Just 9% of plastics are recycled.

https://www.axios.com/axios-de...r_axiosam&stream=top

quote:

Just 9% of plastics are recycled.

And the microplastics crisis is even more

If anyone cared they could play with tax code and fix the problem.

But no one does.

We really need to stop making and using so much plastic.

https://www.theguardian.com/us...merica-global-crisis

US is actually about 20th worst plastic offender, contrary to what one would expect. SE Asia (for example, the Philippines) are the worst.

Impoverished countries (and in my experience, in the US, impoverished people) are the worst plastic polluters.

I guess when you're poor, recycling and other environmental safeguards just don't figure as much. Kind of a matter of survival day to day.

The poorest people I know in Central PA burn garbage, never recycle (it costs money!), dump waste in the woods and streams, don't care about emissions, pour toxic waste in the ground and sewers, etc. I think they figure the environment is a rich person's thing.

One of a great many examples (google and see what countries figure. The images are horrifying).

top 20 worst countries in mismanaged plastics

https://www.google.com/imgres?...XMBc&iact=mrc&uact=8

I read that 95% of the ocean plastic comes from just 10 rivers - all in Africa and Asia.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
If anyone cared they could play with tax code and fix the problem.

But no one does.

Very true. As PK wrote a few days ago.
Eliminating or much reducing plastic use should be a priority for the species. Shame we don't recognize and act to our best benefit! How stupid can we get?

And yes, the smallest cost-penalty attached would get people to stop using plastic bags and containers - likewise motivating manufacturers.

Sure, substitutes would have be invented but that too could be done by incentivizing - rewarding the substitutes and penalizing the use of non bio-degradables.