If you have all plastic of the same kind, it's much better to recycle it.
If you have garbage of all different kinds, this technique is useless.
Everyone with basic scientific literacy already knows you can do this. But it doesn't solve any problem, let alone "the most intractable problem of our time" or whatever.
This whole article is just linkbait written by interns to scam more ad impressions off of dumb people. Wired has truly learned much from the Reddit acquisition.
A lot of plastic recycling isn't recycling - it's downcycling. Plastic bottles become carpet becomes landfill fodder. It just delays the inevitable.
A lot of this has to do with the dyes used in plastics manufacturing. It also has to do with the limited mutability of most plastics - the quality of the plastic after one cycle of recycling (in this example, plastic bottle -> carpet) is reduced. Once it's turned to carpet, it becomes difficult to recycle this again due not only to this reduction in quality, but also because it becomes difficult to remove the plastic carpet material from the carpet backing. Attempting to recycle it again would result in a further inferior product - and it would be much more expensive (diminishing returns).
I'll say it again: Recycling as we know it is downcycling. It's good, in that it reuses the raw materials - but only for so many cycles. Eventually it ends up in the landfill.
The only true solution would be to manufacture consumables as if they're in a closed ecosystem - either able to easily be reused, or easily put into the natural ecosystem. Read "Cradle to Cradle" by William McDonough for more information (the book itself is printed on special infinitely recyclable plastic paper; the ink can be removed by boiling the book).
He founded and is CEO of a world wide carpet company. He figured out how to effectively recycle his carpets and how to reduce the amount of petroleum in the production. He now controls almost the entire life cycle of his carpets and manages to keep a tremendous amount of waste out of the landfill. Which is good, mainly because his business was responsible for a lot of that landfill.
As a nice side note, it was his attention to waste and his drive for seeing his company achieve sustainability (he defines it as not taking anything from the earth that cannot be easily replenished) that saved his business from probable collapse during the crash of 2001/2002.
Comments
If you have all plastic of the same kind, it's much better to recycle it.
If you have garbage of all different kinds, this technique is useless.
Everyone with basic scientific literacy already knows you can do this. But it doesn't solve any problem, let alone "the most intractable problem of our time" or whatever.
This whole article is just linkbait written by interns to scam more ad impressions off of dumb people. Wired has truly learned much from the Reddit acquisition.
A lot of plastic recycling isn't recycling - it's downcycling. Plastic bottles become carpet becomes landfill fodder. It just delays the inevitable.
A lot of this has to do with the dyes used in plastics manufacturing. It also has to do with the limited mutability of most plastics - the quality of the plastic after one cycle of recycling (in this example, plastic bottle -> carpet) is reduced. Once it's turned to carpet, it becomes difficult to recycle this again due not only to this reduction in quality, but also because it becomes difficult to remove the plastic carpet material from the carpet backing. Attempting to recycle it again would result in a further inferior product - and it would be much more expensive (diminishing returns).
I'll say it again: Recycling as we know it is downcycling. It's good, in that it reuses the raw materials - but only for so many cycles. Eventually it ends up in the landfill.
The only true solution would be to manufacture consumables as if they're in a closed ecosystem - either able to easily be reused, or easily put into the natural ecosystem. Read "Cradle to Cradle" by William McDonough for more information (the book itself is printed on special infinitely recyclable plastic paper; the ink can be removed by boiling the book).
This reminds me of a ted talk by Ray Anderson on "the business logic of sustainability". http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/547
He founded and is CEO of a world wide carpet company. He figured out how to effectively recycle his carpets and how to reduce the amount of petroleum in the production. He now controls almost the entire life cycle of his carpets and manages to keep a tremendous amount of waste out of the landfill. Which is good, mainly because his business was responsible for a lot of that landfill.
As a nice side note, it was his attention to waste and his drive for seeing his company achieve sustainability (he defines it as not taking anything from the earth that cannot be easily replenished) that saved his business from probable collapse during the crash of 2001/2002.
Ray Anderson is one of the very few people at the top with an amazing sense of ethics. Quite a man.
It still depends on what the plastic decomposes into in the landfill. If this kid has helped solve that problem then it is still a step forward.
That's my point exactly.