Last year a friend told me he was very excited now that he knew he could take his hard-to-recycle plastic to our local recycling company. I bit my tongue, knowing that it was probably too good to be true. At best, those plastics would end up in a landfill, but I had also heard that chemical recycling might be even worse for the environment.
Knowing the health and climate risks of chemical recycling is one thing, but knowing how to change your own behavior to reduce those risks is another entirely. The plastics “recycling” process is opaque, but so is the process that gets our waste to the facility. This Plastic Free July, I took some time to learn more about where my own plastic waste goes.
Misconceptions abound when it comes to recycling, and a new technology called “chemical recycling” is being positioned as a major win for recycling hard-to-recycle plastics. No matter their intentions for the future, most chemical recycling facilities are currently turning plastics into fuel to be burned, not recycled plastics to replace virgin plastics. Perception is everything in the court of public opinion, and information matters.
After only a week, my July has already had its share of plastic consumption, largely associated with purchases that would otherwise be considered eco-friendly. While we work to reduce the amount of plastic coming into our homes, it’s also important to understand what happens after our plastic waste once we dispose of it. In short: what do “recycling” programs actually do with all this plastic?
It was a frustrating and disappointing week at work, with some losses for public health and climate action. I told my team that “if it were easy, someone would have figured it out already.” That said, I am grateful for the opportunity to figure it out with 15 other leaders from around the world this coming year as part of the Indo-Pacific Leadership Lab.
Once I got around to demolishing the dilapidated fence around our back porch, I knew I had to get rid of it in a responsible way. Landfilling is about as antithetical to “responsible disposal” as I can imagine, but because of the chemicals in pressure treated wood, there aren’t many better alternatives. The real key is making informed choices about whatever replaces it.
How much do you know about where your plastic goes after you put it in the recycle bin? Statistically, very little of our plastic gets recycled, but that doesn’t stop us from believing that it will. This persistent perception helps keep the plastic industry growing, despite the negative environmental and health consequences related to the production and degradation of their products.
Although many families share videos of cats attacking Christmas trees, we have never seen any such behavior from our two. Most of the cat-on-tree action I’ve seen in my life has involved artificial trees, and there are multiple sources that point to why cats may prefer plastic to the real thing. In this Christmas Day post, expect some gratuitous cat photos along with researched content.
We deal with fast fashion on a regular basis in our lives, but nowhere do we see it more than at Halloween, when pop-up shops sell cheap costumes to be used a few times and thrown away. There are more sustainable alternatives that include making, thrifting, renting, or reusing costume components. Some of these options can be better for the environment, your pocketbook, or both.
Global plastics production is expected to quadruple by 2050, and that growth will require significantly more extraction of fossil fuels as feedstock. Doubling down on more fossil fuel extraction is the last thing that a warming, plastic-filled planet needs. Organizations across the world, from the United Nations to grassroots groups on the front lines are taking action to prevent the bad from getting worse.