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Plastic recycling is a myth created and propped up by the petroleum industry. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/texas-resident-used-apple-airtags-to-discover-plastics-taken-to-houston-recycling-centers-arent-being-recycled
@waldoj
My work is connected to plastics recycling. It does happen, but what's useful for recycling is pure truckloads of all the same type and color of plastic.
Which means mostly post-industrial waste: the leftovers from a manufacturing plant. Or you can do stuff like collect all the clear stretch-wrap from retail shipping and compress that and recycle it.
But post-consumer is hard because it tends to be many different kinds mixed together. Sorting them all out is necessary and expensive.
@Kathmandu Post-consumer recycling is a hell of a mess in general, but plastic seems like a special kind of hell. Automating the sorting process is a tall enough challenge, but doing so without constantly fouling the line? Good luck.
My assumption has been that recycled fleece is made almost entirely from post-industrial waste, despite the “this jacket was made from X milk jugs" claims.. Do you have any idea if that’s right?
@waldoj
Recycled fleece I have no special knowledge about.
But bottle recycling is a case where society has the set-up to create a pure stream: when you feed empty bottles into the machine and it gives you the deposit back.
And the PET of soda bottles really is the same material as polyester in textiles. I know truckloads of used, crushed bottles get sold to companies with names like "So-and-So Upholstery Factory" or "Textile producers".