about 21% of recyclables across the us: recyclingpartnership.org/residential-recycling-re…
Comment on I'm doing my part!
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days agoIsn’t it somewhere like only 1% off the recycling stuff actually getting recycled? The rest goes to some kind of landfill to a poor country that decides to take it. I saw this in some documentary
match@pawb.social 2 days ago
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Like it’s been said that differs vastly by location. Afaik here in Germany it works quite okay … and European countries tend to have a higher incineration rate than the US. Burning the trash certainly isn’t the best solution, but at least it converts them into energy instead of just burying it somewhere.
But that aside, I like these “new” cups. It replaces part of the plastic with cardboard. That allows the plastic to be thinner, focusing on sealing it up and the cardboard handle the stability or even light protection. Though it can definitely be that there are some which are still as thick as they were, but that wouldn’t make sense for the producer. Here in Germany the plastic is often see-through and the cardboard printed on both sides. That’s usually used as advertising space, infos for waste disposal, but I’ve even seen it being used for cup noodles to mark the fill level.
Afaik paper is the thing where reycling works best currently, so it should be a win to replace plastic with paper.
The recycling rate increased in 2023. 79.3% of all paper and board consumed in Europe was recycled
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 days ago
For plastics, pretty much. The thing about plastic recycling is that it’s more expensive that making new plastic, and the recycled stuff is lower quality and unsuitable for many uses.
Metal.recycling, especially aluminum, makes economic sense and does better.