Satakorn Skontakayonkul/Alamy
I spend countless hours sifting through plastic pieces in my kitchen to determine if they can be recycled. If you have them, put them in a bag along with glass, cans, cardboard, and paper. If not, or if you’re not confident, put it in a plastic bag (not recyclable) and shove it in the cupboard under the stairs. I plan to drop it off in a non-recyclable plastic bin at my local supermarket. But the road to the landfill is paved with good intentions. Sometimes I get frustrated and throw it away.
I don’t know if my relentless culling will actually make any difference. We hope that what is recyclable will eventually be recycled. As for the others, which make up about half of my plastic waste, I don’t know their fate. I think there’s a reason it’s called “non-recyclable.”
We hope that you won’t have to waste your precious time on this kind of waste prioritization any time soon. A series of “advanced recycling” technologies are gradually being rolled out that promise to convert all kinds of used plastics into something very useful: plastic. The goal is to create a circular economy for this material by eliminating the need to make virgin plastic from crude oil and simply endlessly recycling what we already have. Plastic, once demonized as the scourge of modern society, could once again be great.
There are many things you can use. Since the 1950s, we have produced over 10 billion tons of her.
Source: www.newscientist.com
