Tags: Breaking Down Plastic

It is no secret that NYC agencies, like the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) have suffered significant budget cuts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, parks and open spaces are experiencing larger crowds because people need to get out of their apartments and parks are a safe place to social distance. 

As demand for plastic is on the rise and recycling efforts can only repurpose about 9% of generated plastic, scientists, engineers and producers are looking for green solutions to our petroleum plastic dependency.  While bioplastics have been around for about 100 years, there has been a recent surge of interest in them. 

Cell phones are an everyday item and an almost unavoidable necessity in our society.   In 2018, it was estimated 1.5 billion phones were produced with more cell phones active than people on the planet. Unfortunately, our increasing reliance on cell phones poses a number of environmental and social problems. 

Recycling gives some plastics a second or third life but ultimately recycling just delays the inevitable: all plastic is destined for the landfill.  While recycling systems have been developed for plastics that are commonly used and easily broken down, typically #1 and #2, technical and economic factors as well as smaller volumes have prevented recycling of other plastics such as #3 and #7.

With all the talk about recycling, do you know what those numbers on your plastic containers mean? Recycling is a great way to reduce demand for plastics, but it’s not as simple as putting your bottles in a blue bin. Different kinds of plastics are created for different purposes, and post-consumer plastics need to be managed in different ways.