Found a stat about recycling rates that floored me

I was reading a city report from Portland last night and it said only 9% of plastic actually gets recycled worldwide. The rest ends up in landfills or the ocean. How is everyone okay with this system when it barely works?

3 comments

3 Comments

parker_palmer449d ago

Used to think I was doing my part by rinsing out yogurt cups and tossing them in the blue bin. Then I dug into it a bit myself after seeing some documentary, and it really hit me how broken the whole chain is. Like, even if your town collects it, there's no guarantee it actually gets turned into anything new. Really made me rethink buying stuff wrapped in plastic in the first place. Your mileage may vary, but this one changed my mind too.

the_jake8d ago

Buddy of mine watched the same doc and stopped rinsing anything out.

iris9278d ago

Ask what documentary it was? I been trying to find something that really lays out the recycling scam without all the corporate fluff. I stopped rinsing stuff too after I read about how most plastic just gets shipped overseas or ends up in a landfill anyway. The yogurt cup thing always bugged me because the lids are a different plastic than the cup, so they cant even be recycled together in most places. Does the doc get into that or is it more about the big picture stuff like China stopping taking our waste?