The recycling society: Synthetic polymers (13/03/22 19:20:18)
Synthetic polymers are oil-based and should be treated as a precious and nonrenewable resource. This will need planning. Firstly, the number of chemistries available for the consumer should be kept at a minimum. Only then will it be possible to collect large enough and pure enough quantities for recycling to be practical and economical. Each chemistry must be easily identifiable, for example by RF tags or fluorescent labelling - barcodes, few-letter-ID codes. Then the number of permissible dyes must be kept low, too. Decorations could be done on paper, not on the plastic.
If we can keep lawyers and politicians out of the decision loop, this could be done easily, within a few months. Typically a job for the EU commission.
Make it soon!
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