Recycling plastics what's the point ?

Question

Having spent the last 12 months saving up plastic bottles to take to the recycling center I have just found out that the local council ships them all off to China where they are melted down without any regard to the environment. It turns out it's actually more eco-friendly to put them in the regular rubbish as the incinerator has a "scrubber" fitted on it.

If recyclables are going to be sent off to be disposed of in an unfriendly manner aren't we just passing the buck ?

It's not like China will get to keep the pollution - we all get a share of it in the end.

Is this right ?

I am disgusted.

Answer 1

Look up the definition of recycling...

It is basically to reuse something instead of creating more of it.

What you are saying is that you think it is better to dump all the plastic in a big hole in the ground and at the same time bring up more oil to make more plastic RATHER than melt down the plastic we already have and then reuse it...

They don't incinerate the plastic, just soften it to remould it.

Answer 2

Going Green's g*y.

Answer 3

Ah, one day your life could be saved just by a bit of plastic...

If you're in Africa, a plastic bucket would I'm sure be  treasured...

Check this out:

http:www.the-alternative.org.uk

FREE ebook

Especially see: Project it + Chapter 9: Waste

Answer 4

Try to buy less products in plastic bottles. And reuse them if possible. Reuse, Reduce, Recycle.

Answer 5

as someone who works in the plastic industry i know a little bit about this.

recycled plastic is reused in many ways. some of it is used to make items like plastic bags for example. and a fair amount of it is actually reprocessed and re-pelleted for reuse in making more plastic containers.

the plant i work in makes the containers for the innocent smoothie's. all of these containers are made out of 100% recycled P.E.T, and we also use our own reground scrap containers which is called "flake" in the manufacture of other containers in our plant.

this is a mcuh more efficient way of producing containers as it is not using up the worlds valuable resources to make more after we have dumped old plastic containers in the ground.

our recylcled P.E.T comes from europe, not china.

it is not a very good idea to reuse plastic bottles made out of P.E.T as believe it or not they are actually porous and if the plastic is maginfied millions of times you can see small holes in the plastc, which absorb what you put in them, making it unhygeneic.

Answer 6

If we don't recycle plastics and put it into landfill, at least it's using up oil that would otherwise get burnt and end up adding to global warming.

It's a kind of carbon sequestration really.

Answer 7

Wash and use it again