There's an Actual Reason You Can't Recycle Plastic

Comments · 8K

• HA

  @hankschannel · 8 months ago · pinned

  Just here to say...one of my least favorite arguments about recycling is &quot;It shouldn&apos;t be our responsibility.&quot; I actually really like recycling as a shared pro-social activity that involves the consumer, the producer, the waste management system, and the recycling company. <br><br>If we can sort at home, that lowers the cost of recycled feedstocks which makes the more competitive. That&apos;s great! That&apos;s a social activity. The problem is that recycled plastic feedstocks simply can&apos;t compete. This is also largely true of glass (where the majority of the dollar cost and environmental cost is actually the same...re-melting the glass...glass should be re-used, not recycled.)<br><br>But recycled feedstocks for steel and aluminum are actually significantly cheaper! But separating them out makes them moreso, which decreases mining and energy use! <br><br>Paper products are in the middle where they can be cheaper but only for certain uses because you can&apos;t make, like, bright white printer paper from old carboard. <br><br>The problem is that people have a hard time /feeling/ that metals are different from plastics which are different from glass which is different from paper. The simple story is &quot;oh no, the landfill might fill up&quot; which is not the actual problem that we&apos;re trying to solve here which makes it all very confusing to people.

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• AD

  @adjoint_functor · 8 months ago

  Should&apos;ve been called &quot;Why recycling plastic is fracking hard&quot;

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• AM

  @amykathleen2 · 8 months ago

  Title unclear, I will now commence using my stove to melt plastic.

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• FL

  @florianbruehl · 8 months ago

  what got me to click is not the title, but &quot;Hank Green&quot; and &quot;44 seconds ago&quot;

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• CH

  @chadrixsnider · 7 months ago

  &quot;You can&apos;t Use Arterial plaques, testicles, and Antarctica&quot; in the same sentence. &quot;Hold my death ray&quot; -Hank Green

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• JU

  @JusNoBS420 · 8 months ago

  I thought my app was stuck on 2.0x speed again, but it&apos;s just Hank getting the information out

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• SE

  @seth4627 · 8 months ago

  &quot;...other type of plastics that are hard to separate from the PP...&quot;<br>Me &amp;Hank together: &quot;the poopoo&quot;

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• EL

  @elias486 · 8 months ago

  oh so when a company points a death laser at the earth it&apos;s &quot;innovation&quot; and &quot;scientific advancement&quot; but when I do it I am the villain of a saturday morning scifi-themed cartoon for kids

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• AE

  @Aerith0823 · 7 months ago

  I LOOOOOVE that enzymatic plastic degradation got mentioned! Just spent the morning helping my mom in the college lab she teaches, where she is conducting research with her students on how to get PETase (and METase) into algae!! Plastic-eating algae!! My thumb is still sore from opening all the little test tubes 😁

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• D0

  @D0GG_ · 8 months ago

  Pointing a fusion reactor lasers at the earth next to a volcano sounds like the villains plan from a 1960s B-movie

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• LX

  @LXReads · 8 months ago (edited)

  I love this (new?) &quot;Hank learns about a thing then interviews someone knowledgeable about it&quot; style of video 😂

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• DE

  @Demarquis-j2v · 8 months ago

  The reason new plastic is so cheap is because we don&apos;t include the external costs to the environment into the price.

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