Are you being nitpicky about “just like”? I was referring to the end result, not the process. What I meant was that plastic in a landfill will break down eventually. It will take longer in a landfill, sure. But it’s not magically kept out of the environment just because it’s in a hole.
I wouldn’t say it was nitpicky. I read your post the same way as Ruken.
How plastic breaks down is going to be part of the question. It isn’t a single process.
Micro-plastics are arguably mostly a result of mechanical damage. UV is another problem as it breaks bonds in the material resulting in loss of integrity. That can result in very fine particles. A difficult issue is the creation of very small particles when we wash clothes. These can make it into the sea or rivers, escaping even water treatment. Nylon and polypropylene are a big component of nano-plastics.
But plastics sitting in landfill are not subject to much that will create micro-plastics. Plastics are generally very stable. Mostly people worry that plastics in landfill will be there forever, and unlike most other stuff, won’t degrade.
There is some evidence of bacteria that can degrade some plastics, and given the short time we have been manufacturing plastics this is interesting. Given enough time to evolve, or enough research to create, bacteria that eat some plastics on an industrial scale may become a reality. This may or may not be a good thing. Disposing of plastic might become no harder than composting vegetables. But I doubt discovering that, for instance, your electrical insulation is subject to bacterial attack would be welcomed. Immunity to biological degradation is one reason we like plastics.
A zillion years ago there was a cute April Fool’s Day piece in a local yachting magazine that involved a tropical shrimp that ate polyester. It could reduce a nice fibreglass boat to a floppy mess you could push your hand though in a matter of weeks after infestation. Artfully done, it was just a little close for comport, especially as the whole issue of osmotic damage to GRP hulls was then a big deal. We could maybe create a new species of termite that eats polypropylene. What fun we could have.
The idea that plastics should not be recycled seems to be little more than code for - all plastics are bad, we should stop using any. Recycling being viewed as a form of green-washing the plastics industry, and thus to be attacked, no matter what benefits might accrue.
Hmm, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Apparently mealworms can eat (and metabolise) polystyrene foam.
It seems to me that the question isn’t how much plastic we use, but how much we throw away. If I have a tool with a plastic handle that I use for 50 years, is that any worse than a tool with a wooden handle that I use for the same time? And sure, sure, the plastic tool might be a source of microplastics that cause health problems, but the wooden one could be a source of microwood, too: A friend recently got a splinter from her very old and well-used hoe (which, one would think, would have been smoothened enough by now to not have splinters).
A better focus would be on reducing packaging, no matter its substance, because most packaging gets used once and then thrown away. Or possibly making packaging that’s more easily re-useable.
The plot of Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters.
Another recycling plastic “success” story:
Amazon Packages Burn in India, Final Stop in Broken Recycling System
Plastic wrappers and parcels that start off in Americans’ recycling bins end up at illegal dumpsites and industrial furnaces — and inside the lungs of people in Muzaffarnagar…
On a November afternoon, mosquitoes swarmed above plastic trash piled 6 feet high off one of the city’s main roads. A few children picked through the mounds, looking for discarded toys while unmasked waste pickers sifted for metal cans or intact plastic bottles that could be sold.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-india-plastic-recycling-pollution/
Here is the study (open access):
Recycling science marches on.
Scientists are looking for a combination of catalysts and process which will differentially decompose mixed polymers into reusable monomers.
There is a new report out about plastics being really harmful to health:
The study is at Lancet (one of the world’s oldest and most influential medical journals). It is free, but you have to register to read it.
The Lancet Countdown on health and plastics
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01447-3/abstract
Thanks for that! It’s been nearly 3 years since I posted that OP; in retrospect my question feels a bit naive. We’re much more aware of microplastics - or at least, *I* am a lot more aware - than then.
I don’t think anyone is actually really aware of microplastics yet. I mean, we know they exist, and we know that they’re found all over the place… but then what? All of the popular press seems to end with “And therefore you should be scared”. But should we? Where are the studies on the actual health problems caused (or not caused) by them?
Stranger
Ill Wind, by Kevin J Anderson and Doug Beason
Another approach which hasn’t occurred to any of us:
Cute, but it still doesn’t address either of the two big problems with plastic recycling: It’s low-density and therefore uneconomical to transport to recycling facilities, and there are a bazillion different kinds of plastic that all get mixed in together and they need to be separated before anything can be done with any of them.
Is it economical to just turn it into diesel fuel?
You have to transport it somewhere, or else it stays in the garbage bin.
One can cite some impressive-sounding statistics but there almost always turns out to be a big qualifier in there if one digs a little deeper. For example, here in Ontario two huge facilities recently opened for sorting and processing blue box recycling with a capacity of 160,000 metric tonnes annually. But this includes a mix of plastic, glass, cardboard, and aluminum and steel cans.
In total, across the whole province Ontario sorts about 140,000 metric tons of plastic waste through the recycling system, but unfortunately only about 7% to 9% of this is eventually made into finished product. This is not nothing but it’s a fairly low percentage. The rest has to be disposed of.
On the bright side, all of the single-use spring water bottles I’ve seen claim to be made from recycled plastic. AIUI PET (polyethylene terephthalate, a “type 1” recyclable plastic) which is also used for other containers including plastic soft drink and liquor bottles is an ideal recycling material because it retains its structural integrity when melted down into rPET pellets and processed into new bottles.
I’m fairly confident that the clean PET bottles I put into the blue bin actually do get recycled. Not confident about many of the other plastics, but new recycling facilities can now handle formerly ineligible items like black plastics often used for food packaging.
In many of the facilities in which the mixed recycling is sorted, people do a lot of the work, but some companies are trying to use artificial intelligence to improve efficiency. This YouTube video shows what one company is doing.