Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Counterintuitively, recycling plastic tends to involve shipping plastic waste long distances and trading in the waste. Incinerating or burying it is simpler and more reliable.

From the wiki article: "The trade in plastic waste has been identified as "a main culprit" of marine litter."




> Counterintuitively, recycling plastic tends to involve shipping plastic waste long distances and trading in the waste

That's just because the clown world we developed only cares about money, as long as the numbers fit in the excel tables we'll do all kind of dumb shit like sending trash to Africa to have it burned in open dumps

There is a very easy solution which seemingly isn't even conceived, recycle it locally... really mind blowing I know...


>Counterintuitively, recycling plastic tends to involve shipping plastic waste long distances and trading in the waste.

Only 2% of plastic waste is traded between countries. Further, most of that is traded within the same region, so the amount of waste that's shipped across "long distances" is probably under 1%.

https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-waste-trade




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: