Should I really be trying to recycle plastic waste?

bat999

Hi

Sir David Attenborough doesn't want plastic waste to go in the ocean.

And I agree with him.

There's an article here...

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/04/16/dont-overlook-the-many-benefits-of-plastics

And an archived version here...

https://archive.ph/MDXgI

In my town for domestic waste we use...

Incineration with energy recovery

aka Waste to Energy

So maybe incinerate the plastic waste instead of recycle.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

PS

There's another article but it is a very long read here...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/18/turkey-said-it-would-become-a-zero-waste-nation-instead-it-became-a-dumping-ground-for-europes-rubbish

Section62

bat999 said:

...

In my town for domestic waste we use...

Incineration with energy recovery

aka Waste to Energy

So maybe incinerate the plastic waste instead of recycle.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

...

All depends what the local council is doing with the plastic they collect for recycling.

I doubt they are dumping it in any ocean.

Whether EfW is better than recycling the plastic depends on a lot of different factors, without knowing all the circumstances applying to a particular case it is impossible to do anything but generalise.

I also think there are circumstances where landfilling good quality plastic might be better than incinerating it... future generations might be better placed to reuse/recycle plastics than we are.  Once it is burnt it is burnt for ever.

Rdwill

The incinerator is set up for a certain recipe of waste, or the CV (calorific value). Start messing about with the recipe outside certain tolerances, and the waste either burns to hot. And damages the facility, or not hot enough, and any energy / heat / steam produced to offset costs is insufficient. 

Also, the filters and exhaust air cleaning are designed to clean certain tolerances, start messing with the input recipe by adding plastics and the EA will be on your back for putting to much chlorine, and other nasties, up the stack.

Further, these plants are built for a certain throughput say of 400kts, the Council want 350kts, so the remaining 50kts is sold to commercial customers to offset the costs. You put another 30kts of plastic in the Council proportion, and now there's only 20kts to sell to offset the cost to Council model.

So, in short, if you as an individual took that decision, it wouldn't make much difference. If the population of your waste disposal area did this the Council and incinerator operator would have a serious issue. 

Hope that helps.

Green_hopeful

We have reduced our plastic massively in the last five years. We got a sodastream machine and make our own fizzy water with squash if we want it flavoured. Still buy squash but much less than soda water and fizzy drinks. We go to our local refill shop for bread and milk in glass bottles. The bread is made by a local home baker and the milk is from a local farm. Most toiletries, cleaning products and dried foods come from the refill place. Many items are cheaper from the refill shop and if we are making a recipe we take the ingredient list and they pop them in a tub or a jar. Just counting milk and water bottles we have avoided using 1500 plastic bottles in 5 years. We have a bag for life in the kitchen and anything that needs filling goes in the refill bag. I label bottles with masking tape and a sharpie. 

bat999

Rdwill said

So, in short, if you as an individual took that decision, it wouldn't make much difference. If the population of your waste disposal area did this the Council and incinerator operator would have a serious issue. 

Hope that helps.

I see.

If council abandoned plastic recycling altogether and only recycled metals and glass they would need to make adjustments to their w-to-e plant.

(Cardboard and paper has a different wheeliebin)

mjm3346

Waste of time and makes almost no difference when set against the attitude now in the USA - best value is what counts - we would have a stronger economy and be more self-sufficient for energy if we were still using coal fired power stations  

Grenage

mjm3346 said:

Waste of time and makes almost no difference when set against the attitude now in the USA - best value is what counts - we would have a stronger economy and be more self-sufficient for energy if we were still using coal fired power stations  

Yeah, love breathing in all those emissions...

Rdwill

If the Council abandoned plastic recycling there would need to be major changes to the plant and cost model.

Albermarle

When recycling plastic the ideal situation is where a product can be made ( a new plastic pellet) that can then be made into something useful. The main technical issue with recycling is that there are a lot of different types of plastic, and most do not mix very well together so separation of the recycling mix is critical and very difficult.
Even when technically possible it can be difficult to make the operation economic. In simple terms it can be cheaper to buy new plastic pellets to make the end article than use recycled ones.
In practice some plastic articles lend themselves to recycling more than others.
Milk 'bottles'; fizzy drink bottles' clear plastic food trays, or similar clear hard plastic packaging recycle well.
Anything that is multi layer ( food/drink pouches) or 'soft' or thin film or expanded/foamed is very difficult and is best burnt.

Newbie_John

There's a lot of gimmickness about plastic recycling.

Shoes made of recycled plastic.. lovely but can you recycle them? No, they go to landfill. So what's the point really?

Sending plastic abroad to be dumped or burned in a very ploouting way.

Incineration is as bad as coal power plant, but "reuses" the plastic.

Honestly, the only way forward is to either buy less plastic or just buy less - as everything has plastic somewhere (packaging, bottle, buttons, threads, wrapping, envelopes..).

bat999

Hi

My town doesn't have a landfill site.

So my intention is...

In Recycling wheeliebin metals and glass sent to separation centre.

Then..

Metals forwarded to steelworks (or a broker).

Glass forwarded to glassworks (or a broker).

In Waste wheeliebin paper and plastic and everything else used as fuel in W-to-E incinerator.