Plastics and recycling
Hey all,
I’m really enjoying a one-week family vacation in NYC. We’re staying at a Marriott downtown, and during breakfast I noticed what, as a German, feels like an incredible amount of plastic packaging — individually wrapped apples, plastic milk containers, etc.
It made me wonder: what actually happens to all this plastic waste in NYC? Is it recycled, burned, or mostly sent to landfill?
There are separate recycling bins in the breakfast area, but from what I can see, the system doesn’t really work. Pretty much everything ends up mixed together because people seem quite indifferent about separating their trash.
If most of this really goes to landfill, I find the sheer amount of non-decomposing waste pretty scary. Genuinely curious how this works here and whether my impression as a visitor is wrong.