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https://www.propublica.org/article/plastics-industry-redefine-recyclable-ftc-grocery-bags>
"Is there anything more pathetic than a used plastic bag?
They rip and tear. They float away in the slightest breeze. Left in the wild,
their mangled remains entangle birds and choke sea turtles that mistake them
for edible jellyfish. It takes 1,000 years for the bags to disintegrate,
shedding hormone-disrupting chemicals as they do. And that outcome is all but
inevitable, because no system exists to routinely recycle them. It’s no wonder
some states have banned them and stores give discounts to customers with
reusable bags.
But the plastics industry is working to make the public feel OK about using
them again.
Companies whose futures depend on plastic production, including oil and gas
giant ExxonMobil, are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them
to put the label “recyclable” on bags and other plastic items virtually
guaranteed to end up in landfills and incinerators.
They argue that “recyclable” should apply to anything that’s capable of being
recycled. And they point to newer technologies that have been able to remake
plastic bags into new products.
I spent months investigating one of those technologies, a form of chemical
recycling called pyrolysis, only to find that it is largely a mirage. It’s
inefficient, dirty and so limited in capacity that no one expects it to process
meaningful amounts of plastic waste any time soon."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
