Plastics

  For many people, the effort to recycle is somewhat engrained, even as we walk by full trashcans in stores and watch our trash trucks become so full that they have to make two or more trips to the dump just to pick up that week's trash.  Each week my wife and I dutifully come close to filling our large 60-gallon recycling bin, which is a sad commentary on just how much packaging is simply excessive and quickly tossed away (thank heavens the dreaded CD jewel box and its resulting packaging steps is slowly fading into the sunset).  My veggie burgers now come loose in a simple plastic wrap vs. being individually wrapped and then encased in a paper box; but think of how many paperboard boxes (cereal, crackers, cookies, and on and on) are simply heaved out once you're home, if only to make space in your pantry.  And even with the best of intentions, the awareness of just how to recycle and what can be recycled has a far way to go (waxed meat paper? pizza containers? wet bags? batteries?).  I see my neighbors conscientiously place their collection of recyclables, all neatly placed in drawstring plastic bags, into their recycle bin, unaware that all of it --ALL of it-- will be discarded once it reaches the recycling facility since they simply cannot process the soft, flexible plastic material that jams up their equipment (grocery stores and others will take those soft plastics, all of which can indeed be recycled).  The tiny space allotted for the recycling company in our monthly city bulletin emphasizes what they can and cannot take; simple requests really such as keeping the lids on the bins closed so that the snow and rain doesn't contaminate what's inside (wet items, as well as greasy items, are simply discarded...it's said that a single pizza box can ruin an entire batch of recycled paper, and wet cardboard, well imagine trying to chop up wet paper and you get the idea).  The plastic bag thing has been mentioned over and over but a quick peek at any Costco or grocery store will reveal that our usage of plastics to bag anything and everything is quickly outpacing our recycling efforts (and full disclosure, I still use such bags to pick up my dogs' poop as I walk them).  From airlines to restaurants to homes, it is just more convenient to line a trash container with a plastic bag, gather everything together then seal it off (which makes it even more difficult for decomposition) and toss it into the bin and resulting landfill.  Out of sight, out of mind...hmm, time to grab another (plastic) bottle of water. 

   But not you, you say, for your state or country has long ago banned plastic bags and you do your part to make sure that the word sustainable is part of your vocabulary.  And bravo, for you are part of a growing population trying to and indeed making a difference (think if you and others did not recycle and how much that would add to our waste stream).  Despite all of that, the numbers are surprisingly low...worldwide, our recycling rate of plastics is just 17% which means that 83% of plastic is ending up elsewhere and unfortunately, that means everywhere.  Our deepest part of the ocean has revealed our plastic waste settled there as well as in the bellies of birds and and fish and our furthest points of the planet.  How bad is it?  So bad that China announced a ban on much of our recyclables (the U.S. used to ship 4000 shipping containers per day of recyclables to China) due to well, such things as greasy pizza boxes and plastic bags (their new regulations, effective at the beginning of this year, prohibit "24 types of solid waste, including various plastics and unsorted papers"), all of which has left U.S. recyclers scrambling (Japan used to be one of the largest buyers of our recycled paper and cardboard, most of which was used as fuel to burn; the state of Hawaii burns much of it waste, including plastic, for fuel as well); don't get too smug if you're in the UK as 87% of your recycled plastic also went to China.  But let's face it, plastics are everywhere (the effort to get those nano and microbead plastics out of cosmetics is gaining ground, but that industry is massive and efforts to have cosmetic manufacturers reveal their ingredients continues to fail in most of the world's governments...did I mention that those nano particles, that is, those plastic particles, go directly into the bloodstream?).  In a recent story in the London Review of Books, they began their piece with this: The oceans are awash with plastic.  According to one study from 2015, 90 per cent of seabirds have it in their gut.  Another study indicates that a third of the fish caught in UK waters have it in theirs.  Unless something changes, it is estimated that by 2050 there will be a greater weight of plastic in the seas than fish.

   So jump over to the other side, the big recycling side that wants to do the right thing and invests a ton on money to collect and sort and repackage and re-sell the materials.  Our county mentioned that each recycle bin costs it $60 per home, a charge passed onto us (and the charge billed to us if we wish to have a second or third container) and that it takes an average of a year to recover that cost.  But all of that hinges on the market valuation for such recycled material.  Locally, our recycled glass market vanished as glass was so plentiful (not so much anymore as silica and sand itself is getting more and more difficult to acquire) that such things as adding crushed glass to asphalt (those sparkly things you used to see when driving) and remanufacturing brown beer bottles simply became impractical.  Part of this is also convenience.  Researchers discovered that if you make it easy to recycle then the rate of recycling goes up.  Remember those days of big recycling bins that asked you to separate your papers from your glossy magazines, and to toss in only plastics with a certain number.(generally PET #1 and HDPE #2 which are the main packaging choices for beverages and such)..gone.  And just as with glass, the separation thing just didn't work so the bins basically became green-blue-black (or however your area does it), the green taking green waste (but not dog or cat poop), the blue for anything you felt was recyclable, and the black for everything else you just wanted to heave out (dog poop, as an example); glass is usually picked up separately -- the recycling of glass used for packaging is itself similar to paper in that it is generally recycled only so many times due to involuntary mixing with lower quality glass such as crystal, Pyrex and lightbulbs which all use a different production process.  Sorting of the items to be recycled became the responsibility of the collection facility (San Francisco's facility is a marvel to behold).  Glass of all colors got mixed (our collection facility takes it to a cement factory, among other places), and the same happened with papers and cans and hard plastics (in San Francisco, even wood pallets are recycled which proved a challenge due to the specialized nails used in making the pallets).  And then there are the financial penalties ranging from stores charging to purchase a bag (say for groceries) to the heavy fines now imposed in Kenya if you're caught "selling, making, or carrying them" (as high as $19,000!).

   So is there light at the end of the tunnel?  For Europe, maybe. but it doesn't look good for the rest of the world (see graph).  What about recycling those CDs (limited), VHS tapes and cassettes (no), leftover Trex decking (no) and other questionable items?  Let the recycling centers sort it out or send it to the landfill?  As long as we accept the enormous amount of excess packaging, our plastic usage will likely continue to rise.  Plastics are everywhere -- much of your car is now plastic which has saved a lot of weight (I learned this when my mother hit a small parking barrier and the repair shop just popped her collapsed bumper back out with their hand as if it were a piece of sturdy rubber (rubber and plastic are similarly bonded with the same polymer; this can be evidenced in the standard tire on your car which is just 40-60% rubber).  Or you may have noticed the shortage of something as simple as those saline drip dispensers used in hospitals (a majority of them were manufactured in Haiti and the hurricanes that hit earlier this year devastated the production facility...and of course, hospitals use an enormous amount of plastic, all of which has to be properly disposed of to avoid spreading disease; this is regulated but sometimes not enforced as reported by Wikipedia on what happens in some parts of the world: In India, though there are a number of different disposal methods, the situation is desultory and most are harmful rather than helpful...It is often found that biomedical waste is dumped into the ocean, where it eventually washes up on shore, or in landfills due to improper sorting or negligence when in the medical facility.  Improper disposal can lead to many diseases in animals as well as humans.  For example, animals, such as cows in Pondicherry, India, are consuming the infected waste and eventually, these infections can be transported to humans who consume their meat or milk.)  Enter the worms...

   Scientific American gave a glimmer of hope in the race to break down this petroleum feast of ours (plastics are a petrochemical) and it came in the form of moths and their larvae.  Said the piece: Researchers in Spain and England recently found that the larvae of the greater wax moth can efficiently degrade polyethylene, which accounts for 40 percent of plastics.  The team left 100 wax worms on a commercial polyethylene shopping bag for 12 hours, and the worms consumed and degraded about 92 milligrams, or roughly 3 percent, of it.  To confirm that the larvae's chewing alone was not responsible for the polyethylene breakdown, the researchers ground some grubs into a paste and applied it to plastic films.  Fourteen hours later the films had lost 13 percent of their mass -- presumably broken down by enzymes from the worms' stomachs.  That would be a lot of worms, even though the researchers admit that they're looking at more of an industrial application and not the production of tons of worms.  Maybe the decision rests with us and not with a flurry of moths...cut down our use of plastic.  It's a consciousness change, a fall back to the classic phrase: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...only this time, the emphasis may be simply on the first word, reduce.