I spend an inordinate amount of time in my kitchen scrutinising pieces of plastic, trying to discern whether they areor not. If they are, they go into a bag alongside glass, cans, cardboard and paper. If not, or if I am unsure, I put them in a plastic bag and shove it into the cupboard under the stairs. My intention is to deposit it in a container for non-recyclable plastics in a nearby supermarket. But the road to landfill is paved with good intentions.
Whether my obsessive sorting actually makes any difference, I don’t know. I hope the recyclables do end up being. As for the other stuff, which makes up about half of my plastic waste, I have no idea of its fate. I presume it is called “non-recyclable” for a reason.With temperature records tumbling, it is only natural to worry about cascading tipping points, but the reality is far more nuanced
Hopefully, I soon won’t have to waste any more of my precious time triaging this type of waste. A suite of “advanced recycling” technologies is gradually coming on stream, promising to take used plastic of any type and convert it into something extremely useful: plastic. The goal is to create afor this material where there is no longer any need to make virgin plastic from crude oil, just endlessly recycle what we already have.