Rethinking Recycling And Plastic Pollution

An MIT researcher says we should trash all our recyclable plastic.

Most plastic material and oil based non biodegradable material, synthetic clothing included, is not recyclable. Of the plastic that is recyclable, it is important to ask if the benefit of recycling outweighs the environmental cost. In many places where people think there is recycling, there is in fact little to none, or the plastic gets shipped to developing countries already drowning in their own plastic waste.

Sweden generates energy by burning its plastic waste as efficiently and cleanly as is possible with today's existing technologies. This is far preferable to the open burning of plastic that is common in many places, which exposes people to harmful carcinogens and contaminates the environment.

Burying plastic waste in landfills is common, but properly burying plastic waste in landfills is not. Many places bury plastic waste in open pits or in improper sites where winds, rains, storms, waters and time bring it back into the larger environment.

Plastic waste is only getting worse. Recycling is often not working. Furthermore, most plastic waste cannot be recycled. The priority must be on keeping plastic waste out of the oceans and environment and ensuring this is achieved. This, not recycling, must be the goal. If recycling helps achieve this, then it has a role to play. The nonsense that has gone on for years in which developed countries ship their plastic waste to developing countries under the guise of recycling must stop.

The millions of kilos of new plastic trash entering the oceans daily must be stopped or at least slowed.

Effort must focus on cleaning up plastic pollution already in the environment. This cleanup effort must become the most massive anti poverty employment program the world has ever seen, supplemented by the use of technology and volunteers.

Money and resources must be devoted to ensuring plastic waste that does go into landfills is properly buried. The controlled burning that Sweden does must also be considered.

The plastic addiction must be fought. It is hard to understand how technology has come so far in so many fields, and yet the primitive reliance on plastic materials only gets worse. Imagine if the same effort that goes into designing ways to kill each other was instead directed towards finding affordable materials that do not harm oceans, rivers, lakes, wildlife, and people.