Many other countries have no problems at all separating plastics. If you want it done well in America you probably just need to add a small refundable deposit to every recyclable container. But much bigger than the inflated to nothing 5 cents of soda containers.
The issue is that recycling plastics uses quite a lot of energy in itself, so it quickly becomes a net-negative over not recycling with current technologies, especially if you use a lot of tap water and generate a lot of wastewater cleaning it.
Yeah, unfortunately that energy is currently, like plastics made from fossil fuels, so the same people paid to tell you recycling uses too much energy are the same people telling you that renewables don't work. It's almost like they want people to use more of the fossil fuels they sell.
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Many other countries have no problems at all separating plastics. If you want it done well in America you probably just need to add a small refundable deposit to every recyclable container. But much bigger than the inflated to nothing 5 cents of soda containers.
Even well sorted plastics will still have food scraps attached, except in locations where it makes environmental sense to have people wash it first.
The issue is that recycling plastics uses quite a lot of energy in itself, so it quickly becomes a net-negative over not recycling with current technologies, especially if you use a lot of tap water and generate a lot of wastewater cleaning it.
Yeah, unfortunately that energy is currently, like plastics made from fossil fuels, so the same people paid to tell you recycling uses too much energy are the same people telling you that renewables don't work. It's almost like they want people to use more of the fossil fuels they sell.