Why I want you to recycle less
When talking about our mission as a family to cut out as much plastic as possible from our lives I generally get the same response from most people, "oh but we are really good at recycling!" I find it hard to let them know that recycling just isn’t the answer.
It’s not pointless of course. We still have some plastic in our house and when we can I ALWAYS recycle it, or if possible reuse it first but when it comes to plastic recycling just isn't the miracle cure we are told it is. According to Great Britain's Royal Statistical Society only 9% of plastic is recycled. Try and get your head around that.... the fact that 91% of all the plastic ever made is still sitting somewhere un-recycled. Unless of course it's been incinerated which is better than landfill but not great for green house gases.
Pin me for later……
Why shouldn’t we be recycling plastic?
Unlike glass and paper materials which can be infinitely recycled, plastic loses properties when it's given a new life there can only be regenerated so many times, often into a material with less market value which often are then un-recyclable. This is referred to as "downcycling".
This also depends on weather companies will actually buy the recycled products and that depends on the price of oil. If the price of oil is low it's actually cheaper to make new plastic.
We all have such good intentions when popping that plastic bottle into our green bins. However, the awful truth is it may not have another life. Either won't be recycled or it will but will end up in a landfill in its next life.
Why then, are we told recycling the answer?
Huge companies don't want us to all know this. They need to make as believe they are constantly finding the solutions, because that would be cheaper for them. Pampers for example recently claimed they are looking into ways of recycling their nappies by turning them into bottle tops. Really?!..... I won't go into all of the obstacles that would face, but what we have to remember is that it still doesn't stop that bottle top ending up in a landfill later on.
Also not taken into account here is the carbon emissions the production and transport of said nappies has already created and the carbon emissions from an intensive recycling process to make said nappies into said bottle top.
How are they going to sort poopey nappies from the rest of the recycling?I could go on and on.....
Where is our recycling going to?
Where does all of the plastic you put in your green bin with such good intentions go?... Well many of you might be surprised to hear it goes across the globe to Asia....
Up until last year when China introduced a ban on foreign waste coming into the county in a bid to increase its local industries, the UK was shipping two thirds of its waste to China and Hong Kong, equating to half a million tonnes of plastics. Much of this plastic is then deemed contaminated. This could be for a number of reasons such as food waste being mixed in, and therefore is too labour intensive to sort so is just sent to a landfill in China.
And so where did it all go once China declared we couldn't send our rubbish to them? Well it's sitting in a landfill in Malaysia.
"It’s grossly unfair for rich countries to send their plastic waste to poor countries that are already struggling to cope with their own waste problems, and the practice needs to stop" Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said.
So their sending it back... and quiet right too, it's our problem, we need to sort it.
What action can we take?
There's two things I would like you to take from this post...
1. Small Steps.
It's not plausible to cull every bit of plastic from your life today, but maybe next time you put something into your recycling bin have a think about the journey it could be about it take. Around the world and back again? To a sunny country we would love to visit? (Malaysia is lovely by the way). To a place for someone else to deal with, where the people are less privileged than us... Then think, is this something I really needed? Can I swap it for something better?
2. Make sure everything you put in your recycling bin is supposed to be there.
If it is make sure it's clean. Pin the recycling leaflet that comes through the door to your fridge, pull the cellophane off the plastic dish and give it a rinse. It may take you a few seconds longer but before you know it it's habit. Otherwise your whole bin could make it abroad only to end up in a landfill anyway because you left milk in the bottle.....
3. Instead of being proud of how much you recycle, be proud of how much less you need too.
Hannah xx
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