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mario1138 t1_je12hcg wrote

Less that 30% of plastic bottles are "recycled" in the US, but technically most of them are "downcycled", which means they are being turned into lower quality forms of plastic. The idea of an infinite loop plastic recycling is a myth because unlike metal, plastic loses quality every time it is processed until it is unusable.

Single serving plastic bottles should be almost entirely replaced with aluminum cans, which are infinitely recyclable.

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memeiel OP t1_je16jvm wrote

Wow thanks for that info, I wasn’t aware of aluminum is infinitely recyclable!

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mario1138 t1_je1lqs0 wrote

yup, thats true for all metals I think. Interestingly, I just learned that metal alloys such as steel are not considered chemical compounds but homogeneous mixtures. Steel is a mixture of steel and carbon kind of like mixing chocolate and milk to form chocolate milk. There is no chemical compound formula for steel.

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aClearCrystal t1_je1d1ic wrote

That's not an unsolvable problem.

In Germany, over 94% of PET bottles are recycled, and 34% are even fully reused as new PET bottles.

source

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mario1138 t1_je1kikh wrote

source is in German so I can't really respond to it. Are they cleaning and reusing the bottles or creating new bottles from the first generation of PET bottles? This is still usually downcycling unless they are adding new plastic to recycle the old plastic. The 2nd generation of bottles can't be recycled in the same way as the first generation. I believe you can only do this only a few generations at most without adding new plastic material.

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