Great article!!

I work in the recycling business too. I deal with electronic waste, but plastic has been a negative part of my industry as well.

Fortunately I have been working with a company that is affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan. They have found a way to turn any plastic into a Biofuel using a type of bacteria that eats plastic and generates natural gas as a byproduct.

There are other things we are working on that will increase precious metal recovery from e-waste and mining but reduce the harm to the environment to near zero.

No more burning circuit boards....
No more acids or poisons to extract the metals....(like mercury, cyanide or hydrochloric acid)
No more re-refining for purity.... 1 step process, it targets the precious metal that you choose....
99.999 purity of the precious metal targeted...
Reusable and so environmentally friendly, you could drink the solution (it would taste like shit and not recommended, but you would be fine if you did.)
Faster than the old method by far....
99.5% recovery rate compared to 70% from the old method...
The waste solution creates hydrogen gas when combined with a simple common element, which is captured and used to power the whole process and our entire facility....

Look for this process coming soon. Development is finished and we are scaling the process to industrial market now and marketing it to every country in the world as we speak....and their response is overwhelmingly positive.

I know it's far too late but there are some solutions that are in the works that will really start turning things around....we just need to reduce as much as we can and keep thinking of the solutions that will put a dent in this nightmare. (example plant cellulose plastics that completely biodegrade.)

We just need to get our Beeker on

Resteemed and upvoted.