<story><title>Chemists tackle the tough challenge of recycling mixed plastics</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2023-04-chemists-tackle-tough-recycling-plastics.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>culi</author><text>In some cities garbage workers are intstructed to take a look at a recycling bin beforehand. If they see a single plastic bag they dump the whole thing with the landfill pile. Same for &amp;quot;compostable plastic bags&amp;quot;. Bags break really expensive machinery regularly and are probably one of the single worst things you could throw away&lt;p&gt;There are so many gaps like these in the public&amp;#x27;s understanding of how recycling works (and doesn&amp;#x27;t!) and the reality. Mixed plastics are useless; you need to wash your dirty plastics; the triangle doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it&amp;#x27;s recyclable it&amp;#x27;s there to tell you what type of plastic it is (usually only 1, PET, and 2, HDPE, are recyclable). These are the very basics of recycling that, from my experience, the majority of people don&amp;#x27;t understand. It would take literally 10 minutes to explain most of this to people&lt;p&gt;We keep bending over backwards trying to innovate our way towards making recycling really behave like the magic green plastic&amp;#x2F;paper eating box people imagine it to be but I feel like we&amp;#x27;d get so much more return on investment if we spent a fraction of our investments on simple public education. At least at this point where that latter investment is basically nil in most places</text></comment>
<story><title>Chemists tackle the tough challenge of recycling mixed plastics</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2023-04-chemists-tackle-tough-recycling-plastics.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>IvyMike</author><text>I think all packaging material should be taxed by weight, but with a multiplier that corresponds to the amount of that type of material which is actually recycled.  Glass is heavy, but the data shows that 90% of it is recycled?  The tax is 90% off.&lt;p&gt;This would do three things:&lt;p&gt;1) Encourage manufacturers to use materials which are actually recycled.
2) Encourage manufacturers to reduce total material.
3) Encourage manufacturers to invest in new methods of recycling to move the multiplier in their favor.</text></comment>