However, once the plastic waste leaves the hand of the consumers, it seems to
pose several problems in the recycling. Despite the consumer’s effort to recycle
plastics, there are confusions about what happens afterward as there were rumors
about trash being sent to Eastern Europe from the interviews we had. Also only small
amount of plastic thrown into the bin can actually be recycled due to how they were
originally made. The company’s manufacturing containers are not responsible for the
waste disposal and the open loop system of recycling poses problem as manufactured
products are not suitable for entire recycling process designed by companies. In
addition, when the plastics are manufactured originally, there can be variety of shapes
and colors from different chemical and additives added. Because of the
contamination, only limited amount of plastic entering the recycling bin can be
actually recycled and made into new products.
Thus, from the economical and environmental point of view, recycling plastic
is not always as favorable as it seems. The biggest problem associated with the
recycling is making products with inferior quality, also known as downcycling.
Because the additives and chemicals in the plastics and polymer chains are broken
during the process of recycling, downcycling is unavoidable for the case of plastic.
Trying to avoid downcycling, businesses cannot make much profit causing them to
add more chemicals and additives to retain original strength of plastics which
eventually leads to serious environmental threats.