I didn't realize that it's cheaper to export used plastic than process it within the country.
> 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?