It’s time to stop misleading consumers about recycling | Hacker News Reader

It’s time to stop misleading consumers about recycling

latimes.com

8 pointsSmkyMt5 comments

"The symbol was created in 1988 by the plastics industry with the good intention of conveying helpful information to consumers about what items could be recycled. But it went off the rails pretty quickly when package makers started plastering the symbol on just about anything, whether it could be recycled or not. The result is that consumers are optimistically filling up recycling bins with things that have no hope of being recycled, and making it difficult and more costly for recycling facilities to sort."

I never knew the symbol was created by the plastics industry.

The recycling numbers are problematic in many ways.

One of them is that any new plastic, which could be superior in degradation recyclability, will inevitably be put into group 7 together with the thermosets. For instance,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid

can be made from biological sources, is compostable and chemically recyclable.

I think of it more as a "non-organic trash". Ie easy to separate from food waste, and take out when full vice when stinky!

Nitpick: technically, plastics are considered organic compounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound#Modern_classi...:

“The modern meaning of organic compound is any compound that contains a significant amount of carbon—even though many of the organic compounds known today have no connection to any substance found in living organisms. The term carbogenic has been proposed by E. J. Corey as a modern alternative to organic, but this neologism remains relatively obscure.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic:

“Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Plastics are also considered organic materials, like wood, paper, or wool.”

You're right - good point! Confusing/wrong terminology on my part.

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