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BY: EMMA MCEVOY  In a consumer driven culture that harps on convince rather than "the right thing" it becomes extremely easy to detach ourselves from the waste we produce on a daily basis. While there are many forms of waste, I would like to focus in on plastics. You may have heard about plastic bags bans or even plastic straw boycotts due to the low chance these products have to get recycled. The sad truth is that is the reality for the majority of our plastics, especially within the United States. Only about 9% of plastic effectively gets recycled. Although consumers are convinced that their waste quickly becomes recycled after simply placing it is a bin, the truth is that these products and containers are usually sent to landfill or end up in the ocean. Why, you might ask? This is due to the lack of funding recycling programs receive. Historically the US would sell their plastic waste to China, but now it has been established that cleaning and recycling our waste was a burden on the Chinese market. Many US based recycling branches have shut down because in our market today it is more expensive to recycle a bottle than to create a new one. How does that make sense? 
5 Comments
This is what happened in my hometown! I'm from a small city in Alabama and since I left for college they've shut down their municipal recycling program completely! When I read more about it apparently they decided to shut it down because it wasn't profitable due to low participation rates. So do some outreach and education programs to boost the participation rates! Distribute informational flyers to households at the very least, if not give educational presentations in schools, at PTA meetings, and so on. Of course they're not a rich city like NYC or LA so they probably can't afford a comprehensive outreach/education program, but a little 3 by 5 inch post card sent to every household with pictures and text, surely they could afford that! It's frustrating for sure. 10/4/2019 05:35:38 pm
Unfortunately, I feel that is a problem everywhere. The recycling program is good, but it's gives people a false sense. Focus should be put on reducing or banning plastics all together. 10/5/2019 02:39:54 pm
This is so sad :( I want to believe it is slightly better here in Iceland compared to the US, but still nowhere near perfect. People are slowly becoming more aware and recycling more and more. I believe reducing the flow of plastics /waste into the homes will give better results. Hopefully, this gets improved and likewise innovation in recycling technology. 10/9/2019 03:19:48 am
Similar low levels of actual recycling also occur in Europe for the same reasons. We really need to reject single use and find sustainable reusable alternatives as well as accepting that we probably don't need a lot of what we buy, anyway. 10/9/2019 04:47:28 am
What a great post! It's so important to reinforce the idea that recycling alone is not the solution. Reducing should be prioritised, and then only when plastic really is the only choice recycle. And insist that recycling improves at councils / countries level. Demand from our politicians. But first, we should really look at our consumption and do our best to say no to it, and priviledge things made from recycled materials, so that would create more demand for recycling. if that makes sense... Leave a Reply. |
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