Some plastic and glass diverted from landfills being added to asphalt

Packaging, packaging, packaging: only 8% of plastics are recycled in the US and phthalate-laden bottled water alone makes for 1.5 million tons of plastic each year. 

In 2010 the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico brought emergency to the abuse of Earth to make plastics while ecoterrorists Halliburton, Koch Industries, and Exxon Mobil reap record profits. Some plastics can be pyrolyzed to make fuel but according to a study conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) chemical recycling is simply greenwashing and even perpetuates environmental racism.

After China instated her ban on importing waste plastics in response to the Trump Organization's destructive trade policies some communities are learning to improvise but it takes trucks, tub grinders and balers dedicated to specific materials on a regional scale to do recycling right.

New plastic is cheap. It's made from oil and gas, and it's almost always less expensive and higher quality. The result is that plastic trash has few markets — a reality the public has not wanted to hear. Today on the show, Laura Sullivan's two-year investigation into the difficult chemistry of recycling plastics. Many places offer recycling services, but only a small fraction of old plastics ever become something else. "I go into the grocery store and feel nothing but defeat, you know? You try to wrap your brain around, what do we do, right? You know, and support the deposit bills, where states will give 5 or 30 cents refunds when you bring them back. The few states that have these bills, like Michigan and Oregon, have really held down the fort for the plastic bottle recycling situation. This is a tough road, though. The plastic industry and the beverage industry have fought these bills for decades." [NPR]

Santa Fe County ships nearly all the plastic harvested from the municipal waste stream to Colorado where Denver and Boulder are among the best cities for doing recycling right. In Pueblo, Ecologic Materials Corp. is recycling shrink wrap and adding it to asphalt.

At least half a dozen states in the past few years have started pilot programs to test plastic roads, according to Melissa Savage, former program director for environment and sustainability at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. But states are monitoring closely to ensure microplastics from the new pavement aren’t leaching into waterways. Dave Condo, a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation environmental chemist, said the mix contains about 2% plastic additive, which equates to at least 150,000 single-use plastic bags. ['Plastic Roads' Are Paved With Good Intention]

Learn more at Recycling Today.

Another flagship plastic recycling firm goes down in flames. This one spent millions on machines that promised to “chemically recycle” plastic trash in Scotland. https://t.co/6NCiDtpjRq

— Laura Sullivan (@LauraSullivaNPR) November 27, 2022