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This Plastic Mr. Fantastic (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

does it do more harm than dumping plastic in a landfill though?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yes, based on what I've read. Less than 5% of the plastic that consumers place in recycling bins actually gets recycled. The rest is shipped to other countries, who then dump it in the ocean. When you throw plastic in the garbage it ends up in a domestic landfill. Landfills certainly aren't ideal, but at least we know where it is, and it's better than the ocean.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Does the US keep any statistics on how much trash goes to where? I just checked the stats for my country, and here it's way more than 5%. link if you're interested

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I'm seeing a lot of articles putting the rate at 5%. Google is just so much worse than it used to be...

    That 5% figure is 3 years old, and one report from 2018 had the figure at 8.7% so it appears to be dropping. Based on the political climate in the US that number is unlikely to my rise anytime soon.

    That 5% figure comes from The Guardian, a British newspaper, which I would actually trust more than a domestic source at this point. Based on what I've read about what the Trump administration has done to the EPA, I would imagine any new pollution reports won't be a possibility for a while.

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