Plastic’s reputation as environmentally destructive is largely unfounded. A close look at the facts reveals that plastics contribute to energy efficiency, resource conservation and waste reduction. Find out the truth and debunk some popular misconceptions about plastics and the environment.
It is a myth that plastic can't be recycled. For two decades, the plastics industry has lead the development of technology and infrastructure that allows us to recycle many plastics and has invested large sums of money to educate the community and support increased recycling. Many widely used plastics - like bottles, bags, wraps and containers - can be recycled into useful new products such as carpeting, clothing, backyard decks, office supplies, construction materials and new packaging.
Energy recovery converts solid waste into renewable energy. It is currently occurring in countries such as the United States, powering homes and businesses and helping tackle our growing population’s biggest challenges: waste diversion, energy independence and climate change.
Plastics are typically derived from petroleum or natural gas so their stored energy value is higher than other materials commonly found in the waste stream. Thus, processing plastics in modern energy recovery facilities helps other wastes combust more completely. This produces cleaner emissions and less ash for disposal.
Resource conservation means using less raw materials and energy throughout a product's lifecycle from development through disposal/recycling. For natural materials like wood, minerals and water, it usually involves efficient usage in their original application, reuse and recycling. Plastic products use all elements of resource conservation throughout their lifecycle.
The efficiency of plastics means their use enables other resources to be conserved. For example, plastic’s lightweight, durable and pliable qualities enable manufacturers to minimise the material used, energy consumed and waste generated.
Despite the continuing growth of recycling, improvements in source reduction and increases in energy recovery, some waste will always require disposal. Waste management involves properly treating material no longer in use or saleable. Items seen along roads, clogging sewers, and floating in water are the result of irresponsible human behaviour.
But plastic doesn’t degrade in landfills, right? In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills because of the lack of water, light, oxygen and other important elements. And plastic takes up far less landfill space - 2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds while 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. New landfill technologies utilise plastics' properties to make liners that prevent leachate from leaking into groundwater, thus making landfills more environmentally-friendly and safe.
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