without degrading in quality.
I didn’t say it can. You can still recycle it, just not into the same product.
Comment on Costco changed the bag to plastic!!
ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 3 weeks agoNo. This is a myth perpetuated by huge companies who create a lot of single use plastic.
There isn’t a type of plastic in existence that can be recycled without degrading in quality. A plastic bottle cannot be used to create a new bottle. This is why less than 5% of plastic waste is actually recycled.
FelixCress@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Into what? Scotch tape? 2 by 4’s for decking material? One can only make so much of those things before the low demand is met.
Like I said, almost none of it gets recycled because the resulting products are too weak. Not only that, but plastic “recycling” is one of the primary ways that micro plastics get into our bodies.
altphoto@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
They should use it as filler for potholes. Fibers would composite into stronger flexible quieter roads…or sobI dare to guess.
ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I would think that could work from a structural point of view, but they would have to seal it somehow to prevent more microplastics from being created. Plastics aren’t often used as a building material because of toxic off-gassing, but of course this would be outside which would mitigate the issue.
Asphalt is one of the most recyclable materials in existence, when they tear up an asphalt road they just melt it down and pour it back on. If there was plastic involved it would probably interrupt this process.
But I’m not expert. Maybe it would work.
tyler@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
That’s just categorically false. Trash Panda Disc Golf does a video on just that myth. The problem with recycling has nothing to do with degradation. It has to do with economics. New plastic is cheap. Reusing plastic isn’t.
ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Uh huh. I have also watched videos and read articles supporting what I just said. Scotch tape is a great example because it’s so brittle… almost useless for any application other than temporarily taping paper to something. It shows how weak plastic gets when it’s recycled.
tyler@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Trash Panda isn’t an article, they’re a disc golf manufacturer that solely uses recycled plastic. They’ve tested with recycling the exact same plastic more than ten times. And I have no clue what you are talking about with scotch tape, it’s literally designed to be tearable, just like the Costco bag in the picture….
ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Okay, so this one frisbee company disputes the countless articles published with sources about how plastic degrades when it’s recycled and… you expect me to just go with that instead of NPR articles.
I doubt the demand for frisbees is high enough to be an encompassing solution for our plastic problem, but I like the idea.