[tappaseater]

I have always felt that the problem with the plastic recycling is that there is a lack of an economy. If you sell a yogurt for $1.99 I don’t care about what happens to the container, I t’s hardly surprising that most of it ends up overseas, in the ocean or a landfill. If the state levied a tax on the container, manufacturers would be motivated to gain a competitive advantage and use something exempt from the tax. Recyclers, who might want to taste of that tax money, could invest in better technologies for handling the material. In fact, you enable capitalistic forces to solve a problem. It’s only cheap to use virgin plastic because the manufacturer is absolved of cost of dealing with the waste.

For my own part, I have started to throw all my plastic in the garbage. It feels better to know it goes in the landfill versus the great Pacific garbage patch.