Re: The world has plenty of plastic
There was an interesting study done recently - but I'm blowed if I can find the report now - into this. The essential message was that getting the householder to pre-sort the recycling (to some degree) made it easier to recycle more of it (for example, paper and card wouldn't be contaminated by liquid residue in bottles) so it was more economical for the waste collector, but that having to sort the waste, particularly where this was into three, four or more types, reduced the amount of recycling collected because people either couldn't be bothered and put more things in with the general waste, or just got the categories wrong.
Conversely, collecting unsorted recycling vastly increased participation, but made sorting it more difficult, and increased contamination which can make some types of material impossible or uneconomic to recycle.
Fifteen years ago, our local authority required items to be sorted into metals, paper/card, plastic and glass, each bagged separately for curbside collection - we had just moved from a different authority which had no curbside collection for recycling at all and had to take our items with us to the bins at the local supermarkets, so this was a big increase in convenience for us, even though our new neighbours thought it was a bit of a faff.
A few years later our local authority built a massive recycling centre and gave everyone a single brown wheelie bin. It's much easier now and you hear fewer complaints, though I've only just found out that they have allowed the collection of "tin foil" for a couple of years - it used to be refused. No idea when they made that change, and they still don't take Tetrapaks.
M.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
