WHERE WILL ALL THE PLASTIC GO?

摘要

WE'RE LOSING THE WAR AGAINST WASTE. Although many Americans reflexively use recycling bins, less than one-third of plastics are reworkable. Even that figure is misleading, since particles like food residue can get materials rerouted to the trash. In 2017, just 8.4 percent of all plastics found new life, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The unfortunate truth is that recycling can't keep us from drowning in polymer-based refuse. For more than 20 years, Chinese companies helped hide the problem by buying about 700,000 tons of paper and plastic from the US every year. Cheap labor there meant people could sort objects, which made it simple to separate trash from treasure. In the case of tricky combos like bags full of mixed materials, for instance, workers could pull bottles from heaps of greasy takeout boxes. But in 2018, worried about the amount of sheer junk like cling wrap coming in, China banned all rubbish imports save for 99.5 percent pure plastic. Back in the US, plants are now chipping away at our mountain of garbage by improving automation. Some facilities use cameras to spot plastic bags that could tangle up sorting machines, or deploy robotic arms to shake bottles out of the irksome sacks. Others use blasts of air to separate paper from plastic based on weight. But those small tweaks won't be enough. To handle our nation's plastic trash-262 million tons a year, or 234 pounds per person, according to analysis by the global risk consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft-we'd need to increase our recycling capacity by more than tenfold.