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China Won't Solve the World's Plastics Problem Any More (wired.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For a long time, China has been a dumping ground for the world's problematic plastics. In the 1990s, Chinese markets saw that discarded plastic could be profitably recreated into exportable bits and bobs -- and it was less expensive for international cities to send their waste to China than to deal with it themselves. China got cheap plastic and the exporting countries go rid of their trash.
But in November 2017, China said enough. The country closed its doors to contaminated plastic, leaving the exports to be absorbed by neighboring countries like Vietnam, South Korea, and Thailand. And without the infrastructure to absorb all the waste that China is rejecting, the plastics are piling up. Between now and 2030, 111 million metric tons of trash -- straws, bags, water bottles -- will have nowhere to go, according to a paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday. That's as if every human on Earth contributed a quarter of their body mass in mostly single-use plastic polymers to a massive, abandoned pile of garbage.
But in November 2017, China said enough. The country closed its doors to contaminated plastic, leaving the exports to be absorbed by neighboring countries like Vietnam, South Korea, and Thailand. And without the infrastructure to absorb all the waste that China is rejecting, the plastics are piling up. Between now and 2030, 111 million metric tons of trash -- straws, bags, water bottles -- will have nowhere to go, according to a paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday. That's as if every human on Earth contributed a quarter of their body mass in mostly single-use plastic polymers to a massive, abandoned pile of garbage.
No, really. The recycle process is as follows - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (in that order).
No one cares to reduce or reuse. Ok, fine. Then recycle it back to usable form of energy; burn it!
Life is not for the lazy.
SpaceX already runs a trash service. The ISS astronauts put trash into the supply capsule for disposal in the South Pacfic.
Look at the MONSTER plastic reef in the oceans. China is #1 nation with tagged plastic in it. IOW, they continue to dump their plastics into the ocean. Like CO2 and air pollution, this needs to stop. Hopefully, we will see china dumping less plastics into the oceans, while the other nations (dominantly western nations) clean up their own act.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am perhaps China's worst nightmare, outside of the great orange one. I'm fairly handy and I use "The power of Grayskull...I mean Craigslist/eBay before buying new things".
The problem is that parts availability for most old repairable things is fading fast. There is only so much welding and epoxy can do. Eventually you need repair parts and they're largely gone for the old stuff. There are exceptions (you can buy replacements for pretty much anything on a 1960s era Ford Mustang) but in most cases you're going to be SOL at some point because some stupid little $2 part breaks 30 years after the fact. When the modern equivalent can't even last 10 that makes me a saaaad panda. That said, I still have many perfectly functional mechanical things dating back to well before I was alive and electronics dating back to 1977, many of which have required no repairs ever. They just work.
No matter how many baby seals (zero) were clubbed to death to make these things how can you imagine an "environmentally friendly" modern equivalent is actually friendlier than a thing that (given a few replacement parts) will literally last forever?
That's not to say that everything lasted forever in the "before time" but you had a choice. You could buy cheap garbage or things that cost a bit more and would last. Now you can spend infinity dollars and still end up with stuff that won't last.