this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Sadly, a very low percentage of plastic gets recycled anyway. In my country recycling company stats say only 10% - 20% of collected plastic is recycled. But the reality is much worse than that.
It turns out that nearly all of even that small percentage just gets shipped to a poor country for recycling because it's too expensive to recycle here. Once it's been shipped it's considered "recycled" but since recycling is expensive the company receiving it just takes the money and quietly landfills it in their own country.
The reality is that plastic recycling barely happens at all.
Largely due to the fact that people confuse resin ID codes as recyclable labels and don't know which types of plastics can be recycled in thier area.
Even the theoretically recyclable ones don't usually get recycled because it's economically unviable in most cases.