Plastic Pollution Costs the Nation Billions of Dollars; Will a New Recycling Technology Divert Some of the Waste from Landfills?

Presently, plastic recycling is costlier compared to making new plastic which means, companies have little incentive to dig through landfills for recyclable materials.

As specified in a ScienceAlert report, in many ways, that's due to the petroleum products which are very cheap although their inexpensiveness is concealing deeper costs to the planet, and down the line, the economy.

According to estimates from the Department of Energy, a few years ago, in 2019, the United States sent an average cost of US$7.2 billion worth of plastic to landfills.

When considering manufacturing price, marketing, and processing all the thrashed materials, the economy's costs are substantial. Neither does that consider the environmental cost of plastic pollution.

Plastic Waste Going to Landfills

While landfills are frequently considered the most inexpensive way of disposing of waste, in many ways, that's a shortsighted method.

As specified in the recent DOE analysis, approximately 44 million tons of plastic waste were managed by both public and private firms in the US in 2019.

That is far more than the figure the US Environment Protection Agency reported, which is sitting around 32 million metric tons of plastics.

Moreover, in 2019. Researchers approximated just five percent of all that plastic was recycled. Meanwhile, roughly 86 percent went to landfills.

According to Anelia Milbrandt, an energy analyst who works at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the DOE, plastic waste is not just an environmental issue as landfills are closing in many sites. In connection to this, she asked about what could be done with all that waste and that "it has to go somewhere."

Living the waste in the landfill, she continued, is the easiest choice, although not only it is a waste of money, but a waste of a large amount of energy, as well.

Recyclables

In the entire US, samples in 2019 suggested that plastic waste contributed almost 14 percent of all municipal solid waste.

In some states such as Nebraska, North Carolina, and Kansas, the percentage of plastic waste in landfills reached 18 percent.

Of all the sampled plastic products, most fell into the classifications of plastic film, plastic bags, and plastic wrappers. Plastic bottles, on the other hand, were more likely to be recycled.

Populated states such as Florida, California, and Texas sent most plastic waste to landfills. Meanwhile, New York City sent much of its plastic waste to surrounding states for mere lack of space.

A similar Mostly Heisey report said that the authors of the DOE report expressed hope that their findings will help stimulate policy changes to promote a recycling system throughout the nation.

Ever since the recycling industry in China stopped taking the plastic waste of the US in 2018, landfills in the latter mentioned have been piling up at an alarming rate. Plastic destined initially for recycling plants has been to landfills instead.

Investing in Recycling Technology Proposed

Researchers of a new study published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling suggested that investing in new recycling technology could help divert some of the waste from the landfills.

As could more enhanced sorting strategies, so recyclable materials can be picked out most inexpensively and efficiently possible.

Milbrandt said she believes local governments and industry developers will find a benefit from this report by providing them with information to back decisions.

In the meantime, every plastic people fail to reuse or recycle represents a loss of money, energy, and opportunity.

Related information about plastic recycling technology is shown on CNBC's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Plastics in Science Times.