What Are Soft Plastics?

Soft plastics include items like:

• Plastic bags

• Cling wrap

• Snack wrappers

• Bubble wrap

• Bread bags

Unlike hard plastics (like bottles and containers), soft plastics are lightweight, bendy, and can be squished or twisted easily.

The Recycling Challenge

Most curbside recycling programs don’t accept soft plastics. Here’s why:

1. They Tangle Up the Machines

Recycling centers use big, fast-moving machines to sort and separate different materials. Soft plastics are so flexible that they get caught and tangled in the gears, belts, and rollers. When this happens, the machines have to be stopped and cleaned out. This costs time, money, and may cause damage to the machinery.

2. They’re Hard to Separate

Soft plastics often come in different colors, layers, and mixes of materials. Many snack wrappers, for example, are made from several types of plastic sandwiched together – or even mixed with metals such as aluminium! Sorting these by hand or machine is very difficult.

3. They’re Easily Contaminated

Soft plastics can get dirty from food, grease, or other materials. If they’re not very clean, they can ruin a whole batch of recycling, making it useless.

4. Low Value

Recycling works best when the final product is valuable and easy to sell. Recycled soft plastics aren’t as useful or profitable as other materials, so there’s less incentive for companies to process them.

What Happens to Soft Plastics?

Most soft plastics end up in the landfill, where they can take hundreds of years to break down. Some are burned for energy, but this can create pollution. However, a few special recycling programs do exist. These collect soft plastics separately and turn them into things like outdoor furniture, road materials, or plastic lumber.

Can We Make Recycling Easier?

Scientists and engineers are always looking for new ways to recycle soft plastics. Some ideas include:

• Designing machines that can handle soft plastics better

• Making new kinds of plastic that are easier to recycle

• Replacing plastics with bio-degradable materials, such as seaweed derivatives, that break down quickly in landfill.

• Encouraging people to use reusable bags and containers instead

But the best way to help is to reduce and reuse soft plastics whenever possible!

Fascinating Facts About Soft Plastics Recycling

• Plastic bags can jam recycling machines in seconds, sometimes causing hours of delay.

• It can take 500 years or more for a plastic bag to fully break down in a landfill. While breaking down, they can release microplastics into waterways and other environments, which cause a range of additional issues.

• Some countries ban or charge extra for plastic bags to encourage people to use reusables.

• Certain supermarkets have drop-off points just for soft plastics recycling – look for them near store entrances!

• Engineers are developing enzymes and new technologies to break down plastics more efficiently.

Questions to Ponder

1. How could you reduce your use of soft plastics in daily life?

2. Why do you think companies use soft plastics for packaging so many products?

3. What new inventions or ideas could make recycling soft plastics easier in the future?

4. How can communities encourage people to reuse bags and reduce plastic waste?

5. What are the pros and cons of banning soft plastics altogether?

Understanding why soft plastics are hard to recycle helps us see the bigger picture of waste and the environment. Every small change, like reusing a bag or choosing a different package, can make a difference for our planet!

The post Why Is It So Hard to Recycle Soft Plastics? appeared first on IQscience.

The report, Contextualizing Sustainable Development Research, which was produced by Digital Science’s Consultancy Group led by Dr Juergen Wastl, looks at the state of the world’s research on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It finds that more than 500,000 publications were published in 2019 relating to the 17 SDGs, constituting around 10 percent of the world’s total research output. This is three times the percentage produced in 2000 when the UN introduced the Millenium Development Goals, the predecessors of the SDGs.

The SDGs recognise that ending poverty and other imbalances in society and our relationship with the natural environment must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

Digital Science’s Consultancy group used the Dimensions platform to analyse research data on the SDGs. The key findings include:

• 10% of global research output now relates to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
• While the US remains the top producer of SDG research, China’s research footprint has grown rapidly and it is now the second largest SDG-research power.
• India has grown quickly in SDG research, overtaking all the traditionally developed research economies in Europe. It is now in fourth place globally behind the US, China and the UK in SDG research volume.
• The UK has a more well-rounded or evenly distributed footprint, reminiscent of a larger and more diversified research economy such as the US.
• The report follows Digital Science’s release of an SDG classification system in its Dimensions platform in March. Research into these areas is critical to help transform the world and each development goal has a list of targets which are measured with indicators. Dimensions users (including free version) can now filter this research in the publications content type.

Daniel Hook, CEO of Digital Science and one of the co-authors of the report, said: “It is at once encouraging and concerning to see 10% of the world’s research volume clustered around SDGs. It has taken more than 20 years of sustainable development initiatives to reach a figure of 10% – the research sector so often leads the way in thinking, in debate and in setting the stage for the informed development of public policy. Yet, with just 10% of research dedicated to this most immediate issue of our time, I wonder if we are equipped to take that lead.

“The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals call on the world’s leaders to look beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in their decision-making processes. As we have demonstrated in our report, Dimensions can support all stakeholders across the international research ecosystem and challenges them to embrace a broader range of research information in their decision making processes.”

What do you think about this? Are you encouraged that research directed towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is on the increase, or is the rate of increase insufficient?

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