Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australia’s 60 Minutes current affairs programme has claimed that people who think plastic waste is recycled are being deceived – the plastic is being burned, buried or dumped.
60 Minutes: Australia’s recycling industry now ‘mostly a con’ after China closes doors to plastic waste
By Sammi Taylor • 60 Minutes Digital Producer Apr 14, 2019Most Australians think they’re doing the right thing when they take their recycling bins to the curb every fortnight.
But our belief that we’re doing our part for the environment is somewhat misguided: Australia’s plastic recycling industry is largely a con.
…“When you throw this stuff in your recycle bin at home you might like to think again,” Bartlett says.
Australia alone has dumped more than 71,000 tonnes of plastic in Malaysia in the past 12 months.
But there, the mountains of plastic waste can often end up in illegal processing facilities and junkyards.
It’s a big problem – and many players within the recycling industry are calling it for what it is: a load of rubbish.
…
Read more: https://www.9news.com.au/national/60-minutes-recycling-plastic-waste-australia-china-malaysia/9cb9fb9f-09ab-4c34-8be0-dcc7d996bcab
Gee, what a surprise. It has been obvious for a long time that plastic waste is just waste.
One question – what does a high population density country like Malaysia do with all those mountains of plastic they are buying receiving?
It seems unlikely Malaysia can burn all the plastic – in a densely populated country like Malaysia areas suitable for large scale toxic burnoffs are likely in short supply. And there is nowhere available to bury that amount of plastic. But Malaysia has excellent ports and maritime facilities, and good access to the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Perhaps they ship the plastic somewhere.
Update (EW): On review it is not clear whether Malasian waste processors pay for low grade plastic waste, or whether they are paid to get rid of it.
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Many years ago, when I decided to try and do my bit by recycling, they had a number of bins at the local supermarket to put supposedly recyclable stuff into. I noted down what went into each bin and set up some shelves in an outhouse with plastic bins labelled up for different stuff. From memory, plastic bottles, glass seperated into clear, brown and green, steel cans, aluminium cans, aluminium foil, paper and cardboard. Later, they got rid of all these different bins and changed over to ones which just took all your recycling stuff mixed together. My thought at the time was just why? If this stuff was really going to be recycled it would need to be separated out, so why mix it all together? It was at this point that I started thinking that it might all be bullshit.
Stonybrook
So few people clean and accurately segregate their trash that “relying” on the public to properly even put the basic different material g(lass, steel, aluminum, plastics and paper) in different containers fails. So the “industry” defaulted back to “automatic” stream recycling. Which allows them to just throw the whole container of trash into the landfill as one pile. Now, we should at least realize that if the trash is in one landfill in each county, then in some future date when it does become economic to recycle some specific part of the trash, it is all in one easy-to-access pile.
The real waste is those cities that dump it in the ocean. There, it cannot be recycled ever.
Those who “pretend” to recycle overseas (let the third world import our trash, burn our trash, get their hands dirty handling and separating our garbage) but who actually dump the trash at sea and then turn around with an empty barge are also criminal.
Good points all, RACook. Some day those landfills will likely be very valuable.
In Canada, recycling facilities have long conveyor belts with about 30 “sorters” who take care of it..
The cost of collecting and transporting recyclables in my town amounts to over a million a year. The sale of the material to the recycler brings about $60,000 in return
If, on the other hand, the recyclables were collected and hauled away, unsorted, with the trash collection, the town would have spent far less this added tonnage.
The result: Over 50 % potential tax saving, money that would be available for schools, traffic improvements, social programs, etc.
Town leaders, as the others in our state know this and confirm: “Recycling costs us. Nothing we can do about it – it’s a state law that we recycle.” Unfortunately this is true, and as most government programs, recycling will continue unabated.
In order for there to be a “con”, you need a mark.
Any marks been marked ?
In a con trick the mark is the person being lied to.
There are a lot of us.
Plastic is mostly a litter problem, not a pollution problem. Bits of wood also float, degrade slowly, and cause few environmental problems.
Ironically, if we made more poly-chlorinated plastics then wouldn’t float as well, so there would be less visible. Problem solved.
In Boscawen NH, the transfer station stopped recycling plastic when the nearest place that could accept it was in Ohio. There was a public announcement, and signs saying plastic was being recycled were taken down. However, bins for plastic remained, I assume in part to keep townsfolk in practice and perhaps to prevent having to change the compactor bins for regular trash.
All that went to the local trash-to-energy plant, not really recycling, a couple miles from home. I never did smell it.
Glass used to to be reused and hence sorted by color. Now it’s comingled, crushed, and sent to an asphalt plant to be added to base layer black top.
Where I am now sends the trash to a firm that is pretty close mouthed about what they do with it.
I thought I was doing my part and saving all my batteries for recycling – took them to a store that states it can recycle and I asked what the process was. The process was to wrap them in a special plastic and take them to the landfill. Horrible on all fronts.
State government had mandated that our citizens curb recycle. We had done so for years before I was promoted to the capitol. Once here, if we wanted to recycle we had to haul it ourselves to collection sites. In the mid-1990s I was promoted. We have just merged two environmental agencies. Each Monday the agency held division director meetings. I was sent to the very first meeting for the new merged agency. Topic of discussion recycling. Turns out that all our state had been doing was storing recycled materials at a relatively large cost. The money for storage was not legislatively appropriated so was coming out of other programs in the agency’s budget. Our new Republican majority Legislature didn’t like that so ordered the agency to fix the problem. Supposedly the assigned team ultimate found markets. Since I was not in the direct loop I don’t know how it all turned out. Though in discussion that first day we were told by those in charge of recycling that one of the problems was how many people were recycling not just in our state but across the country.
Plastic is a derivative of fossil fuels.
It can be burned in special power plants to generate energy.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCner_Punkt_(Deutschland)