this would be a legitimate argument if any of the plastic was actually recycled … last time i checked it all goes into the incinerator to make electricity out of it.
the recycling of plastic is difficult, not because melting and re-shaping the plastic itself is difficult (it is not, it’s trivially easy); the problem is that you basically never get correctly-sorted garbage. when you get “plastic waste”, it has at least 20% things in it that are not plastic, including food waste, aluminum, paper, etc. some even throw toxic batteries in it, chemicals (soap), pharmaceuticals … then there’s the risk of infections on the plastic (viruses, bacteria, fungi). there’s absolutely no chance that you’re just gonna take plastic waste and mold it into a new shape that’s food safe. best you can do is to mix it with concrete and use it as a construction material in road construction.
Even if you perfectly sort the plastic out, it can only be recycled about 1.5 times before the structure changes so much it’s not suitable for the original use. Plastic recycling is a scam.
yeah btw this is because it’s not purely-sorted input. mixing is up with other plastics is what leads to the molecules to not properly align and that’s what makes it brittle.
I’ve worked with plastic recycling in West Africa at one factory, and just sorting plastic waste by hand is a decent job for a few dozen marginalized women because it demand real human level work.
The reason why is pigment and color. They could recycle yellow into yellow or tan, red into red, green into green. But blue and black were the deal breakers. Black being probably already recycled plastic that uses black pigment to mix colors.
Everything after the sorting is trivial. Shredding, re-peletizing, molding, all easily done.
I’ve worked with plastic recycling in West Africa at one factory, and just sorting plastic waste by hand is a decent job for a few dozen marginalized women because it demand real human level work.
lots of waste are toxic and you get skin rashes if you touch it because it’s toxic. also fumes, smell etc.
The women sorting plastic are all outside, 150m from the re-peletization machines. They’re the only ones with a job that isn’t knee-deep in carcinogens.
this would be a legitimate argument if any of the plastic was actually recycled … last time i checked it all goes into the incinerator to make electricity out of it.
the recycling of plastic is difficult, not because melting and re-shaping the plastic itself is difficult (it is not, it’s trivially easy); the problem is that you basically never get correctly-sorted garbage. when you get “plastic waste”, it has at least 20% things in it that are not plastic, including food waste, aluminum, paper, etc. some even throw toxic batteries in it, chemicals (soap), pharmaceuticals … then there’s the risk of infections on the plastic (viruses, bacteria, fungi). there’s absolutely no chance that you’re just gonna take plastic waste and mold it into a new shape that’s food safe. best you can do is to mix it with concrete and use it as a construction material in road construction.
edit: the video you linked is really watchable.
Even if you perfectly sort the plastic out, it can only be recycled about 1.5 times before the structure changes so much it’s not suitable for the original use. Plastic recycling is a scam.
yeah btw this is because it’s not purely-sorted input. mixing is up with other plastics is what leads to the molecules to not properly align and that’s what makes it brittle.
I’ve worked with plastic recycling in West Africa at one factory, and just sorting plastic waste by hand is a decent job for a few dozen marginalized women because it demand real human level work.
The reason why is pigment and color. They could recycle yellow into yellow or tan, red into red, green into green. But blue and black were the deal breakers. Black being probably already recycled plastic that uses black pigment to mix colors.
Everything after the sorting is trivial. Shredding, re-peletizing, molding, all easily done.
lots of waste are toxic and you get skin rashes if you touch it because it’s toxic. also fumes, smell etc.
i would not call these “decent jobs” TBH
The women sorting plastic are all outside, 150m from the re-peletization machines. They’re the only ones with a job that isn’t knee-deep in carcinogens.