The Truth About Plastic Recycling ... It’s Complicated

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[DM-dnrf]

I am old enough to remember when liquids of any kind were sold only in glass or metal containers and when you bought them in quantity, they were packaged in cardboard. No food products you bought at the grocery store came packaged in plastic. People used wax paper instead of plastic wrap. All shopping bags were only made of paper. Paper straws were the norm. There were no plastic bags for storage. Again, you used some sort of container, either of glass, metal, or cardboard for storage. You get the idea. We managed fine

[ProgrammerInProgress]

This is why I hate the whole "blame the consumer" attitude to saving the environment. The problem is that the externalities aren't priced into the manufacture of plastic, so you end up with this situation where everything is plastic, companies get to say they're encouraging recycling and we all end up using more plastic, some of which can't be truly recycled.

The current state of things is a mess and needs to change, good work on highlighting this in your video.

[MKorostoff]

Great video matt. I must say, it's refreshing to see you take such a strong, clear position on an important issue. You cover a lot of "jury's out" topics, but it's great that you are also capable of reaching an unequivocal conclusion when the evidence is clear and overwhelming. Would love to see more like this.

[mitas]

I saw this trend years ago, on some other video on YouTube. I realized quickly how difficult it was to live without plastic, trying to buy food, containers, products without, proved almost impossible. It made me wonder how we ever lived without..

[beebob]

My biggest issue is being required to buy products packaged in plastic.
First of all a person can have a horrible time trying to open the thing. Second, the packaging is three times bigger than what I bought.
And you’re right about the labeling system and people not knowing what to recycle. It’s very confusing to the average person.

[brianjensen]

I worked at a plastic factory where we would take old plastic, ground it down and melted it again to make sheets of plastic for injection molding. PET and PVC were the 2 plastics we did this with. So you should also include PVC as a recyclable plastic not just PET and HDPE.

[CultureAgent]

I live in a mini hi-rise, when I take my carefully compiled recycling down and lift the lid on the communal bin my eyes are met with trash that is not suitable for local recycling. Right from the get-go my careful recycling is a complete waste of time. I tried highlighting this problem but that was also a waste of time. It's hard to be positive under these circumstances.

[Dats_Mark]

This really frustrates me... the amount of time I wasted rinsing and sorting plastic thinking I was doing something good. And I'm very guilty of Wishcycling

[Bob_Adkins]

Plastic recycling is not the only scam going on. There are even bigger ones that good, trusting people are misled by. Pay attention and they're not hard to find. The hallmarks are: A few make a lot of money but everyone else pays, they sound almost too good to be true, and they over-promise and under-deliver. Thanks, Matt, this needed to be exposed.

[Hoigwai]

I've always thought that with clean energy we should go back to glass whenever possible. I remember them re-using bottles and eventually breaking them down to be remade into bottles again. I know that breakage and cost would be a thing but I feel it's worth it.

[alsmith]

rethink > refuse > reduce > reuse > refurbish > repair > repurpose > recycle

rethink - your choices
refuse - single use
reduce - waste
reuse - everything
refurbish - old stuff
repair - before you replace
repurpose - be creative
recycle - last option

[davelindenmuth]

Many communities have banned single-use plastic shopping bags. I carry my own bags at the grocery store (including produce bags) because for many years I would leave the store shaking my head as the baggers would frequently place only two or three items in a bag. At that point, why not just attach a handle to every product and be done with it?

[zutrong]

Here where I live (Quebec, Canada), consumers pay a 5c fee for every plastic bottle (except water) they buy. There is a similar thing for beer bottles and soda cans. That fee called "consignement" is then given back to consumers when they return the empty containers. Every groceries store have "Reverse vending machines".
They say they get back around 70% of them back. Is that not a thing in the US?

[CajunWolffe]

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. We made good money collecting glass pop bottles. People brought empties back to the store or paid extra as a deposit on the glass bottles. In my days, things were wrapped in paper, not plastic. Your groceries were put in paper bags and cardboard boxes, not plastic bags. The good ole days. 😎

[codygarner]

As a composter, I can't think of a more satisfying thing than to receive a package and throwing all the material that protected it into the compost bin. Plus I imagine many of those fungus sheets will be excellent seedling beds.

[tanakaryuji]

In UK most plastic that is supposed to be recycled is shipped off to other countries where about 95% of that plastic is burned for energy !! these countries have cheap labor and UK follows "Not in my backyard" policy for almost anything that does not look good.

[jonathanb]

You know Matt is serious when he produces a video with little to no puns. Great video Matt. Very sobering information.

[CoinOpTV]

Always trying to use less and less single plastic use items but so many things come that way it's difficult to avoid.

[buuoz]

Matt -- You are an inspiration. Education is power. May we all endeavour to take back more of it. Your Plastic Recycling scam expose must be shared. Thanks for your noble efforts!

[kajatab]

The problem is its.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
But every company just screams about recycling.
Apple releases a new phone every year, makes repair almost impossible for 70% of the components and then offers free recycling.