EV experience so far

  I was at the grocery store and included in the groceries I purchased were plant based protein foods and while checking out a young girl who was bagging the groceries commented on the plant based proteins. She was educated on the benifits of plant based proteins even eating insects for protein and that let me realized more that a younger generation is becoming more educated of using our natural resources more wisely. As time goes by and a younger generation is more involved in making decisions hopefully things will change for the better. We as americans have made progress in learning from our mistakes and hopefull a younger generation will speed up the progress, we all need to do our part to be good stewards of the planet we live on.

Only about 5% of plastic is recycled in the US. Yep, 5%. Plastic bottles fare better at around 28%. Paper is much better at around 2/3, as is aluminum and cardboard are great at about 85%-90. Glass, which should be easily reclycable, in only about 1/3.

Pretty pathetic overall
but the plastic is by far the worst offender, and it's rate has been going down because of foreign countrys import bans in recent years.

So why is plastic so bad? Unless it has a 1,2, or 5 in the recycling triangle on it you might as well throw it in the landfill. No one can reprocess anything else, all the other numbers are pretend recycling put there by the manufacturers to make you feel good cause you think they get recycled. For the rest, thereis a ready market because most companies want to be able to take green credits so would buy the recycled material, even though it is more expensive than virgin plastic. But there isn't enough capacity.

So it's a mess, and it's gotten worse not better. Probably we should quit using plastic for most things altogether, even when it is recycled it's energy inefficient and produces toxic gasses. What was so wrong with cardboard milk cartons and paper grocery sacks?

Its a feel good thing,like when I get out of my G-4 and hop in my Prius .Feels good 

   I beleve all Walmart stores has the soft plastic recycling bins as you enter their stores. We collect all our soft plastic ( plastic bags, bubble wrap, and plastic wrapping ) and drop it off in the Walmart plastic recycle bins. I don't know how much gets recycled but my thinking is the plastic will hopefully be kept in one location and if it can't be recycled now hopefully it will be in the future. There are companies working on ways to recycle plastic I watched a program on TV that a bacteria was being researched that would eat the plastic. Hopefully someone will find someway to process the plastic to make use of it or destroy it because I don't think there will be a substitute for plastic anytime soon.

i pay a good penny to get mine picked up........i think its time to invest that money in the market.  jon