Is it a major loss in profit or do current bottles make it impossible?
In: 5764
At least in the USA aluminum is actually super easy to recycle. And we have all the infrastructure in place to do it efficiently. So cans are your least environmental impact way to consume a beverage.
Glass bottles are sometimes recycled. But rather than take them back and wash them, it’s often easier to just smash em and melt em down and make new bottles. Also there a bit of hazard to the collectors and sorters of glass, which is why a lot of municipalities just don’t.
Plastic are just a nightmare, logistically, to recycle. You’ll notice that the bottom of a plastic item typically has the recycle logo with a number? Yeah if you don’t sort by that number it’s all going to landfill. End of discussion. There’s also a lot of those numbers (some of the most common ones as it happens) that straight up cannot be recycled. They will be in their current form, or the shredded version of it, forever.
Anyway, most plastic recycling depends heavily on government subsidies to be viable. As without governments literally paying them extra money to do it, these businesses operate at massive losses.
From most to least recyclable it goes something like:
* Metals
* Ceramics
* Plastics
* Organics
Latest Answers