If you ask my chemistry professor, there is only one category of truly recyclable plastic: thermoplastic. Within that category I think he specifically mentioned polypropylene, because it doesn’t require the addition of new plastic to be stable after reforming into a new plastic product. Unfortunately that one rarely gets recycled because it’s used for milk jugs and such, and food contamination is too big a hassle for people to deal with when there’s all this shiny new plastic waiting to be used
I’m a little bit drunk right now so my memory is probably not the best, you should definitely not take what I said as perfect fact xD
While I understand the sentiment I’m not sure how that’ll work for products like sanitizer wipes or shampoo without making them out of something like tin/aluminum. The wetness of the product would soak right through paper/cardboard. You could make use of tin/aluminum for those products but I dont see it being very cost effective, especially since most Americans dont recycle as it is.
If there is a plastic-like substitute for situations like this I’d be happy to know about it though. Maybe theres some sort of eco-friendly alternative product out there I didnt know about before :)
We will not get to 0 % plastic products or packaging. That shouldn‘t stop us from reducing it significantly, even if we have to look back to the mid 20th century to see how that works.
stupid question, should I then not be recycling plastics?
If you ask my chemistry professor, there is only one category of truly recyclable plastic: thermoplastic. Within that category I think he specifically mentioned polypropylene, because it doesn’t require the addition of new plastic to be stable after reforming into a new plastic product. Unfortunately that one rarely gets recycled because it’s used for milk jugs and such, and food contamination is too big a hassle for people to deal with when there’s all this shiny new plastic waiting to be used
I’m a little bit drunk right now so my memory is probably not the best, you should definitely not take what I said as perfect fact xD
New recycling techniques are being developed, even if we landfilled our trash separately it would help future efforts to clean it all up.
I feel like it does good, but then Penn & Teller day otherwise.
https://youtu.be/7czKngCUASM
It’s gonna depend on where you are, ultimately. Here it all ends up in a dump anyway.
Not buy and if you already did re-use it.
I mean I do as much as I can but there are unavoidable products now with plastic as their packaging.
That has to be outlawed.
While I understand the sentiment I’m not sure how that’ll work for products like sanitizer wipes or shampoo without making them out of something like tin/aluminum. The wetness of the product would soak right through paper/cardboard. You could make use of tin/aluminum for those products but I dont see it being very cost effective, especially since most Americans dont recycle as it is.
If there is a plastic-like substitute for situations like this I’d be happy to know about it though. Maybe theres some sort of eco-friendly alternative product out there I didnt know about before :)
We will not get to 0 % plastic products or packaging. That shouldn‘t stop us from reducing it significantly, even if we have to look back to the mid 20th century to see how that works.