 |
| Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images |
Every week, millions of Americans toss their recyclables into a single bin,
trusting that their plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and cardboard boxes
will be given a new life. But what really happens after the truck picks
them up?
Single-stream recycling makes participating in
recycling easy, but behind the scenes, complex sorting systems and
contamination mean a large percentage of that material never gets a second life. Reports in recent years have found 15% to 25% of all the materials picked up from recycle bins ends up in landfills instead.
Plastics are among the biggest challenges.
Only about 9% of the plastic generated in the U.S. actually gets
recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some plastic
is incinerated to produce energy, but most of the rest ends up in
landfills instead.
So, what makes plastic recycling so
difficult? As an engineer whose work focuses on reprocessing plastics, I
have been exploring potential solutions: Read about how the system functions and how you can help improve it.
No comments:
Post a Comment