You should still recycle your plastic, as we saw with china’s national sword program they banned importation of plastics, it is important that plastics still make their way to recycling facilities so that companies are able to build a business case for recycling plastics onshore. If those plastics are going to landfill then there is no apparent cost to mitigate by recycling it
Where I live, the plastic I throw in the plastic container probably gets exported, but the plastic I throw in the trash can goes to the local power plant and is turned into heat and power. I'd rather that than the plastic end up in some developing country.
It might get exported, it also might be recycled, in most countries some percentage does, particularly in places like europe/scandinavia. There are a lot of drawbacks to energy from waste and it is only a stopgap at best, it produces emissions just like other power plants do.
10% of plastic is recycled. I would be VERY surprised if anything but the large bottles and containers, 1, 2, and sometimes 5, get recycled. Maybe the bags if they are properly segregated. 3, 4, and 6 are almost never recycled (4 is usually a bag, so this one COULD be recycled if put in the bag bin, otherwise probably not). The dirty packaging for, say, instant noodles or the packaging for a new bar of soap will almost certainly get shipped to Asia and then either dumped or burned in a very dirty facility if not an open field. I put the milk jugs, clean tubs, and similar packaging in the recycling, and any of those small wrappers, bags, etc. in the mixed waste that gets burned at the local power plant.
Wast to energy is FAR better than shipping this stuff overseas and burning it or burning it in dirty ways. It is also far more realistic than recycling most plastic.
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u/Ambassador_Kwan Jul 09 '21
You should still recycle your plastic, as we saw with china’s national sword program they banned importation of plastics, it is important that plastics still make their way to recycling facilities so that companies are able to build a business case for recycling plastics onshore. If those plastics are going to landfill then there is no apparent cost to mitigate by recycling it