INSIGHT: Don’t Incinerate Waste; Get Circular, Optimize Plastics

摘要

China stopped accepting our recyclables last year, presenting U.S. cities a tough choice on how to manage plastics and other material. Mathy Stanislaus argues against incineration and advocates for a circular economy where waste and climate impacts are reduced. Our national recycling crisis has taken a dystopian turn. Since China stopped accepting our recyclable goods last year, American municipalities have been challenged with a complicated choice about how to manage a back-up of plastics and other recyclable materials: revive and expand the old-fashioned practice of solid waste incineration (a short-term fix with long-term negative consequence) or invest in a new, more sustainable future.