The Downside To Plastics Recycling
We get asked quite regularly why we aren’t more active in recycling plastics. It all boils down to economics. And if the economics don’t match up, you end up with dismal failure. Many people have pushed for mandated percentages of plastics recycling in many areas around the world and some in some places, percentages have been set with deadlines for compliance. What none of the people involved in legislating such mandates have considered is what happens when the price bottoms out? You get lots of collected material sitting around that nobody can ship. Businesses go belly up because they can’t sell their overpriced inventory. There is a lot more consideration to be made than simply our desire to recycle all the materials we can.
December 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Perhaps we should try to stop producing plastic that we can’t recycle??? I know thats a LONGSHOT. But if we aren’t going to find a way to recycle it
we need to think of other options. Maybe everybody should start sending plastic containers back to the company that uses it to
package its products?
We can package more products in paper, tin, aluminum and glass. Who else here gets annoyed with packaged goods that
have so many layers of plastic covering them it takes a half hour to open them up?
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Glass as a plastic substitute? That adds weight which costs fuel. Besides glass is not readily recyclable in many areas. We’ve visited that subject several times here.
One thing that might help is if the people involved in making plastic packaging could get together and settle on one consistant resin to make most non-bottle packaging. That MIGHT provide recyclers with enough tonnage to be worth adding another grade. Each additional grade requires containers and space to store first a balable quantity, then a shipable quantity. This costs money and takes up space that could be used for processing more valuable less labor intensive material.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I’d have to agree with Pam. Why are we producing these plastics that we can’t recycle? for convenience. I know that a trend now a days (like in my city) are banning plastic bottles in schools, even at my work and are considering city wide ban which I’m totally down for. I, myself, will drink tap water now instead of buying the cases of water bottles. I hope this trend gets bigger!
March 14th, 2009 at 12:30 am
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