4skers89

Some cultures just haven't developed a "don't s#!t where you sleep" mentality...

Maybe they thought the plastic was washing out to sea.  What the OceanCleanup guys found was the mass of the plastic accumulated in the gyre didn't have near the amount of plastic known to be discharged into the ocean.  Based on the dates of some plastics found in the gyre they didn't think the plastics were being broken down into microplastics and forming a smog that was theorized.  They believe that after a few years it washes ashore and a small fraction escapes into the ocean currents and into the gyre.  They may not be s#itting where they sleep but where their neighbor sleeps.  I know in the PI people are getting a lot more conscious of plastic pollution.  My wife and I sponsored a local beach cleanup which they had been conducting for a few years and they are making a huge effort to clean up Manila Bay.  

@4skers89 The problem is, once the trash is ground up and pelletized, there aren't a lot of products that use them.  Every time you recycle a plastic, it loses it's physical properties.  So, virgin material is cheaper AND it makes a better product.  

If I bought a load of recycled product, I have absolutely no clue what kind of quality I'm getting.  If I get virgin material, I know the exact cell classification, how it's going to process and the quality of the product that's going to come out the other end.  The types of plastics are an issue too.  Every type of plastic has certain properties that make it for a specific use.  You can't make a sewer pipe out of pop bottles.  You also can't make food or medical grade products out of the trash.