THE REALITY OF RECYCLING

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I realize everyone thinks the same way I did. Recycling is the process of taking plastic, metal, paper and glass to a single facility to sort. Transport each to a nice clean facility to use to create new products from the waste. This would logically reduce dependence on new resources as well as prevent these toxic products from entering the environment where they poison land, water and air. Supposedly saving resources for new materials and reducing toxins in the environment from toxic consumer waste.

Well, shit... Nope. That's not what 'recycling' means at all. Just an illusion, like everything else. A mental image created using bullshit spewed by government agencies and the media, including social media. The costs the United States claims are related to 'recycling', are simply costs of gathering the recyclable material and paying countries that do not have, or simply ignore, dumping regulations to take the toxic waste.

Here's the flow of how post-consumer toxic waste is 'recycled'...

Developed countries create the overwhelming majority of toxic plastic waste. The United States alone piles up around 35 million tons per year. Followed by India with 26 million tons and China with 22 million tons. Of the 8 BILLION tons of plastics created since 1950, less than 10% of the toxic plastic waste is recycled. Most is shipped out of wealthy countries, such as United States and United Kingdom, and dumped in poor countries without means to properly process the toxic waste. Mountainous piles of dumped toxic plastic waste biodegrade and release toxic gasses that poison the air in addition to microplastics and toxic chemicals that poison soil and water as the plastics break down. Much of the toxic plastic waste developed countries pay poor countries to dump simply falls, or is dumped, into oceans, seas and other waterways.

In the countries the United States pays to take the toxic waste, I mean recyclable material, the offgassing, biodegrading material leaches from dump piles into groundwater, basically rendering the water toxic. Deteriorating recyclable waste dumped in waterways poisons the water with toxic plasticizers, like bisphenols and phthalates. Of the 9,000 or so chemicals used in consumer products today, most have never even been studied for potential risks to human health. Microplastics created by decomposing plastics are often consumed by aquatic life mistaking plastics for food. Plasicizers and microplastics contaminate sediment and are taken up through the food chain as aquatic creatures that eat and live in the sediment are eaten by consecutively larger marine creatures.

Plasticizers and microplastics travel from dump sites in wind-blown dust and when wind blowing over polluted waves bind with water droplets and evaporate into the sky creating a constant dull haze of toxic pollutants. As the toxin-bound water droplets form clouds, the rains, snows, and mists are contaminated with plasticizers and microplastics. The toxic rain coats land and sea, poisons in precipitation contaminate the food and water supply every time it rains or snows. Areas affected with toxins from rain, snow and even wind are often hundreds, if not thousands of miles from where they were picked up by evaporation and/or blowing dust.

Looks like 'recycling' in reality, is 'repoisoning'... Of the many chemical pollutants in air, water and food, phthalates, bisphenol and microplastics are already present in human urine, feces, blood, lungs and even newborn babies. In addition to the poisons people willingly bring into their homes, the toxic municipal wastewater full of toxins spread on agricultural fields and toxic recyclables repoison both near and far.

Maybe, just maybe, the solution should be encouraging people to create less toxic waste flowing into and out of their homes? Protecting themselves and their children, as well as people, wildlife and aquatic creatures around the world, in all environments, including future generations, from rePOISONing when toxic waste is, uh, 'recycled'?

RESOURCES:
1. Unknown (2023). title World Population Review. Retrieved from Link to source...

2. Karen McVeigh (2018, October 5). Huge rise in US plastic waste shipments to poor countries following China ban The Guardian. Retrieved from Link to source...

3. Ocean Portal Team (unknown). Marine Plastics Smithsonian Instituted: Ocean Plastics. Retrieved from Link to source...

4. Wei Bao, Buyun Liu, Shuang Rong, Susie Y Dai, Leonardo Trasande, Hans-Joachim Lehmler (2020, August 3). Association Between Bisphenol A Exposure and Risk of All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality in US Adults PubMed. Retrieved from Link to source...

5. Leonardo Trasande, Buyun Liu Wei Bao (2022, January 1). Phthalates and attributable mortality: A population-based longitudinal cohort study and cost analysis PubMed. Retrieved from Link to source...

6. Ian Urbina (2013, April 14). New York Times publication. Retrieved from Link to source...

7. Roberta Fabbrocino (2021, June 2). title publication. Retrieved from Link to source...

8. Emily Patterson (2023, June 3). Toxic Chems in Consumer Goods JohnsonAndToxin. Retrieved from Link to source...

9. Emily Patterson (2023, July 28). Toxic Crops JohnsonAndToxin. Retrieved from Link to source...