Why Recycling has to be local

For decades we've relied on China to accept the worlds trash and sort and hopefully recycle it, but now that they've decided they don't want our trash it's time for us to come up with our own solution.

The 2018 decision to limit waste to only waste that is practically pure at 99% is effectively China's way of saying they don't want the worlds waste anymore. A great article out of Utah explains what that means for cities and states when they no longer have somewhere that's willing to buy their waste and how it wrecks their recycling programs.

All of this explains why so many of the things you think you are recycling, really aren't being recycled, and the only way to make the economics make sense is to reduce the amount of movement of the trash, plus people need to start sorting so it is useful.

Plastic Pyrolysis is One Solution

It won't solve everything, but if you could sort your own plastics, and have it turned into something as valuable fuel, that would save movement to a dump, sorting there, shipping to another center, and eventually ending up in a huge landfill. It also eliminates the need to pump the oil from the ground, process it, and ship it to you at a gas station. So in addition to removing plastic from the environment, you're also reducing the amount of oil we need to pull from the ground.