Megan YoungWe set out to answer this question. Here’s what we found:
Since the invention of cheap and convenient single use plastic, the amount of plastic garbage has increased to 35 million tons per year last counted on the data chart from the EPA below in 2017. It’s progression has been astounding. We now recognize that “disposable” is truly not disposable – as plastic just sticks around forever.
You might be thinking to yourself “But plastic is recyclable. Doesn’t that mean that the bottles I dispose of get recycled into new bottles?” No, not quite. Only 8.4% of plastics were recycled in 2017 the last year of data shown here from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) website.
The majority of plastics in 2017 (76%) went to landfills! Where they remain unable to break down.
Not only that, but plastic recycling hit a major snafu. The U.S. has been reliant on China to recycle its plastics for decades now but in 2018, China declared that if the U.S or (any country for that matter) couldn’t meet quality standards on its plastics, it would refuse to accept it. China decided it no longer wanted to be the world’s plastic dumpster. And with that, most of plastic recycling can no longer happen because much of the quality is predicated on cleanliness which is not to the level necessary to be accepted.
But, think about THAT… in order to recycle plastic, the US would ship its plastic waste overseas to China in shipping containers on barges that consume tons of fossil fuels to process the plastics into recycled plastic pellets which can then be sold as a resource.
This doesn’t sound like an efficient, green process, does it? US recycling plants which used to ship to China typically don’t have the capability of recycling these plastics for the same cost to make recycling plastics worthwhile.
Recycling is a market driven economy – not a free service provided by cities. The economics only work for recycling centers if there is a market for the resulting material after recycling minus the cost of the recycling processing. China used to buy plastics from around the world because they could process the material and sell the resulting recycled plastic. In 2019, China decided it would increase their quality level of plastics accepted for recycling in China and reject any that did not meet their standard.
Impurities such as food waste leads to low quality plastic which China now refuses.
Additionally, US recycling centers may not be able to recycle plastic for less cost than they can sell the recycled material. They may not even have the capability of recycling plastic period. That means that many end up shipping the plastic to landfills instead.
Point being, recycling plastic isn’t the answer we are looking for.
To see an eye opening first hand look at recycling in China, here’s a documentary I came across on Amazon Prime Video (free for prime members) called Plastic China. It simply follows a family that works on a recycling plant processing recyclable plastics from around the world. It’s heartbreaking. The entire time I was watching, I though about how the toxins from these plastics leach into all aspects of this family’s life. They may not know the effects but they will surely suffer from it in the future.
At the end of the day, 76% of plastics are not renewed. In 2017, that’s nearly 27 million tons of plastics that entered into landfills. 2019 will have a substantially different number.
Not to mention the effects of our plastic garbage that isn’t contained in landfills like the Great Big Garbage Patch of millions of tons of plastic that have collected in the Pacific ocean. Microplastics – broken down bits of plastic have shown up in the sushi we eat. Plastic garbage has lead to whales and marine life who end up ingesting it thinking it’s food and starving to death. Plastic waste has made it to islands uninhabited by people.
One thing everyone can do is to significantly curb consumption of single use plastics. Reduce the input of plastics into our garbage.
I want this blog to provide many ideas on how we can all become less reliant on single use plastics.
TLDR:
- The reality is that most plastic waste goes to landfills!
- Recycling doesn’t solve the plastics waste problem, not by a long shot.
- Recycling plastic is not green.
- We need to significantly reduce production and usage of plastics in our lives.
