deadeyedick wrote:We use reusable grocery bags. Any plastic bag that has to be used can be saved and returned to the local stores. Not sure what they do with them, maybe dump them in the ocean.
You're not wrong...
There's plenty to watch out there on it, but I'd recommend an Australian 60 minutes piece that tracks Australia's recyclables...
Here's the short of it:
Recycling plastic in an environmentally safe way - one that does not involve dumping micro-plastics into the ocean - is expensive...
Recycling plastic the right way is so expensive it cannot be completed in a country like America or Australia or Canada because doing so would result in an end product that is inferior to - yet costs substantially more - than "new" plastic...
The current solution is for first world countries to pay individuals to import recyclable plastic to Malaysia and a handful of other poorly monitored third world countries...
In fairness, some of those recycling plants do recycle a decent amount of the plastic they receive, however, none have the ability to deal with the byproducts of the recycling process - micro plastic... When a plant becomes overrun with byproduct, they close down, leaving the local governments with the waste on their hands - it usually goes to the ocean....
The majority of recycling plants in third world countries are illegally run and are not in fact recycling plants but storage facilities for recyclable materials... These materials are generally either disposed of in the ocean or burned...
Recycling!