In article ,
David writes:
Just something that has been knocking about in my mind for a while.

With the current domestic recycling there are some plastics which can be
recycled and some which can't.

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but the
label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to the
rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to remove all
the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.

Does this render the whole thing non-recyclable, and thus destined for
land fill? Or is a small percentage of contamination acceptable? Or is
most of the stuff we put in blue bins just for show and goes to land fill
anyway?

In most cases, small amounts of contamination reduce the value of
the reclaimed plastic - it means there are some things it can't be
used for, but less critical things it still can.

Same with paper. Some councils required all plastic removed including
plastic envelope windows, etc. When there is a glut of recycled paper,
theirs is the only type which can be sold.

In both cases, incineration is still an option when there's no
market for reuse.

OTOH, the more effort you require people to put in to recycling
separation, the percentage of recycled waste drops dramatically.
Automated separation at recycling plant is now quite advanced,
and uses things like electric fields to separate different types
of plastic bottles.

My recycle bin probably fills at least twice as fast as my non-
recycle bin.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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