LogFAQs > #891144966

Rockies posted...

I agree. I should have said near-necessity... I mean, they are somewhat justifiable, but there are certainly better alternatives.

What kind of beverages do you buy then? Just cans and glass bottles? All three are recyclable, does it just take more effort to recycle and make plastic? Actually I'm sure it takes more resources to make it, but I'm not sure about recycling for any of them

I buy paper cartons (non-dairy milk, juices), glass, and the occasional cans. Plastic can only be recycled so many times and it is quite polluting to do so--we should simply not be using that much plastic to begin with. Most of it does not end up recycled.

http://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2015/8/23/the-myth-of-the-recycling-solution

In the U.S., 93 percent of plastics are NOT recovered (put in plastic recycling bins). These go straight to landfills. PET bottles that have a redemption value (cash value) fare a bit better; yet 62 percent are NOT recovered, according to EPA data.

How big is the problem? How much waste is generated by single-use plastic bottles?

Artist Chris Jordan offers the following visualizations. Imagine eight football fields covered thickly with plastic bottles. This is equivalent to the number of plastic beverage bottles discarded in the U.S. every five minutes. Now imagine a line of plastic water bottles going around the planet five times. This would be equivalent to the number of plastic bottles discarded every week in the U.S., just for water!

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