[ch0wn]

> Plastics aren't a problem if people actually put them in the bin, and they are buried / recycled / burned.

Only 9% of all plastics ever produced has been recycled. 100% is impossible due to the various composite materials that exist.

Landfills don't work in many places in the world due to lack of space and are expensive, hard to manage and come with methane emissions. Burning is obviously the same as burning fossil fuels and cannot happen if we want to keep our planet habitable. It also happens almost always in poor communities that suffer health consequences because of it.

Even if the disposal was somehow magically solved, we still have the problem with production. Plastics are a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry and are expected to account for more than a third of the growth in world oil demand to 2030. Cracker plants for plastics production are also usually placed near communities of colour or in developing countries and create toxic conditions for life around them.

Plastics are a problem. Regardless of the disposal.

[wongarsu]

Burning is a lot better than dumping it in a river, as happens in many places in Asia. It reliably gets rid of the plastic, produces energy (ideally offsetting fossil fuels that would otherwise have been burned), and regulations for exhaust filtration keep the toxins at bay.

Not producing plastic would be preferable, and sequestering it in a landfill is the second best option, but burning it is a great alternative where the first two don't work

[htmXlabs]

that is a misleading number. In my country it is almost 100%.

Most gets recycled, the rest used as fuel in energyplants. The real problem is the 10 countries in the world that are responsible for 90% of dumping stuff in the rivers (all in south asia and africa).

[tda]

Plastic can't be recycled at all, that is a complete myth. The only thing one can practically do is down cycle it, and even that costs more than virgin plastic so is uneconomical.

Of course theoretically perfectly clean and pure singly type plastic can be recycled, but that is something very different from post-consumer waste

[user____name]

Recycling here implies reworking existing plastics into new ones, not just collecting them.

[AlecSchueler]

> In my country it is almost 100%.

> Most gets recycled, the rest used as fuel in energyplants.

Do want to share how much work your "almost" is doing here?

> the 10 countries in the world that are responsible for 90% of dumping stuff in the rivers (all in south asia and africa).

How much of it is their own waste? How much was produced for Western consumers and then off-loaded onto them?

[tonfa]

> In my country it is almost 100%.

Do you have a link? I think OP meant actual recycling, not waste collection.

I don't think 100% plastic recycling is close to achievable at the moment (even if recycled, it's often downcycled).

[barbazoo]

Misleading. It depends on your jurisdiction, many are doing a great job recovering material.