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Comment by moralestapia | Hacker News Reader

Weird, first it says,

"[...] zero plastic thrown in a garbage can in the United States enters the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre", in bold letters.

But then later in the article, it admits that about 50% of US plastics (it is unclear whether is all of them or only the ones meant to be recycled) were shipped "to Indonesia and Vietnam, which proceeded to improperly dump over 80% of it."

So, it does go into the ocean in the end, whether the fault of the US or any other country, the point is that your plastic straw has a big chance of finding its way to the sea.

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> your plastic straw has a big chance of finding its way to the sea

IF you put it in a recycling bin. Here is a quick breakdown:

- Black bin (trash): Goes to a landfill where it is regulated by the EPA and stored in containment and the off-gas is harvested for energy

- Blue bin (recycling): Gets shipped by boat across an ocean to a third world country where it is dumped because that is the most profitable thing to do and it is no longer subject to regulatory oversight that it actually gets recycled

It's not that easy,

Trash goes into what is called, waste transfer stations, see [1], where there's an effort to salvage recyclables from regular trash as well, what you do with the black/blue bins is basically helping them do their work (and this is good).

Let's say then, that all this plastic goes into the "plastic that could be recycled" bin, of which we actually DO recycle 3.1 million tons of it (as stated in the article) out of 35.7 million tons (total).

But then it goes to say "We used to send half of this to China until they banned it [...]", and it is not clear either this is half of the recycled chunk, or the total amount of plastic that gets thrown away. It wouldn't make sense for it to be the recycled chunk, as ... we are recycling it, right? But then, it could, maybe, as it could be sent to those countries for "recycling" and they then "improperly dump it" (as also stated in the article).

1: https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/waste-management-transfer-sta...

People are intercepting plastic from our waste stream and re-directing it to other countries that dump it into the ocean? Well I see your problem right there!

The idea that we would not ban that and instead ban drinking straws because of that is even more absurd than the nonsense that I thought was in play.

> there's an effort to salvage recyclables from regular trash as well, what you do with the black/blue bins is basically helping them do their work

This is a very metropolitan thing and not the norm. Waste Management in San Francisco for example has spent a ton of money on fancy machines and people to hand sort.

A lot of "recycling" gets diverted to landfill domestically, too. How much depends, but lots of stuff is sorted out as unrecyclable, unidentifiable, or just plain unprofitable. Probably including most straws and other small items placed in recycling.

While true, I'd rather play it safe and put my plastic in the trash bin. Helpful mnemonic: The blue bin is blue like the ocean that plastic will end up in.

Right at the bottom of the article:

> Locally: You must reduce the amount of plastic shipped overseas by putting it in the regular garbage instead of the recycle bin.

The premise is that recycling creates pollution but landfills do not.

These are both correct. Trash in a US garbage can usually ends up in a landfill. Recycling is often sent overseas, where it ends up in a different Gyre. Either way, a plastic straw (according to the article) doesn't enter in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre if thrown into the trash or sent to recycling, it ends up in a landfill if trash, or a different gyre if sent overseas. Lesson learned: sometimes throwing stuff away is better. And don't litter, it goes without saying.

The point being made in the article is that plastic thrown into garbage cans in the US end up securely held in the sealed landfills as described,while plastics sent for recycling in the US end up getting exported and ultimately improperly dumped.

The author is saying that you should put plastics in the garbage rather than in the recycling.

I think you rather missed the point of the article.

That’s why I disagree with the article’s conclusion that getting rid of plastic straws is “stupid”. There are alternatives, some better than others at their job of fluid delivery to your face parts, but most doing a better job of not polluting.

I thought it was pretty clear, if you put the straw in the garbage can it will not enter the garbage patch, it goes to the landfill. If you put it in the recycling bin it has a good chance of entering the garbage patch.

Garbage can -> landfill

recycling can -> overseas countries -> ocean

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