Scaling a mountain of trash
With half of all U.S. garbage still going into landfills, plastic recycling “a mess,” and public opposition blocking construction of more trash-to-energy plants, the nation’s waste disposal system has a lot of problems but few answers, the author of a new book said Dec. 1. Samantha MacBride, an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and author of “Recycling Reconsidered: Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States,” described what happens to all the stuff people leave on the curb each week and showed that, for plastics in particular, recycling isn’t the solution once envisioned. While recycling for yard waste totals nearly 60 percent, paper 63 percent, and car batteries almost 100 percent, recycling of plastics is stuck at just 8 percent. That’s because manufacturers produce a bewildering array of plastics — polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and high-density polyethylene, to name a few —...
