Plastic waste - A solution

In today's TED Talk, Mike Biddle presents his revolutionary plastic recycling plant and the process behind it all. Perhaps this may sound like old news. Don't we already recycle plastic? Well, not to the degree that you might think, especially when you consider durable goods, like cars and computers, and the plastics inside those products that are left behind.


Watch this 10 min video as Mike explains how hard it is to recycle plastic, what we do with our junk (send it overseas for people to sort through for a $1-a-day, or incinerate it), and what he has done to try and turn plastic into a sustainable material that can be used and reused.

Thanks for watching!


Critical Thoughts: How much energy does this plastic recycling plant use? Does the energy required to sort, and recycle old plastics make it an unsustainable process? What percentage of original/virgin plastic can be recovered in this process (how much new plastic do we have to continue to make?) How do we get all that trash to these recycling plants? How can we increase the amount of trash that goes to recycling plants rather than landfills? How much recycling can one plant handle per day?