In 2019, the United States sent an average of US$7.2 billion dollars worth of plastic to landfill, according to new estimates from the Department of Energy (DOE).
When considering the price of manufacturing, marketing and processing all that trashed material, the costs to the economy are significant. Nor does that consider the environmental price of plastic pollution.While landfills are often considered the cheapest way to dispose of waste, in many ways that's a shortsighted approach. Setting up a system of recycling
That's way more than the number reported by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which sits around 32 million metric tons of plastic waste. Leaving it in a landfill is the easiest option, but not only does that waste money, it also wastes a massive amount of energy. In fact, the average 'embodied' energy of plastics is about 100 megajoules per kilogram. That's almost four times the energy contained in steel, which is one of the most energy intensive materials to produce.
Of all the plastic products sampled, most fell into the categories of plastic film, plastic wrap and plastic bags. Plastic bottles were more likely to be recycled.
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