s always going to be an oxymoron. There’s a reason people criticize biodegradable materials as often falling apart.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure medicine has made tremendous advances through the preservation of sealed instruments and drugs, especially for those with sensitive immune systems. But the 3000% thorough sanitization we keep of every single object we interact with has had a very gradual impact on our planet. I kind of want to envision just how fatal of a health risk it would carry if so much of our food wasn’t triple-secure-wrapped, and whether that’s comparable to the current impact of widespread plastic.

buzz86us ,

We don’t need food packaging to last 1000 years

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

You say that but if we went back to clay pots you could up that number to 4,000 years.

FiniteBanjo ,

No, the problem has never been us at all. We don’t run Coca Cola Co. We don’t decide how laundry detergent is packaged. We don’t manufacture excess plastic drums and lined tanks for unnecesary use cases. We don’t flood the market with cheap dinnerware, plates, cups, bowls, etc.

Big corporations do all of that. Run by dozens of people who do not care what we think.

SocialMediaRefugee ,

We’re always trying to optimize and reduce loss/waste. Being able to have food sit on shelves for months without oxidizing or rotting has been a huge improvement in terms of food loss but it requires these biounavailable materials. If we use compostable materials for packaging then the clock starts ticking on them and storage facilities need to maintain stricter standards (i.e. keep humidity down).

The medical aspect is a big issue. You see what is consumed in an ER and surgery and then multiply that by a million/day and you wonder how much of this trash is being produced. Lawsuits over every little medical issue don’t help reduce this. Fishing industry waste is another big issue for the oceans.

gandalf_der_12te ,
@gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah but who’s gonna sign responsible for potential traces of dirt on your food?

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

That is a way higher number than I expected.

Whorehoarder ,

People to me after I say how many people I’ve had sex with.

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