Styrofoam doesn't get recycled in practice. But polypropylene and PETE are extremely recyclable.
The type of plastic matters. Anyone who says "10% of plastic" is already worse than wrong. They aren't even talking about the details that matter.
koolala•44m ago
"As of 2015, less than 1% of polypropylene generated was recycled.[57] Heating degrades the carbon backbone more severely than for polyethylene, breaking it into smaller organic molecules, because the methyl side group of PP is susceptible to thermo-oxidative and photo-oxidative degradation."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropylene
dragontamer•43m ago
Woops. I seem to have gotten confused.
Polypropylene is the easily reused one that cleans off easily. So I guess that means do reuse these but don't plan on recycling.
In any case, we need to get specific about the different kinds of plastics.
koolala•26m ago
Reduce, Reuse, Rinse & Recycle would have helped too.
bryanlarsen•21m ago
Should be a "Plastic" in the headline. Lots of other products recycle very efficiently. Lead acid batteries have a >99% recycling rate, for instance.
dragontamer•49m ago
Styrofoam doesn't get recycled in practice. But polypropylene and PETE are extremely recyclable.
The type of plastic matters. Anyone who says "10% of plastic" is already worse than wrong. They aren't even talking about the details that matter.
koolala•44m ago
dragontamer•43m ago
Polypropylene is the easily reused one that cleans off easily. So I guess that means do reuse these but don't plan on recycling.
In any case, we need to get specific about the different kinds of plastics.