I hate to be that guy but, I think many would be surprised to know this is pretty common. They used to dump the recycling bins into trash bins at a few places I was at believe it or not.

[–] yggstyle 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Didn't this all start falling apart when China stopped buying our trash? It's been a minute since I read up on this...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Not sure honestly what the cause is (I doubt there’s a singular explanation, nothings black and white like that ever)

I do know there are some common problems with contamination, costs (China might’ve grabbed this opportunity), market demand for whatever the output of the recycling operation is fluctuating, logistics, and I’m gonna argue that there’s not really much legislation to push for this.

The good news is they recently were able to make graphene with plastics (very high demand, tough to produce) which could be huge for civ as a whole. Things like space elevators are more plausible with advances like these

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Unfortunately it's far too common. This was pretty eye opening for me a few years ago: https://youtu.be/c8aVYb-a7Uw?si=GzBHCEA9YkXg0mLM