Companies pretending plastic is recyclable is 100% a huge scam. Recycling metal and glass is great - but we've known that for a long time now and it isn't really something people argue about
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Glass is even a borderline scam. Metal is by far the best to recycle though. Corrugated cardboard is also really good for recycling, though most other paper products end up being down cycled.
Glass is, however, very well suited to reuse. My favorite cider brewery will take back used bottles to wash and reuse. It's better than recycling, and as a reminder, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is intended to be prioritized in that order.
The important thing about glass for me is that it's probably the best material to send to landfill. I mean, ideally it's reused or recycled, but glass is extremely inert. Once the sharp corners are ground down it's basically a rock.
Landfills are also ideal for plastic for basically the same reason.
But I need the cardboard for my garden! 😆
Plenty of plastics are also recyclable!
Looks like 9% of plastics are recycled globally, less in the US. source
The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.
That 9% isn't a matter of laziness. Plastics degrade in a way that takes a huge amount of energy to repair, so once they've degraded beyond a certain point they're just a pile of microplastics.
Burning degraded plastics is the most environmentally friendly way of handling it - they're worth neither the mining industry for solar panels and wind turbines to undo the damage nor the infrastructure to prevent a landfill from leaking into the environment.
Cutting plastic consumption is the most sustainable solution this side of technological utopia. We can probably squeeze a couple percent of recycling more out of it, but chemistry won't change.
Bioplastics run into the same fundamental chemical truth, so they are an extensive crop that gets some of that energy from the sun, in exchange for land use and water and pollution from farm runoff. So bioplastics are at odds with food and water security and with the local envrionment of where they're grown, on top of still costing energy by way of fertilizer and processing costs.
Plastics and oil are cheap because they're 500,000,000 years worth of stored solar and geothermal energy that we're burning through a million times faster. If we have to do the work ourselves, there is no way around it being costly.
That’s a very good comment! Thank you for your input. But maybe, just maybe, someone will figure it out (maybe)! Reducing and reusing are still the best we can do now!
May we all do our best to make it so.
I am completely gone away from plastics at all. Only natural materials ontop of my exckusively made in EU company buying restrictions. Real Leather, Flax-Clothing instead of cotton, wood, and if it has to be i choose metal.
It can get a bit pricy but knowing that these materials last longer and are way more repareable and durable, its worth it.
I am not throwing out what i already have but when it breaks and cant be repaired then its replaced with these criteria in mind.
So faar with wooden bowls, cooking feels much nicer and not going to lie, i belief it even tasts better.
This is awesome! Great to hear! 🙌🙌
it seems that personal recycling is a much better option, because then you can buy according to the material that is of most re-use for YOU and then YOU do the repair, recycle, reuse process, rather than distribution centers, where who knows what they do with it really ive been traveling for the past year or so and havent been able to store much, but i look forward to the day that i have a place to store and craft with all my own used materials ♡ this is think would be much more affective for communities: local craft shops storing recycled material for free use, a lot of places already do this with their cardboard, and will give it to anyone who asks for it
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