91%
That's how much of our plastic waste does not get recycled.
(source, National Geographic)
We're going to take a second, and be truly honest with you before you read this page. We do care if you're rich or poor, gay or straight, black or white or somewhere in-between, (and though we are a highly non-political organization) republican or democrat or none of the above; it matters to us. And it matters to us because you're a human, and we're human, and these tiny differences along with so many others make us who we are. And no one should ever have the right to tell you what to believe or how you're supposed to act because, you know what, you're not stupid.
So we aren't going to treat you like you are, and we aren't going to put you in a box. We are scientists and engineers, activists and artists, we are people. And in the spirit of your non-stupidness and non-box-like character we will spend the next few pages presenting both sides of the problem we see.
And an it's our promise that we're not going to tell you we're right either. We're going to give you the information we found over years of research, without bias, and you can draw your own conclusions.
Because this is where it starts. Equal rights for all, an end to world-hunger and the water crisis, a reduced unemployment rate and lower poverty rates around the globe, it all starts with compassion and access to un-biased information.
This is us saying, we trust you. Here's the information we used to form our conclusions. Form your own.
And by the way, take a second to tell us about yourself because like we said, we care. Tell us your story, tell us if you think we're right or wrong, tell us what keeps you up at night even it if isn't plastic pollution. The world could use a little more compassion.
Q:
We started with, what we though was, a simple question - where does our recycling actually go when we put it in the yellow bins?
And this question was inspired by the article on the right with a very curious title. "MIT researcher says we should trash all our recyclable plastic, and he's probably right." An article published by Insider in 2019.
Summary of the Article
This article explains the research done by Andrew McAfee, codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy at the MIT Sloan School of Management, explained in his book "More From Less."
The Article describes how McAfee praises metal and paper recycling but vehemently believes America should trash its plastic waste. The Article goes on to state McAfee's reasoning for this which involves the practice of "packing up all of our plastics, sending it across the ocean, to a country that engaged in environmentally very, very dirty practices, to try to recycle that" (McAfee in and interview with Insider).
The Article then cites other sources which describe plastic recycling in cities around America. It describes how now that the US-China plastic belt is no more, cities like Chicago recycle less than 10% of their waste citing recycling contamination as a major factor. The Article ends on items McAfee thinks we should focus on instead such as a Carbon Tax and Nuclear Power.
What we got from this Article
Seeing this article made us reconsider the assumption we originally had that all recycling is good for the environment. The first thing we got from this article is that metal recycling, paper recycling, and (we suspected) glass recycling are alright for the environment and might happen at home.
Metal Recycling Rates - GOOD in US
Glass Recycling - OK but we can do Better
Paper Recycling - OK but we can do Better
What this article really told us is, yes, we can do better in all areas of recycling including Metal, Glass, and Paper. But what it really showed us is that plastic recycling figures are almost 1/10th of that of other materials. Now McAfee is saying we should simply bury our plastic as that's environmentally more beneficial - this may be true.
What we wanted to do though, is look deeper into the problem of recycling plastics specifically and figure out where are the problems before we drew any of our own conclusions on what should be done about them. (Our general research approach is trust, but verify).
So we started by verifying if these figures were accurate, and we found multiple sources including the EPA and National Geographic quote figures between 8.4-9% of plastic actually being recycled globally.
What we got from these Articles
We really are pathetic when it comes to recycling plastic apparently, and that 9% figure has truth to it.
Screenshot image of the article in question for reference. Full credits go to Insider.
Step 2: Identify the problem.
The next step, for us, was to answer a very important question: why is this the state of plastics recycling in America and in other parts of the world too? Properly answering the question "why" would allow us to come up with an effective solution.
Naturally, we started with Google as it's a fantastic information source. We started by looking for news articles or other pieces of work that could point us in the right direction. We think The Guardian has done the best job consolidating and delivering the information but see for yourself.
Other Resources to Consult
The New York Times
One of the first articles we came across was this article by The Guardian published in 2019, and after reading this article we realized the newspaper now has a whole series on global plastics information dug up through their own investigations.
Summary of the Article
The Article started off with many facts and figures collected by their reporters, but the main idea is that US exports a majority of its plastic waste (it does not recycle it at home) to countries that tend to manage 70% of their own plastic waste.
The Guardian says the problem started when China ended the collection of US plastic saying the plastic sent over was too dirty to be recycled and (according to Steve Wong, a Hong-Kong businessman interviewed by Guardian reporters) many countries have turned against plastic recycling after conditions in recycling plants started destroying the environment around them.
The Article describes how the US is simply sending its plastic waste other places, such as Vietnam, and it tells the story of Minh Khai, a small recycling village. The plastic waste almost covers the city producing toxic fumes and is sorted by hand by local people. Locals have no choice but to work there due to the poverty in the area.
The Guardian shows other examples from other countries, and explains that this form of recycling is only slightly cheaper than producing virgin plastic from oil (a strategy many companies adopt to avoid the mess of recycling). The article ends on stories of locals urging the US to recycle their own plastic.
What we got from this Article
This article has a lot to unpack. And in this analysis we want to present some things we found in other articles as well. We started by looking at the Chinese ban on plastic.
The Chinese banned most of plastic recycling, according to these articles and The Guardian because of the sheer volume they were getting in was much more than they could handle. And because the plastic from the US was never sorted properly, or cleaned enough for the production lines to be able to separate them for recycling. There's just too much plastic waste going to places that do not have the infrastructure to deal with them resulting in:
-
A majority of the plastic getting thrown out in landfills.
-
Environmentally un-sound working conditions for the people actually recycling the plastic.
-
Plastic piling up on beaches in developing nations causing large amounts of pollution.
We realized a few things from this research. First, that developing nations need to be relieved of the amount of plastic being sent in through their borders so that means not shipping plastic to them. Second, developing nations will need help cleaning the recycling they already have piling up in their villages. And third, both developing and developed nations need a better, more sustainable way of sorting, cleaning, and actually recycling plastic preferably at home wether that's on a local or national scale we don't know yet. After china shut its borders and as the amount of waste grew, the system we had in place broke down completely.
Also check out links on Reliable Sources
Pew Research Center - US Trusted News Sources
We went with the Guardian because it is, according to Market Watch, one of the most trusted news sources in the US, and we believe it explained the problem in a clear manner.
Screenshot image of the article in question for reference. Full credits go to The Guardian.
Another really good article that explains the problem very simply is this article from the Financial Times, published in 2018.