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Do you recycle? With the landscape we are facing in the world, it is crucial for us to have a clear idea of the reality of plastic recycling. Many support recycling. You, too, will probably support the benefits of recycling . However, while some materials can be effectively recycled and safely manufactured from recycled content, plastics cannot. Plastic recycling doesn’t work. (Nope?)
A new survey carried out by environmental organizations Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic to examine the size of the UK’s plastic waste problem dubbed The Big Plastic Count shows that English households dispose of around 100 billion pieces of plastic packaging. plastic each year, while they recycle just 12 percent of single-use packaging.
The majority of plastic waste came from food and beverage packaging, at 83 percent, with fruit and vegetable packaging being the most common. According to results from The Big Plastic Survey , during one week in May, 248,957 people from 97,948 households recorded what type and how much plastic packaging they discarded.
Participants counted a total of 6,437,813 pieces of plastic packaging waste; This equates to an average of 66 pieces of plastic packaging per household per week, or approximately 3,432 pieces of plastic per household per year.
Unlike metal and glass, plastics are not inert. Plastic products can include toxic additives and absorb chemicals, and are typically collected in curbside bins filled with potentially hazardous materials, such as plastic pesticide containers.
Doesn’t it work then?
There are many types of plastic, making it difficult to find a recycling method that works. It is also true that recycling is an industry that can drive economic growth, thereby incentivizing greater reuse of post-consumer plastics. However, plastic recycling is a resource-intensive process, regardless of whether it is traditional or chemical recycling. The consumption of single-use materials will always cause damage to our environment. The question we should be asking ourselves is how do we stop relying on recycling and move towards a circular economy?
And it is that recycling plastic is not cheap. Recycled plastic costs more than new plastic because collecting, sorting, transporting, and reprocessing plastic waste is incredibly expensive.
Not only does plastic contribute an enormous amount of waste that doesn’t break down naturally in the environment, but according to the Center for International Environmental Law, nearly all of it is made from fossil fuels , contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse.
Organizations such as Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic want the UK government to halve single-use plastic by 2025 and set targets to almost completely eliminate it. They are also calling for an export ban on plastic waste by 2025 and a deposit on plastic returns immediately.
For our part, we should all continue to recycle our paper, boxes, cans and glass, because the truth is that it really does work.
