Re:All plastic waste could be recycled into new plastic: res...
by marcosdumay on Saturday October 19, 2019 @05:13PM
(#21300810)
> Why did you jump to the claim that landfills are the only environmental concern for plastics?
Because you can only recycle plastic that is collected. And the alternative destiny for collected trash is a landfill.
New recycling technology will do absolutely nothing to any of those other problems you pointed.
Re:All plastic waste could be recycled into new plastic: res...
by inimino on Saturday October 19, 2019 @08:51PM
(#21301658)
You quoted a line about the persistence of plastic being a major environmental problem, and said "Not really."
If what you meant to say was that recycling is only a solution for plastics that are currently going to landfills, that's a different discussion, but it's not what you said.
Re:All plastic waste could be recycled into new plastic: res...
by marcosdumay on Saturday October 19, 2019 @10:03PM
(#21301919)
Maybe you want to read the OP again, because he says exactly that, with all letters, while you and the GP come with your tone-death comments.
There is plastic in our biological waste: https://time.com/5431668/microplastics-human-waste-study/
There is plastic in some of the most remote places on the planet: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/15/713561484/microplastic-found-...
There are microplastics in our soil: https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/plastic...
And the ecological impacts of this are only beginning to be researched: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/12/worms-fa...
It used to be thought that the only evidence of humanity that might still be visible on Earth in a million years is a thin layer of slightly radioactive material around the globe, a result of nuclear weapons testing. Now we have written another, even more obvious and long-lasting signature into the planet: a thin layer of plastic pollution that in all likelihood will outlast anything resembling modern humans. (And I say that with an overall optimism about the lifespan of modern humanity.)