Plastic Recycling is a Myth – Here’s How We Fix That

I'm old enough to remember glass returnables.

I hate to be the wet blanket, but policies to reduce plastics won’t happen as long as our lawmakers are in the pockets of big corporations.

I feel like plastic is the ultimate example of how we created something so useful with no actual plan or knowledge of how to deal with it. Wood can be burned or reused, metals can often be resmelted or used in other ways, etc., but plastic is bad. It's everywhere (I'm typing on a plastic keyboard! My meds come in plastic trays! I build plastic model kits!) and we only now seem to be realising how much of an issue it is. There has to be an issue, but I'm worried the solution may come too late.

If we want to actually fix this problem governments need to legislate so that companies are only allowed to make packaging out of a very limited number of easily recyclable plastic types and colours. That way recycling centres would know that the vast majority of what they receive would go into one of 3 or 4 different hoppers and there would be minimal risk of contamination. Which would make even current commercial recycling technology profitable. But that would require governments that care more about the future habitability of our planet than short term corporate profits. And that seems like an unachievable pipe dream atm

If we reverted to the packaging solutions of 50 years ago, glass, metal and waxed paper, we could drastically reduce single use plastic consumption. However, the additional energy consumption for the production and transportation of those materials would need to be considered in the trade.

I used to work at a landfill, our managers only wanted us to pick out that plastic that would jam up the sorter machines other than that it went in the ground with the rest of the trash.

Underlying problem is always money and greed.

Even with enzyme recycling, single stream recycling won’t work. Why not just start requiring the manufacturers of the plastic to make a change on their end?

I worked in the recycling industry in Oregon. Taxpayers are paying a tremendous amount to collect cans and bottles, more than a dollar a piece. Plastic gets collected, sorted and buried in the landfill. Not only is it not recycled, it creates more pollutants than just sending it to the dump right away.

If only our legislators weren’t corporate lapdogs and could pass legislation to make /them/ responsible for the entirety of the process. Recycling facilities and their costs should be subsidized wholly by big plastic.

If the oil industry is gearing up to make even more plastic, restrictions need to be in place. The industry has caused considerable harm to our entire planet in every way, and they are not being held to account. Plus It's obvious they don't intend to be responsible for this crisis they've created. The convenience of using plastic is not worth the cost.

When you ask voters "Do you want policies that limit plastic waste?" 80% say yes. But when you ask a more balanced question like "Do you want single use plastic bottles, straws, and bags banned?" 20% say yes. Solutions are needed for the plastic problem, not just policies that shift the plastic straw problem to the paper straw problem.

I’ve held the idea for a long time that single use plastics need to be made out of compostable material & durable plastic products be recyclable, as a foundation principle. This provides for a loop lifecycle rather than linear.

I feel so hopeless about recycling. My roommates only recycle cans. And getting the stickers off of prescription bottles is futile, even after soaking them in hot water. Don't get me started on the catch-22 of recycling vs how much water is being used just to clean containers. I called Republic Services and spoke to a very nice woman. She looked and looked and couldn't find anything stating one way or the other about recycling plastics with the labels still on.

Sure it would be great to have efficient enzymes for all plastics, but even this for PET is potentially a huge achievement. It's like how we still have diseases but we eradicated smallpox, that's huge!

Most corporations lie period. Very depressing.

In hindsight industries should have been much more heavily regulated to require proven plans for environmentally friendly disposal or destruction of any product they make at the end of its life span. But it’s going to be prohibitively difficult to implement such regulations now that industries have gone hog-wild at producing things without any consideration for what happens after consumption.

so recycling aluminum and glass is NOT a lie, can the video title be changed to not mislead people

I have encountered many people who won't recycle anything, not paper, not glass, not metals, because they keep seeing headlines that say things like "Recycling is a Myth."

I'm glad you emphasized how complex the problem is, such as one plastic degradation solution tends to be limited to one type of plastic. Though the breakdown products may be a monomer often their are other breakdown products as well. To fully recycle the plastic from the breakdown products a purification process must be considered as well. These are factors that also need to be addressed. I'm also glad you mentioned how the fossil fuel industries are trying to shift to produce more plastic products. Trying to keep up with such shifts is a daunting process.