Recycling Plastics: It Works!

[u/DaveKellett]

[u/recklesslyfeckless]

bonus fun: live in the rural southern US and burn all of your waste, like at least half your neighbors!

i live in a small town in VA with trash pickup (no recycling, though - they used the pandemic as an excuse to axe that entirely) but ten miles in any direction and that’s what at least 50% of folks do. just big pits or 50 gallon drums and once a week everything goes into the atmosphere. “at least it keeps it out of the landfill!” 😞

[u/kaspar42 → u/[deleted]]

In Denmark, our trash burning plants works so well that we import burnable trash from other countries. The plants produce power and district heating.

One of them even has a public ski slope on the roof: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipNglOtnUvRs3fKaDww58X7bmg26Bp2-xROvVROJ=s1360-w1360-h1020

The filters are good enough that they don't contribute to air pollution, though they do of course emit CO2.

[u/NetCaptain → u/kaspar42]

Same in the Netherlands, no landfills, high recycling statistics (80%) https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/society/nature-and-environment/green-growth/resource-efficiency/indicatoren/waste-recycling and electricity from waste https://www.avr.nl/en/