Amazon says its plastic packaging can be recycled. An investigation finds it usually isn't.
grist.org
Trackers placed in 93 bundles of Amazon packaging marked for "store drop-off" recycling showed many of them were buried or burned.
  • tpihkal@lemmy.world
    691·
    11 months ago

    This is true with most plastic. Even bringing recyclable plastic to a recycling center doesn’t mean it will be recycled.

    Fact is, it’s more expensive to recycle than to make new plastic.

  • eutsgueden@lemm.ee
    39·
    11 months ago

    Not just Amazon. So much plastic waste is designated recyclable with caveats, caveats that the average consumer is not aware of and will not follow up on.

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
    29·
    11 months ago

    I was pleasantly surprised to see Amazon shipping some items in paper envelopes that are padded with paper instead of bubble wrap. I don’t know how they decide which envelope to use though.

  • CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.world
    23·
    11 months ago

    All of this packaging simply needs to be made…easily compostable & biodegradable, with a low-impact manufacturing process. It rots away? Cool. Make more.

    It will become garbage. It will often not get recycled.

    The world will not be made better by 50,000 people recycling everything perfectly. The world will be made significantly better by hundreds of millions of people recycling imperfectly, by companies making products & packaging better by design.

  • Gerudo@lemm.ee
    15·
    11 months ago

    I assume everything I put into recycling except for glass paper and aluminum is just thrown away. I still do it on the off chance the plastic actually is recycled though.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    9·
    11 months ago

    It’s fucked up, but recycling is an empty thing when it comes to plastics of any kind. Limited times it can be done, economic non viability for most types, and lack of facilities to actually recycle any of them in a given state (for the US, but I doubt that’s unique to here).

    Pretty much, if it isn’t a drink or milk bottle, it’s trash that is going to end up as a problem. Even then you still run into how many times you can recycle the same plastic afaik.

    Glass is a lot better. It’s way cheaper to make new than recycle it, but at least it doesn’t cause problems by existing.

    What sucks is that plastics are bloody useful; doing away with them entirely would be more expensive, and lead to materials that just aren’t as good at a given job being used instead.

  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    11 months ago

    By “recyclable” I just figured they meant you could use it again yourself to pack something else up and ship.

  • brap@lemmy.world
    5·
    11 months ago

    Is this some regional thing? Everything I’ve ever ordered from Amazon has come in a card box or thick paper bag and even has paper tape.

  • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
    5·
    11 months ago

    Isn’t it a play on words? It CAN be recycled, but it doesn’t mean that it WILL be. That’s the case for a lot of things, recycling is mostly a scam because of this.