Since the 1950s, some 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced globally, of which only 10% has ever been recycled. Yet environmentally conscious companies and consumers continue to look to recycling as a way to ease the plastic problem. Manufacturing(制造业) giants claim to be committed to making more of their products and packaging from recycled materials. However, this confidence masks a complex web of issues around plastic recycling. Recycling rates remain extremely low and critics argue that we should look at alternative ways to tackle plastic pollution.
While many plastics have the potential to be recycled, most are not because the process is costly, complicated and the resulting product of a lower quality than the original. Despite rising demand for recycled plastic, few waste companies turn a profit. Part of this is because virgin plastic- linked to oil prices一is often cheaper than recycled plastic, meaning there is little economic incentive to use it. Worse yet, much of our plastic waste is difficult to recycle. Lightweight food packaging, like a mozzarella packet, contains different plastics, dyes(染料) and toxic additives. This dirty mix means plastic recycled through mechanical methods — the most common form — can only be melted down and moulded again a couple of times before it becomes too fragile to be reused. And the nature of the process means plastic recycling has a carbon footprint of its own.
Given all of these difficulties, environmental critics say recycling is not the solution-and argue that creating more products from recycled material to attract environmental consciousness merely worsens the problem. "The solution is to use less plastic and to stop misleading the public about the recyclability," says Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, a US campaign group with a mission to end single-use plastic. "They should stop making false claims about the recyclability of plastics since they know most will either be littered or; burned or landfilled (填埋). Using less plastics means shifting to reusable products and relying more on paper, cardboard, glass and metal — all of which should be made from recycled content."