What happen if we don't recycle plastics in long term?

Question

acctully i am doing this project for one of my class but i cant find much information on this topic like what really happened if we dont recycle plastics? what are the long term effects?

Answer 1

takes space from the landfills.

Answer 2

It will be an environmental disaster.

Answer 3

If we don't recycle plastic, the landfills wil be full of it, or we will have to burn it, and we will have to make more plastic from virgin materials, instead of using the recycled materials.

Answer 4

Yahoo News, about 2 weeks ago, just had a story about a floating "island" of plastic trash off the coast of California.  Searh Yahoo News stories in Nov.  I believe it mentioned that it's huge, the size of a US state. The article had other plastic info of landfills and breaking down over time. Also do a google search of "the life of plastic" or "biodegradable plastic" or "plastic how long breakdown."

Hope that helps.  www.sierraclub.org  www.greenpeace.org  www.oneplanet.org

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publis...

Answer 5

Well, all the plastic that has ever been produced is still here.  So recycling only slows the accumulation in the long term.  One would have to know how long we will be using it to come up with the volume quantity that will eventually be around. I suppose in the very long term plastics will just be part of geologic strata along with our fossils. But in the here and now it affects biologic life and so we should recycle to prevent  making more than we need to.  If demand is down perhaps production will be down also. Recycling plastic is  not always possible for a given new product because the plastic changes characteristics with repeated recycling efforts and must then be used for another product like plastic lumber instead of drink bottles.  I guess the main thing that happens is that future generations have to deal with the product.  Changing plastics into energy by burning them makes harmful byproducts but maybe in some sense the plastic then is "gone", I don't know? Anybody know the answer to that one?