ISSUES PROBLEMS WITH PLASTIC PACKAGING Plastic packaging makes up around 40% of plastic waste in the Netherlands. Only half of that is being recycled. The other half is burned for energy production. Not all plastics are recycled because not all plastics are actually recyclable. So are thin plastics, such as foils to cover sauce dishes or the thin tray packaging for mushrooms, not being recycled because they are too thin for waste companies to make a new sheet of material out of. This also includes “singleuse� plastics such as straws.
Styrofoam is used to package foods and made into packing peanuts as a filler for packages. Styrofoam is difficult to recycle because it takes up a lot of space relative to its weight. Shipping it to a recycler does not provide much return on investment so the styrofoam usually ends up with normal trash.
Furthermore, black plastic cannot always be recycled. Plastic recycling is done at a waste sort company. These companies can distinguish the types of plastic by using infrared detection. The plastic reflects the infrared light and from that reflection the system can read which plastic it is and where it needs to go. This system works great for all colors, except for the color that absorbs everything: black. Nowadays, an infrared technique has been developed that can also recognize and sort black plastic for recycling, but not all sorting companies have this technique in-house.
5 Photo 1: plastic mushroom packaging
Photo 2: styrofoam food packaging
Photo 3: black plastic tray
