- [Doran] Everything good?
(loud laughing)
- Just gonna defog my glasses.
- [Doran] It's okay, yeah.
- This is my bus there.
- [Doran] You gotta go?
- So I have to, I gotta go. Thank you.
- [Doran] Thank you. Bye.
- Hi guys. I'm Doran with The Story of Stuff Project,
and today we're here in San Francisco, CA
to find out how much people really know about plastic
and what happens when we recycle it.
(people cheering)
- [Doran] What is the first thing that comes to mind
when you hear the word plastic?
- Uh, bad.
- Water bottle.
- A water bottle.
- Like a bag.
- Harmful.
- Uh, the Earth's oceans and turtles.
- Bad for the environment.
- Too much of it.
- Not biodegradable. Lots of chemicals.
Extremely inefficient.
- Bad.
- Just the overall bad.
- [Doran] By the year 2050, there will be more
plastic in the ocean than... A. Water,
B. Fish, C. Than there are techies
in San Francisco, or D. Salt.
- Um, D. Salt.
- I think that by eh, 2050,
all the oceans will be gone, so water.
- Salt.
- I'm going to have to go with C on that one, more techies.
- Uh, B. Fish.
- No, C. Fish
- [Doran] Fish? You're right!
- Yeah!
- [Doran] How does that make you feel?
- That's crazy.
- Pretty sad you know, we're killing our oceans.
- Uh, that's pretty scary.
- [Doran] What percentage of plastic ever produced do you
think has actually been recycled and
made into something else?
So, 90%, 49%, 19%, or 9%?
- I'm going to say it's probably the lowest. (ding)
- I'm going to say D. (ding)
- I say 49%.
- Bank on it's B, 49%.
- I'm going to go with C, 19%.
- I'm going to go with 9%. (ding)
- Yeah. (ding) Oh.
- See, I'd like it to be this,
but I think it's probably this. (ding)
- [Doran] You think it's that?
- I don't want to be skeptical but I'll go with 19.
- [Doran] It's actually 9%. I know.
- That's the worst.
- [Doran] I know.
- D, 9%.
- [Doran] You're right.
- Cool. (ding) Spot on. 2 for 2.
- [Doran] So I have a follow up to that.
So true or false, when you recycle plastic,
it can be reused and made into the same product
over and over and over again.
- True. (buzzer)
- Yes, true. (buzzer)
- [Doran] Yeah?
- Probably true. (buzzer)
- False. (ding)
- Uh, no. (ding)
- To make the same product, I think that's probably false.
(ding)
- [Doran] When plastic is recycled,
it goes through a process called downcycling,
where basically everytime it's recycled,
the material becomes more and more compromised.
So eventually it becomes unrecyclable and unusable,
so we have to dispose of it, and it goes
into our landfills and the environment.
- [Doran] If you're recycling your plastic here in CA,
where do you think, after recycling it,
the majority of it goes?
- Uh, I think the majority goes to the North America.
- Does it just go into like a bigger recycling then?
- In our oceans?
- I think from what I remember, there's a huge heaping pile
of this trash of plastic floating the ocean.
- Well, I would think somewhere in the states.
- China.
- It's probably gonna mostly go to southeast Asia I guess.
- [Doran] You're totally right.
So after our plastic is recycled
in CA and America in general,
- Yeah.
- [Doran] We actually ship it out
to other countries to deal with.
So the majority of plastic that's recycled here
ends up in developing countries in Asia,
like Cambodia, and Thailand, and Vietnam.
- Oh, okay. That's good.
- [Doran] Yeah.
- Thank you, thanks for that information.
- [Doran] Yeah.
(laughing)
- [Doran] How has this information changed
your view on how we dispose of plastic?
- Well, it lets me know that we'll like still have oceans.
- I was kinda hoping it would stay kinda more local.
- It's very impactful. The whole conversation.
- Well, it hasn't changed it.
I'm, you know, disappointed in how much,
but if you're traveling or something,
you can't get away from plastic water bottles,
but if you're at home you don't need to use them.
- It's reaffirmed the necessity for action.
- When you grow up, you think that like all the adults
kind of have got this figured out, it's like,
yeah, we have all this, you know, trash and stuff
that we not have responsibly kind of disposed of it.
And now I realize that's not really the case.
And we're just like, you know,
never ending at creating more plastic and things like that.
- [Doran] Did you know the answers to these questions?
Let us know in the comments below.
We want to continue the discussion about
plastic and what it does to our environment.
(ding)
(cheering)