Plastic Recycling is Still an Oil Industry Scam

The plastics industry has perpetuated the myth that throwing anything with a recycling logo on it into the right bin will lead to an ecologically friendly second life. This has been the intentional narrative for decades to make consumers feel good according to multiple reports. The reality? From water bottles thrown with care into the properly marked bin to takeout containers that were diligently washed of any food residue, the lion’s share of recyclable plastic has never been reused  – unless you count the occasional hermit crab getting a bottle cap house after a sea turtle has already choked on it. The plastics industry has made billions in profit which has been enabled by greenwashing, all while polluting the planet. Up until last year the majority of recycled plastic had been shipped from the United States to developing countries where it has gone unrecycled, straight into landfills, or into waterways and the ocean. All while the American public believed they were benefiting the environment by recycling. Currently 85% of plastic waste in the United states goes unrecycled and now we are filling up our landfills or shipping it to Mexico and Canada according to a 2022 report by Beyond Plastics and The Last Beach Cleanup. Plastics recycling has been a lie from the very beginning according to several different reports including plastics industry insiders. How do we change the world when we’ve been lied to for decades?

NPR and PBS Frontline did an in-depth investigation of long-ignored documents and insider interviews. In 2020 they shared their results:

“We found that the industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic. The industry’s awareness that recycling wouldn’t keep plastic out of landfills and the environment dates to the program’s earliest days, we found. “There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis,” one industry insider wrote in a 1974 speech.”

The 2022 report by Beyond Plastics particularly found that the US has a 5-6% rate of plastic recycling with 85% going directly to landfills and approximately 10% being incinerated. While there are incineration plants that act as a source of energy, burning plastic while we refine newly extracted fossil fuels to make more plastic isn’t the solution we need. The 2022 report states that the absurdly low plastic recycling rate “…should be a wake-up call to the false promise that plastic recycling is a credible solution to plastic waste and pollution.” However, it is worth noting the report found that the vast majority of paper is recycled which should be considered an environmental win and a reminder that we should use paper products in place of plastic whenever possible.

Why isn’t plastic being recycled? It mostly comes down to economics. It is cheaper to create new plastic than it is to transport, clean, sort, and reprocess existing plastics. The facilities themselves are expensive as well with FinModelsLabs estimating the startup cost of a plastic recycling facility to be between $300,000 and $1,000,000. Meanwhile, stamping a recycling logo on a plastic bottle that has the same chance of being recycled as the acceptance rate of MIT is virtually free.

An elegant paper cup which can be used as a superior alternative to single-use plastic. Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Now is not the time to give up or be disillusioned, we should be conscious of our own consumption and more importantly hold businesses and government accountable for the increase in plastic waste. The Beyond Plastics report calls for real solutions which can emphasis on reducing single-use plastics. This can and is being achieved by various municipalities in the form of single use plastic bans. One such ban just started in NYC which does not allow single use plastic takeout containers according to CBS New York. A 2022 review by Borg and colleagues in the Journal of Cleaner Production investigated avenues for changing single use plastics and found that interventions which relied on policy and regulatory tools or individual behavior change were effective but that results were mixed for studies on individual change. 

We need to remind ourselves of the three R’s Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, with the emphasis on the first two, because as we’ve learned recycling is currently failing as a solution. We should look for products and services that use less plastic and hold businesses and governments accountable for lying to us. We need to eliminate single use plastic use from all angles in order to minimize the impact these plastics have on the planet.