Where does your plastic waste end up?
nationalgeographic.co.uk
nationalgeographic.co.uk
Other well-intentioned efforts that resulted in bad outcomes:
Discouraging plastic bags -> Increased CO2 for cloth/paper bags Banning DDT -> likely millions of deaths from malaria over the years Opposition to nuclear -> more dependence on carbon heavy sources of energy (see Germany)
Does anybody know any resources on the economics of trash processing? I wanna explore the possibility of doing such a business in a sustainable way
I think you'd have to find what your government legally requires in a certain waste management area and work within those parameters
> Today, Recology, San Francisco’s employee-owned recycling company, pays £230-to-£390 to ship a container of recycled plastic across the Pacific–a fraction of the £2,700-to-£3,100 price tag for transporting that same container across the United States to plastic processing plants that are mostly located in the South, according to Robert Reed, a company spokesman.
I am betting the crew on the container ship do not make US wages.
Similarly, why there are no cruise ships that only stop at American ports, so the labor can be foreign. Also, why American river cruises are so expensive.
Of course bypassing the problem by reducing plastic waste is always preferred and so much more elegant a solution, but provided that would need to be done across all the globe, including so many different cultures and governments, and with such poor inherent economic incentives (plastic is still too cheap), I'm not really confident that'd be possible within a reasonable time-frame, or at all.
I feel like a breakthrough in recycling technology by a small team and some investors would be much easier to achieve than global alignment in law making and enforcement. Is there anyone achieving significant progress in that area?
Hmm.
And now I'm confused. Is it really about the UK? Is the title just bad for this edition (should be on .com). Was the story planned to be for the US edition and then just moved to the other one? Nitpicking, I know - but this is what I noticed first and even after a little digging I'm none the wiser.
This hypocrisy is appalling. They just have to stop importing those plastics with the false promise they are going to recycle it or dispose of it properly while they get paid for it.
Nobody is forcing Malasya to take anything, in fact Malasya is happily engaging in a bid with other countries to import that garbage for the best price.
If these countries weren't lying this all time and only took the plastics they can actually cleanly dispose of or recycle, the West would be (at a greater expense is true) getting rid of them properly during all this time.
Manufacturers of plastic packaging and products are the origin of the problem. It is the source of the plastics that is the root of the problem. Where plastics end up is the fault of those who profit from their production.
Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."