Our Synthetic Seas II

Posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007

By ahedgehog

Alex Scholz

Conserving the Environment by Recycling Plastic into Toxic Children’s Toys

Following the work presented by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation pointing to a massive buildup of plastics in the sea, one has to wonder at the latest series of stories about children’s toys from China being recalled. Many of these toys were made from recycled plastics shipped from the United States. The last recall was for toys that contained something similar in chemical composition to a date rape drug that was released when children put them in their mouths. You might say that this plastic consumption isn’t so great, but at least we are recycling.

Are the 60+ toy recalls that we’ve recently heard about only a question of poor quality control on their side, or is there something in the process of plastic recycling that has potentially toxic results, either through contamination or because of unforeseen chemical reactions? It seems that the plastic industry is unregulated enough that a number of toxins are present at the get-go. The wisdom of shipping plastics halfway around the world, so they can be recycled and shipped back to us seems counter-intuitive at best.

Considering the life-span of plastics being some thousands of years, the wisdom of using plastic briefly as a water bottle and/or a lawn chair/speed bump/children’s toy, with the the rest of time it floating around in the oceans, also seems a little counter-intuitive.

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