Report: Plastic recycling doesn't work | Dan Abrams Live

A new report argues plastic recycling, long touted as effective, is a myth perpetuated by the plastics industry. According to the Center for Climate Integrity's report, titled "The Fraud of Plastic Recycling," decades of promises have failed to materialize due to well-known technical and economic constraints. Most notably, the report reveals that the majority of plastics cannot be recycled despite assurances of collection, processing and transformation into new products.
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, joins "Dan Abrams Live" to provide further details.

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[johnd.]

This is incredibly old news. It should be burned as fuel because it is made out of oil. The emissions could be easily cleaned and would be very economical and ecological.

[karenburke]

I remember when the government told us that plastic would be better than paper. We needed to save the trees. Paper disintegrated, trees could be replanted. But somehow they figured plastic would be better for the environment.
Maybe we need to go back to paper and glass. Paper turns into mulch and glass can be recycled.
Think about the Waste from EV cars and batteries in the future. The batteries cannot be recycled and the cars aren't worth as much as the battery.

[Novastar.SaberCombat]

Intelligent, educated people have known this for decades. It's unfortunate, but most plastics cannot be recycled, and that is just chemistry and physics. For the polymers which "can" be recycled, it's only a partial "re-up", and it's severely limited. In other words--no--you cannot re-re-re-cycle even the most ideal plastics. Chemistry just doesn't work that way.

[AverageJoe]

Oh, my wife has been yelling at me for no reason then .

[Iamhumanithink]

I have been arguing with my neighbors for years about this.

[daviddruggish]

Corporations greed is the problem. Go back to recyclable glass bottles you paid people to bring back. But Corporations need to make billions for the investors and don't care about the environment or the damage they are enabling to be done.

[Oblivionsurveyor]

time to bring glass and ceramics back to the shelves.

[jerrywitt]

Always knew it was a scam; I have never participated in this non-sense.

[hughjass]

He's right. Ask anyone who who works in the recycling chain.... a worker, not a manager who'll just spin some line of corporate BS.... where 90% of the stuff ultimately ends

1) Landfill, 2) Incinerator, 3) Loaded onto a ship and sent to some other country to pollute their environment instead of ours.

If recycling isn't the biggest con game ever played on society, it's damned close!

[gimpygardner]

Much of this plastic goes to Third World Countries to remove the caps and labels. Also to sort by color (green, clear, brown). Then a lot of it goes into their landfills.

[smorris]

I was always partial to glass bottles. Can we go back to that? Who misses Gatorade in glass bottles and mayonnaise in glass jars?

[John_Redcorn_]

Should have never went away from glass bottles. Its reusable, recyclable, and even if it gets into the environment its basically harmless (its just melted sand)

[oblivieon]

It's pretty obvious when you step back and look at it. Just walk into a grocery store and look at the amount of recycled plastics vs. the amount of plastics in people's carts. Recycled plastics just simply don't exist. If you're older like me you would still remember the glass Coke / Pepsi bottles lining the fronts of Supermarkets back in the day.

[huntspoint]

Sad, not one mention of cardboard, paper, aluminum or other metals, which are all money makers for the recyclers. Glass and plastic, not so much.

[bMad-]

Recycling in Canada is sent to another country

[amatomic]

What if we went back to glass bottle recycling? Like they did in the 50s?

[KentoLeoDragon]

In my city you try to find out what exactly happens to garbage and recycling you get hammered with tons of flowery save the planet articles but absolutely no information about what they actually do with your trash. Or waste water for that matter. That's top secret and you don't have a need to know.

[johno]

Should force companies to use glass and aluminum both of which can actually be recycled. The companies only turned to plastic to increase profits and those came at the cost of the environment

[julioramirez]

Wow, a new report says what dozens of other reports have already said.

[leannhorne]

Knowledge is power! It’s all petrochemical products. Only the 1 & 2’s are recyclable.