Plastic Recycling: Where Our Plastic Waste Could End Up In

Despite the knowledge that plastic recycling isn’t the solution to our plastic pollution crisis, I still recycle plastic containers. The reason is simple. Recycling is better than landfilling/burning.

However, whenever I recycle, I do it with fingers crossed. After writing about the inadequacies of recycling plastic, I don’t have faith in the recycling process at all. Yes, I put them in a bin, and someone collects it, but I don’t know what happens afterward.

After all, the recycling process is long and complicated and produces an inferior product. Recently, I came across an article* that confirmed my suspicions.

*AFRICA’S EXPLODING PLASTIC NIGHTMARE: As Africa Drowns in Garbage, the Plastics Business Keeps Booming

Ever thought about what happens to the plastic we put out for recycling?

In an ideal world (or our imagination), the plastic goes to a recycling center. At the center, they’re washed and sorted, processed into flakes, then shipped off to be molded into other products.

The real world is different.

Recycling plastic is way more complicated than we imagined. There are so many different types of plastic in different colors all jammed up in an inefficient recycling process. How are thousands of shampoo bottles made with three different types of plastic and a metal spring recycled? How do they sort the different types and sizes of plastic waste to avoid contamination? It is a difficult process.

Until 2018, about half of the world relied on China to process its plastic waste. When China banned the import of plastic, countries around the world found themselves stranded with huge quantities of plastic waste. They included the United States, Japan, Australia, and countries in Europe.

So, what happened to the plastic we put in our recycling bins these days?

Where does our plastic waste go?

Depending on your location, the plastic you put out for recycling could go to a recycling center, a waste-to-energy plant, an incinerator, a landfill, or another country.

A considerable amount of our plastic waste is exported because most countries lack the recycling capacity to process their large amounts of plastic waste.

After China stopped accepting “plastic recyclables”, some countries have been shipping their plastic waste to poorer countries. These poorer countries can barely deal with their own plastic waste, let alone process millions of tonnes of plastic from other countries.

In 2019, America exported 1.5 billion pounds of plastic waste to 95 countries. Some of them include Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Ethiopia, Senegal, Mexico, Jamaica, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Some of them sent the plastic waste back, some shipped them off to even poorer countries, but some can’t afford to move them anywhere and found themselves stuck with the mountains of trash.

Plastic is bad news

The truth is, no one wants plastic waste. In addition to the lack of recycling capacity, plastic recycling causes environmental and health issues and isn’t even very lucrative. After all, recycled plastic is weaker and no match for the stronger and cheaper virgin plastic. And plastic waste is often so contaminated most of it isn’t usable anyway.

So plastic waste end up in the poorest nations. There, locals (including children) will pick through the mountains of waste to salvage recyclable plastic for very little money. These mountains don’t just contain plastic, there is literally garbage mixed into the pile too. Broken glass, rotten food, and feces, etc, they’re all in there. It’s a difficult, dirty, and dangerous job that doesn’t pay well.

Whatever has no value is either dumped or burned openly, releasing toxic chemicals into the air and the ground. Kids and adults alike breathe in the toxic fumes and drink water contaminated by chemicals.

Where plastics are recycled, the poorly regulated recycling process causes health issues to workers and people living in the area.

I hate that plastic I tried to recycle may have ended up endangering the lives of children living in poverty. I hate that my convenient lifestyle has taken a lot of beauty out of their lives, but that’s the truth.

A protective treaty

Thankfully, there is good news. In May 2019, 187 countries signed an international treaty during the Basel Convention to govern hazardous waste. There was an amendment in the treaty to severely restrict the export of plastic waste to member countries, which include most of the world. The amendment passed and will take effect in January 2021.

Though it wouldn’t prevent the creation of plastic waste or regulate corporations’ use of plastic in their products, it prevents richer countries from sending their plastic trash to poorer ones. That’s a win!

The implication

I’m not sure how well the treaty will be enforced, but I think some of us will start seeing impacts of the treaty in little ways. Maybe our municipal will stop accepting certain types of plastic, or all plastic. Maybe more of our plastic waste will go to waste-to-energy plants or landfills.

On the other hand, maybe we’ll see more initiatives to discourage the use of single-use plastic packaging.

Maybe it’ll force governments to impose stricter regulations on how corporations package their products or fund more research on plastic alternatives. After all, they can’t just ship plastic off and turn it into someone else’s problem anymore.

Recycling plastic is not a solution

Businesses profiting off products sold in single-use plastic packaging, or even mass-produced polyester clothes, know about the problems. They’re slow to come up with solutions, preferring instead to push recycling as a viable solution, but it isn’t.

In 2015 alone, we produced 381 million tonnes of plastic globally. 6 million tonnes would’ve been produced by four of the world’s biggest consumer goods companies: Coca-cola, Mars, Nestle, and Danone.

Even if we build the infrastructure to recycle most of our plastic waste, would the world use the millions of tonnes of weakened recycled plastic that costs more than virgin plastic?

Recycling plastic isn’t a solution. If recycling plastic was such a great business, China wouldn’t have banned plastic imports. It wasn’t worth the environmental damage it causes. The only way out of the plastic pollution problem is to reduce its use.

But it’s difficult when corporations continue to push sales without changing their product packaging. They aren’t giving up on plastic packaging because they’re so cheap and efficient. So these businesses continue to profit off of our desire for convenience at the expense of the environment and humans’ health with little or no consequences.

Promising to increase their recycling rate wouldn’t help. They need to change the way they package their products.

What we can do

As consumers, we aren’t responsible for a product’s packaging design. However, we’re responsible for choosing and using the product. Consumer goods companies are at fault for making products with excessive plastic waste, but we have the choice to buy something more sustainably packaged. I mean, just look at the zero-wasters!

I’m definitely one of the guilty ones, and I can’t wait for the day when businesses are legally required to consider sustainability in their products’ packaging. Maybe I’m optimistic, but I think we can hasten the arrival of that day. Consumers have the power to shape the supply because we create the demand.

Keep talking about it, keep thinking about it, and keep choosing products with more sustainable packaging.

There are many ways we all can reduce plastic waste. We have to keep trying. Because somewhere in the world, a child is looking for “good plastic” she can sell for 5 cents a kilogram (2.2 lbs) on top of a hill of plastic we thought we recycled.

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Postscript

Did you read the story I posted the other day? This is the reason I wrote that story. It annoys me so much that developed countries have been trying to ship their trash to developing or underdeveloped countries.

And then they criticize third world countries for letting plastic wash into the ocean. Yes, these countries need to work on treating their wastewater, but a significant portion of the trash originated from developed nations.

I think it’s so important we realize that earth is a shared space. Its humanity’s home. No matter where we ship the trash to, one day, we’ll have to face the repercussions. Well, climate change is already happening.

Besides, it’s wrong to push our trash to someone else, especially knowing full well they can’t handle it.

We have to stop being dicks, really. Ultimately, that trash is humanity’s trash – our trash. We should handle it together, or we’ll end up like the Family and the Cousins. We’ll lose the only home we have.