short but good sum up of how recycling waste is still darn sloppy
http://news.harvard.edu/
While recycling for yard waste totals nearly 60 percent, paper 63 percent, and car batteries almost 100 percent, recycling of plastics is stuck at just 8 percent.
That’s because manufacturers produce a bewildering array of plastics — polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and high-density polyethylene, to name a few — that can’t be mixed if they’re to be effectively recycled.
In fact, she said, the seven types of plastics denoted in the recycling symbols stamped on milk jugs, salad trays, and other containers barely scratch the surface. That’s because category seven is an “all other types” category. The Environmental Protection Agency lists 40 types of plastic.
“Plastics are a big, messy, difficult problem,” MacBride said. “It is not a simple subject with no simple answers.”