Toxic Plastic Waste

The plastics industry for years promoted that plastic was fantastic. Yes, it's a fantastic environmental crime. Contamination in the U.S. is high since many unrecyclable forms of plastic are mismanaged. Seven percent is recovered while 3/4 is lost or buried. The lack of smarter packaging has resulted in today's horrific plastic pollution.

For more than 45 years, I have championed marketing secondary materials. I have helped recycle a wide variety of reused products, from tennis balls to motor oil. I have worn many hats to promote secondary end markets. Without finding new economic opportunities for recyclables, it will be discarded.

People's plastic waste exemplifies the cost of our foolishness. Tragically, we're seeing this in all aspects of our lives. For example, in the healthcare industry, a third to half is mismanaged. My dad's congressional health care expertise allowed me to observe this tragic waste our ecology determines are well-being. 

Remember, plastics come from oil. These trade associations have been lying to the American public for many decades regarding the ramifications of their products becoming waste.

In 1981, I helped build a used oil recycling plant in Alexandria, Va. Just several hundred yards away was an asphalt plant with a demand for 10,000 gallons per day for No. 4 industrial fuel. Too bad hundreds of millions of gallons of used oil are thrown out every year.  

I even got to testify before a House subcommittee to fund the Used Oil Recycling Act of 1980 to create public awareness campaigns of the tens of millions of do-it-yourself oil changers who mostly disposed of their old oil.

Earth Day 1970, when the term recycling was introduced, resulted in a market disaster. An overabundance of recycled materials was collected, creating a flooded market for these secondary materials that had diminished demand due to too much supply.

Later, I was a national and the Washington D.C. 1980 Earth Day coordinator promoting markets for recycled materials. Without first identifying a secondary market, creating a demand for recycling programs failed. 

Regarding plastics back in the mid-80s, I worked researching one project for recycling plastic film into plastic wood possibilities. Recycling plastics is complicated since there are so many types. Plus, there are enormous transportation costs because of its tremendous volume given its light weight.

 In the late 1990s, I volunteered as the chairman of Virginia’s Buy Recycled Business Alliance meeting with Mobile Chemical, which developed the plastic wood company that is now known as Trex. Twenty years ago, I purchased this as my decking.

 

If you don't have some type of end user fee or put in the environmental cost upfront for collecting materials. Just look at our automotive waste products. At one end, lead-acid car batteries have a 97 percent recycling rate. However, on the other, an unknown rate for used oil and antifreeze (tens of millions of gallons are lost yearly) and yearly billions of light-duty motor oil filters are lost (every 16 filters containing 1 gallon of oil.) Also, polyethylene terephthalate (PET or number 1) plastic and antifreeze share many chemical similarities. 

We are in the dark regarding the total impact of these petroleum products. For example,  few know burning of plastic creates dioxin. Plastics are not fantastic yet hazardous waste. Let's fight cancer and lessen our petroleum waste from threatening our health and welfare.

 

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