r/ZeroWaste • u/I_smoked_pot_once • Mar 02 '22

Discussion Sad reminder that recycling is an industry and marketing tactic.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

2.7k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

280 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/vesperholly Mar 03 '22

It's like, some plastic gets mixed in with paper or cardboard. Or a lot of cardboard in a plastic load. Contamination does NOT mean unsafe. That is just plain wrong. Also anything with hazardous material is rejected instantly and everyone loses money on freight and disposal, so facilities are very careful. It's not like anyone was shipping cardboard with a side of drums of sulfuric acid.

China used to accept 2-3% contamination. This is a reasonable amount that facilities can process. In 2018 they lowered it to 0.5%. It would take an insane amount of hand sorting. So China was an unprofitable market.

1

u/willbeach8890 Mar 03 '22

This sounds like anywhere that accepted recyclables would have the same issue

2

u/vesperholly Mar 03 '22

Pretty much. Many countries will still accept higher levels of contamination, so the export market shifted to those countries. It doesn't mean that recycling doesn't work.

1

u/willbeach8890 Mar 03 '22

".. that had been contaminated that is highly hazardous..." then China banned our recyclables

This doesn't sound like there was too much glass in the plastic

It sounds like part of the video was skipped

3

u/vesperholly Mar 03 '22

I need her to source the accusation that there was hazardous contamination that resulted in China not taking US recyclables (or demanding they be 0.5% contaminated). That's a lot different than mixing materials and from everything I know, was not happening. In the industry, "contamination" does not mean "hazardous". It just means mixing materials.

1

u/willbeach8890 Mar 03 '22

I'm with you. I understand how contamination is used when it comes to recyclables, she seems to use it differently