The Truth About Recycling Plastic

So it turns out all that plastic that I thought was being recycled into cool new products was just being dumped into a landfill.

The bright green plastic tub with the universal symbol “recycle” stamped on the front, given to me by my waste disposal service, was just a lie. I was so eager to join this environmental movement that I often hauled my overflowing bin to the recycling center myself.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

The truth is that most recycle companies had been shipping the discarded plastic to China. But when China finally stopped accepting it, these companies began burying it with other trash or not accepting it at all. Less than 10% of all plastics had ever been recycled.

Sure, most plastic can be recycled but that requires transporting it, sorting it and melting it and after that, it degrades, making it less able to be recycled again. Recycling plastic was not cost effective. So plastic started piling up in landfills, or on beautiful beaches, submerged in the oceans or on floating islands in the Pacific.

So why did we think we were doing a good thing by separating our plastics from our trash and putting them in the recycle bin?

Companies that made plastic wanted us to feel good about buying it and therefore told us we could and should recycle it. Plastic makers encouraged Americans to recycle through…