Sean Hollister and Justine Calma reviewed the Clear Drop Soft Plastic Compactor, a shredder-lookin' gadget (see the product page) that slurps in unrecyclable plastic (which is most of it) and compresses them into compact 3-pound bricks.
By bricking your plastic, the company claims it'll no longer jam recycling equipment the way individual plastic bags often do. Just feed your plastics into this 61-pound bin and watch them magically disappear into its whirring slot. Wait for it to spit out a brick weeks later, drop it into a supplied bag, and let the US Postal Service whisk your guilt away.
Ah, but then what? The machine looks like fun, but the service is "pricey" ($1,400 for the bin and $50 a month with a 2-year contract, then pay your own shipping costs) and they concluded that it might not be ecologically sound. It does, at least, keep unrecyclable plastic out of the landfill, and it doesn't waste time at the recycling center before they send the unrecyclable plastic to the landfill.
I like the idea of compressing unrecyclable plastic into convenient bricks, but not the idea of sending the bricks off to be processed. I dislike the idea of a $1400 trash Juicero with a two-year contract. I hate that we're still selling consumers the idea that consuming something else is the way to solve a problem whose real solution is to stop making things out of unrecyclable plastic just so we can have process color on a bottle of Draino.
Previously:
• Recycling in Antarctica
• India's e-waste recycling 'markets' are toxic nightmares filled with child laborers
• Recycling culture at McMurdo Station in Antarctica
