What are the risks of recycling plastic bottles and what are the risks if we keep using them?

Question

i need the risks and all the information i can get on this. i am doing a huge report and am tring to figure out as much as i can on the topic.

Answer 1

The risks of using them is many.  To our health the plastic bottles contain a chemical called bisphenol A in Canada they have banned all plastic baby bottles because they contain this bad chemical.  Not only is plastic bad for us but when we buy water in plastic bottles the plastic bottles need to be transported to us by truck to the store and trucks use diesel fuel which pollutes the environment and contributes to the greenhouse effect.  Not everyone and not every town recycles the bottles so they fill up the landfill plus those places that do recycle the bottles usually just ship them to another city because not all cities have the recycling facilities so again there is pollution from the truck.  It is also easier to make and recycle glass bottles

You can google Canada and bisphenol A and things pop up on the recall and safety issues of the plastic

Answer 2

Recycling: They can only be recycled a certain amount of times.

Reusing: The cemicals in the bottle can get into the water.

Answer 3

From what I know, plastic is not recyclable, in the truest sense of the word. You can't make new plastic bottles from old ones. Plastic is downcycled. Or made into a different product than what it was before. (Very often, plastic fill or plastic lumber.) Virgin plastic products are cheap to produce but it is energy intensive to downcycle.

The chemicals that leach from plastic can pose health problems, many of which may not appear until years down the road.

Answer 4

Possible risks of recycling them may include carbon emissions - because it takes energy to recycle them (melt them down, transport them to recycling facilities) but that doesn't by any means suggest that we shouldn't recycle.

The risks of re-using them are actually pretty significant and you may not know about them. For example, when you drink a bottle of water, bacteria from your mouth goes into the bottle (gross I know!), so if you re-use a bottle, you have a chance of becoming sick, etc. So it's always important to wash your bottles if you want to re-use them. Warm water and soap should do it. And remember to rinse it out well, cause you don't want to be drinking any soap!