The Palisadian-Post has partnered with locally founded environmental organization Resilient Palisades to deliver a weekly “green tip” to our readers. This week’s tip was written by Éva Milan Engel.
A new report from environmental nonprofit Greenpeace USA said that plastic recycling efforts have failed miserably.
While global plastic production is increasing at alarming rates, plastic recycling is plummeting in the U.S. In 2021, the U.S. produced 51 million tons of plastic waste but—because countries like China have stopped receiving U.S. plastic—only recycled 2.4 million tons, or 5%.
At municipal recycling facilities in the U.S., only two types of plastic bottles and jugs are generally accepted: PET (polyethylene terephthalate, or Plastic No. 1, which is typically used for beverage bottles) and HDPE (high-density polyethylene, or Plastic No. 2, which is often used for milk jugs and personal care packaging).
Recycling rates for PET are estimated to be 20% and 10% for HDPE. All other types of plastic have a recycling rate of less than 5%.
Often, the plastic that is accepted at U.S. recycling facilities ends up being disposed of because few companies are willing to purchase recycled plastic. New plastic is cheaper to produce and higher quality than recycled plastic, making it more appealing to manufacturers. As a result, production of new plastic is projected to triple by 2050.
According to the report, there are five main reasons why plastic recycling has failed:
Plastic waste is generated in vast quantities and difficult to collect.
Even if it were all collected, mixed plastic cannot be recycled together, and it’s “functionally impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of consumer plastic waste produced each year.”
The recycling process itself is environmentally harmful, exposing workers to toxic chemicals and itself generating microplastics.
Recycled plastic carries toxicity risks through contamination with other plastic types in collection bins, preventing it from becoming food-grade material again.
The process of recycling is prohibitively expensive.
The report argued that by pushing recycling as a solution to our plastic problem, large corporations have misled the public and created an environmental catastrophe. Most of the plastic waste ends up in landfills, in the oceans or spread across the land.
This chemically indestructible junk pollutes our coastlines, infiltrates ecosystems and, when it breaks down into microscopic fragments, it enters our bodies, causing unknown health repercussions.
Scientists are rapidly making new discoveries about how to recycle plastic more easily, but here’s what we can all do today: Don’t believe the recycling hype. Instead, shun single-use plastics and re-use.
Visit Resilient Palisades Zero Waste campaign for more information: resilientpalisades.org/zero-waste-team/#reuse.
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