{"id":6878,"date":"2021-07-16T05:19:26","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T12:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/?p=6878"},"modified":"2021-07-16T05:36:23","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T12:36:23","slug":"organic-chemistry-the-problem-with-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/2021\/07\/16\/organic-chemistry-the-problem-with-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Organic Chemistry:  The Problem with Plastic"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>How is plastic recycled?<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7CKJNXnKsXY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/h1>\n<div class=\"text-left article-content\">\n<h3>THE DYSFUNCTION OF PLASTICS RECYCLING<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-left article-content\">\n<h3>Plastics recycling, as it exists today, is a mess. In 2015, the US recycled only 9.1% of the 31 million t of plastics that consumers threw out, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The vast majority ended up in either landfills or incinerators. In contrast, two-thirds of paper, a third of metals, and a quarter of glass were recycled that year. In the European Union, about 14.8% of the roughly 27 million t of plastic waste was recycled in 2016, according to the European Commission.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<h4><strong>Plastics recycling is a battle against entropy. Consumers throw plastics of all sorts into curbside bins, where they get mixed with metal and glass. From this assorted waste, recycling facilities use optical sorters to pluck out only the most valuable plastics for reuse.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4><strong>Recycling facilities are most interested in PET beverage bottles and high-density polyethylene containers like milk jugs\u2014plastics numbers 1 and 2, respectively. They are relatively clean and homogeneous materials, and recyclers handle enough of them to make extraction worthwhile. Secondary processors wash, melt, and repelletize them for reuse.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<div class=\"text-left article-content\">\n<h4>Some of the other residual plastics\u2014polypropylene yogurt cups and multilayer plastic pouches, for example\u2014are baled and carted off to processors that attempt to extract additional plastics of some value. But most go to landfills.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-left article-content\">\n<p>Even desirable number 1s and 2s that are sorted out of curbside streams are difficult to recycle. They are contaminated with food and grime. Not all plastics with the same name and number are actually the same: the PET used in a takeout container is different from that used in a water bottle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-left article-content\">\n<p>For all these reasons, plastics are usually downcycled into applications with less-exacting specifications than what the virgin materials were designed for. A soda bottle doesn\u2019t become a soda bottle again; it is made into a carpet or a fleece vest. In its next incarnation, the milk jug becomes the inner layer of a detergent bottle.<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.agilyx.com\">Agilyx: \u00a0Link to Company<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ajIiAk6wUkY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>How is plastic recycled at your school?<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qReQVOhRNpo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/h2>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/plastics.americanchemistry.com\/How-Plastics-Are-Made\/\">How are plastics made? Link to American Chemical council<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How is plastic recycled? \ufeff\ufeff THE DYSFUNCTION OF PLASTICS RECYCLING Plastics recycling, as it exists today, is a mess. In 2015, the US recycled only 9.1% of the 31 million t of plastics that consumers threw out, according to the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/2021\/07\/16\/organic-chemistry-the-problem-with-plastic\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6878"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6878"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6890,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6878\/revisions\/6890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/ignasv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}