The idea that plastic can be recycled is a lie. It was a lie perpetuated by the plastic industry in a shameless attempt to sell more plastic. You wonder how the execs and PR spin doctors at these companies sleep at night - I can tell you - just dandy!
In the 1930s plastic was invented because a war required a cheap, flexible and strong substance to be created so we could more effectively and, more importantly - inexpensively kill each other.
After WWII the booming plastics industry did a long term deep analysis of the harms of plastic and decided that for the betterment of humanity plastics should be abandoned. They shut down all the plastic manufacturing plants and put legal safeguards in place to ensure no one made plastic again - just kidding! Instead the plastic industry formed a coalition called the The Society of the Plastics Industry and started marketing the stuff to the public.
As you’ve probably noticed plastic is genuinely useful stuff. It’s light, very strong, can flex and can be made in a myriad of ways with a wide range of function and design. Of course a substance THAT useful MUST have downsides? Doesn’t it? The Society of the Plastics Industry said “Nah bro it’s totes awesome and safe and everything” and everyone went “Alright!” As we always do without looking into it at all.
But there was a problem. The problem was, that despite the explosion in the use of plastic, the good people at Plastics Inc. weren’t making enough money. Plastic company employees Ted Newberry wanted a second boat and Malcolm Wilks fancied a holiday home - something on a lake with a private jetty and so the plastic’s marketing divisions went into overdrive to make Ted and Mal’s dreams come true.
See at that time people were idiots. In the old-timey world people were used to washing containers out and re-using them - like morons! So the Society of the Plastics Industry took out advertisements in newspapers and magazines expounding the virtues of ‘single use’ plastic items. Don’t wash out containers like a schmuck, throw it away and get another one! And everybody (again) went “Alright!”
After all, it’s so much more convenient - like CBDCs will be! Ahem. Anyways …
By 1970 people were finally starting to wake up to the ‘single use’ scam on accounts of the sea of plastic cups and bottles clogging up waterways and streets. On the bright side you’ll be happy to know that Ted did get his second boat but Mal never got his holiday home. Mal had an affair with (ironically) a woman from marketing, his wife found out and a messy and costly divorce ensued.
People demanded action on the problem and so the plastic industry spend large amounts of money on research into how to make their products better for the environment - just kidding again! They did what any good company would do and that’s funnel money into another marketing campaign, convincing people that THEY were the problem. Instead of owning the issue themselves they passed the buck onto the consumer. It was our reckless actions that were to blame. Throwing away ‘single use’ plastic items was now a bad thing! And the public went along with that because an Italian man dressed as an American Indian said so.
Profits continued for the plastic industry but so did the pressure to clean up their act. By about 1980 there was conclusive data to show that these products were indeed very harmful.
There was an enormous bulge under the rug where the plastic industry had been sweeping all the inconvenient truths and so finally even they had to address the problem. They started to look into recycling plastic but unfortunately the science came back with bad news - recycling plastic wasn’t really possible owing to the flexibility and degrading properties of plastic.
Not to worry though, the soulless people in the PR departments said “Nah bro The Science (TM) says all good. Here’s a bunch of scientists we paid off to attest as much.” They sold the public on the lie that plastic is like totally able to be recycled. They did this with a degree of cunning too. You know the recycle symbol, this one:
Well on plastic containers they put these, which are not recycle symbols at all but simply a coding system that tells you what kind of plastic the product is made from.
And everyone bought it (again). Still today people think plastic can be recycled. The symbol above is simply a Resin Identification Code that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the products recyclability. You see bins everywhere for the recycling of plastic. We sort out our recycling, washing out our plastic containers for their eventual conversion into new plastic products. The truth is that it is far more cost effective to make new plastic products than it is to turn old plastic into new.
The first two resin codes have some recyclable potential but the other five do not unless highly specialised equipment is used. Most plastic 90% + is put into landfill or incinerated.
NO PLASTIC IS GOOD PLASTIC.
There is no good plastic and if a company is trying to convince you otherwise they are telling porkies. Even products that are made from 100% recycled plastic are inherently bad because they perpetuate an industry that is killing us.
Microplastics have now been found everywhere from the human bloodstream to the deepest parts of the ocean floor and have even been shown to change the sex of fish. Microplastics are small enough to cross the blood/brain barrier and are a likely culprit for many forms of cancer.
All this is to say that you probably shouldn’t give up on recycling plastic because a tiny fraction of the plastic that you so caringly wash-out and seperate in your waste, does get recycled … maybe. Ever since China stopped importing plastic waste for recycling in 2018 the bottom has fallen out of the industry. It is likely to vary but it would probably be accurate to say the amount of plastic recycled from any community is in the single percentile digits.
There won’t be any change to this situation soon. Companies will always choose profit over … well … anything and the sheer usefulness of plastic ensures it will be around for a long time yet.
Good article. Plastic recycling is a complete sham. I stopped recycling my trash years ago. Bit of trivia: plastics are made from petroleum; the oil industry makes more $ from plastics than from selling gasoline.
I switched to glass and metal years ago when I realized how wasteful this plastic is. I still use plastic for a few things and, unfortunately, there are a few items I purchase that don't come in glass jars anymore but, even for those things, I often make my own condiments, etc from scratch and store in glass. Um... we used to do all of this in my grandparents and parents days. Why can't we still do it? We have been duped into thinking it's "convenient" to just grab this garbage off of the shelf. While the medical industrial complex, the oil companies, and pharmaceutical companies laugh all the way to the bank.