Is Recycling Plastic Pointless? Some Hard Truths - Free Websites, Share News And Posts Publicly

Good morning.

Ever thrown something into the Bloobin and wondered: Does it even really get recycled? I’ve always been curious, and I discovered some hard truths in the making of a special Talking Point two-parter.

Part 1 sees host Munah Bagharib working at a materials recovery facility, where Bloobin contents get sorted before being sent to recycling companies. We were shocked – it resembled a rubbish centre, and the smell was overpowering.

Much of what we throw in our Bloobins is contaminated and at the facility, we were told up to 70 per cent could be rejected. Those plastic bottles you’re setting aside? Most would likely end up incinerated.

Some environmentalists say it’s our commingled system that’s enabling the cross-contamination. I almost felt disheartened about recycling – until I came across a potential solution (think: karang guni) of which we try to convince the National Environment Agency.

Part 2 might change the way you go about recycling plastics.

I found out just how challenging plastics are to recycle. Did you know there are 7 types of plastics – and these have to be painstakingly sorted before any recycler will even take them in? Only 3 types end up being recycled.

The biggest eye-opener for me was our experiment on recycled plastic (or R-PET) bottles. Some companies have started using them as part of a circular economy to re-use plastics for new purposes.

But a UK study detected higher levels of potentially dangerous chemicals in the water stored in such bottles. Talking Point enlisted the help of Singapore researchers to run a test. Find out why even our researchers were surprised.

Charmaine Tan

Producer, Talking Point