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Stop making new plastic would be a good place to start.
Yeah, that's not going to happen. It's too useful. So the next best thing is to figure out what to do with it going forward.
Plant based plastics, easy.
It's simply petrochemical based plastics pushed by the oil industry that are so bad aren't biodegradable.
Landfills are the answer for the US. It sits completely contained under ground after use, and if technology comes that can utilize the waste in a profitable way, we know exactly where it is.
What about burning it for heat and electricity. I've heard that those plants are really effective now.
Could potentially be a legit use for CCS I guess. If it worked. Needs to get better first.
Although, if this displaces coal on the grid, I guess it's a step in the right direction?
That would help solve the plastic quantity problem, but we should also probably find a way to filter all of the forever chemicals from reaching the air.
Some of those chemicals can do pretty nasty things in high quantities or when repeatedly consumed over a long period of time.
You can recycle it. Make something useful out of it. Instead, they save pennies by buying new.
You often can't though unfortunately. Most plastics can only be recycled a handful of times before they degrade too far. Recycling, while better than nothing, is a far more inefficient and flawed process than it is often presented as. That's why it is far better to reduce usage in the first place and reuse things as is where you can. Of course this is all still easier said than done.
Yeah, the bullshit marketing of companies that presented pollution as a consumer problem instead of a corpo problem is a huge issue. It lead people to believe that plastics were infinitely recyclable, and the only reason there’s any pollution is because consumers just aren’t properly recycling.
In reality, the majority of plastics used aren’t even recyclable, and end up in landfill regardless. But somehow that’s still the fault of the consumer.
Utter bullshit.
I kind of like the approach of the Germans. You build a product, you are responsible for its disposal. Therefore, you have to engineer so that materials are cheaper to get rid of. Sure, recycled plastics degrade and eventually can't be used for anything. But, it should be up to the last manufacturer to dispose of it in a safe way.
I entirely agree, and that does sound like a good approach. I just caution against presenting recycling as a solution rather than as a reduction of harm.
By recycle it, do you mean throw it in the blue bin? Because if so that's not really recycling. That's just choosing to throw it in an overseas landfill instead of a local one.