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NiceTryNoah t1_ixuybbc wrote

Reply to comment by ten-million in We should just stop trying to recycle by RoverTheMonster

I work in packaging sustainability and people overestimate their knowledge on the subject all the time. People watch one vice documentary and assume they know more than people that work in the recycling industry. There's a lot of moving parts to it and proper recycling infrastructure and education is a critical part that the US is lacking compared to Europe.

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ten-million t1_ixv2ryx wrote

Yeah, I’ve heard that you want to keep recycling even if they are losing money just to keep people in the habit of doing it. Once you lose the infrastructure it’s expensive to bring it back. There is probably a lot more to the big picture that regular trash producers don’t know. I know I don’t know the big picture.

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changeorchange t1_ixvhne4 wrote

Do you know anything about the TerraCycle recycling programs? Are they actually recycling what they claim to?

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NiceTryNoah t1_ixxemlc wrote

I'm quite familiar with their work. For what it's worth they do actually collect and send hard to recycle materials to get repurposed but there are limits to what they can do, because even though they partner with many large brands, they're quite a small company. There was actually a lawsuit last year that got settled because they didn't have the capacity to collect as much material as advertised.

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