Today, plastic is in a lot of the products we use. The obvious products being things like water bottles, children’s toys, and containers. However, there are a myriad of products that you wouldn’t suspect contain plastic, but do. These products include: coffee cups, tea bags, and chewing gum!(Steyn 2019). 

In 2018, 35,672,800 tonnes of MSW were generated as a result of plastic production (EPA 2018. Moreover, 91% of that plastic waste produced is not recycled and is instead dumped (Parker, 2018). How does the U.S compare to the rest of the world? First, it’s only fair that America is compared to other developed countries. The reason being is that an undeveloped country may not have the same needs as a first world one. Also, the countries should be similar sizes so population needs are adjusted for. Looking at the image below, we see that the U.S recycled only a fraction of the plastic waste we produced (e.g in 2018, ~3,000,000 million tones were recycled out of the ~27,000,000 million tonnes landfilled) (EPA 2018). In Germany, for example, 48.8% of all plastic waste is recycled and in the UK it’s around 45% (Wecker 2018). This is a trend that can be seen when looking at most other developed countries in Europe, North America, and the Pacific. 

There are a plethora of monetary advantages when it comes to recycling plastic. First, a lot of other materials go into disposing of plastic waste. For example, it’s estimated that for every one ton of plastic we recycle, we can save 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of gasoline (This is plastics, 2021).  Statistics like these are indicative of a possibility of  a more sustainable economic model. Also, recycling oriented policies are advantageous because they’re effects aren’t as harsh. Things like banning plastic bags only hurts small businesses (increased costs) and low-income customers (This is plastics, 2021). Recycling things like plastic bags  doesn’t have as much of  an impact on people’s day to day lives and creates more opportunities for economic growth. Finally, in general it expands on an industry and creates more jobs. Having a recycling rate of 75% could create ~1.1 million jobs by 2030 (ecocycle, 2019). 

As previously mentioned, the United States has incredibly low rates of recycling plastic. There are a few reasons why that is. First, plastic can become contaminated which means it can’t be processed at facilities (Cho, 2020). Also, plastic has to compete with virgin plastic which is difficult because of how cheap virgin plastic is (Cho, 2020). Finally, China banned most plastic from being shipped to them. Historically, the U.S has shipped the plastic to China and they recycled it for cheap (Cho, 2020). China eventually became fed up with having to keep all of the unrecyclable plastic and banned most from being imported(Cho, 2020). This has made it more expensive for the U.S (Cho, 2020).

My suggestion would be to regulate the plastic before it’s sent over. China hasn’t said they wouldn’t take it-they just want stricter standards. If the U.S could inspect the plastic beforehand and ensure there isn’t a contaminated batch, we can strengthen our trade deals with China. 

Sources

1. Steyn,Rita(2019).”The 10 Hidden Plastics You Didn’t Know About”. Retrieved from https://www.themarinediaries.com/tmd-blog/the-10-hidden-plastics-you-didn-t-know-about 
2. Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2018).“Plastic Pollution”.Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution’
3. The Environmental Protection Agency (2018).“Facts and Figures about Materials, Waste and Recycling“.Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/guide-facts-and-figures-report-about-materials#Materials 
4. Parker, Laura (2018).“A Whopping 91% of plastic isn’t recycled”.Retrieved from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment
5. Wecker, Katharina (2018). “Plastic waste and the recycling myth”. Retrieved from: https://www.dw.com/en/plastic-waste-and-the-recycling-myth/a-45746469 
6. This is plastics (2021). “The potential of recycled plastics”. Retrieved from: https://thisisplastics.com/environment/the-potential-of-recycled-plastics/ 
7. Ecocycle (2019). “Zero Waste creates jobs”. Retrieved from: https://www.ecocycle.org/zerowaste/jobs
8. Cho, Renee (2020). “Recycling in the U.S is broken. How do we fix it?”. Retrieved from: https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/