Plastic Recycling: A False Promise Unveiled

Plastic Recycling
Plastic Recycling. Credit | Shutterstock

United States – Plastic pollution is so bad that some experts call it as serious as the climate crisis. There are no indications of a reduction in the near future, with plastic pollution estimated to double by 2030. To top it off, over the next couple of decades, the amount of plastic in the ocean will have significantly increased to 600 million tons, which equals the same weight of 3 million blue whales.

On the other side of this debate is the plastics industry; however, they are definitive that they have a solution to the menace. Last month, America’s Plastic Makers industry group came up with a TV commercial claiming that recycling programs are solving the pollution issue and the problem it caused. “Recycling plastic is “turning the planet for the better, and greener,” wrote the ad filled with images of wind turbines and solar panels. It revealed that recycling was “making a sustainable change” that “will benefit generations to come.”

There’s just one problem: this ad is a fraud. Recycling, which works for products like paper, glass, and metallic, has not proved helpful in the case of plastic pollution. Among the U.S. population, only 5 to 6 percent of the plastic is actually recycled every year. Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled all over the world. The 350 million tons of plastic waste accumulated annually either end up in landfills, incinerators, ecosystems, or even human bodies. A research article also claims that every individual eats approximately the same amount of plastic (one credit card a week) as they do, as reported by Heated.

And here’s the kicker: Plastic manufacturers have long known that recycling is doomed to failure. The latest study from the Center for Climate Integrity proves this lie by presenting their recent documentaries, which show that carbon storage doesn’t work, as they have internally admitted since the 1960s.

However, regardless of the fact that recycling should not be seen as a magical substance that could resolve all the problems, the industry continues advertising millions of dollars and trying to convince people that recycling can actually save our world from the risk of plastic pollution. Because when money is at your core, you often want nothing but to see the world drenched in your product whereas you want the world to only use less of your own.

How plastic insiders talk about recycling

The Center for Climate Integrity has accumulated extensive research proving that plastics companies were nearly fully aware years ago of just how limited recycling capacity is.

There are records of speeches by Leody Erics B. Outwater as early as 1969. He told participants of the plenary session on packaging waste that the economics of recycling are “discouraging, above all.” Plastic packaging, on the other hand, made of more than one type of plastic, is “virtually unrecoverable after use,” he said.

In 1972, the American Chemical Society, another industry body, announced that plastics manufacturers would not engage in massive recycling unless it became cost-effective.

“It is always possible that scientists and engineers will learn to recycle or find a way of waste disposal at a profit,” the group wrote in a report for Chemical & Engineering News, “but that does not seem likely to happen soon on a broad basis.”

Recyclable materials only extend the period until they are disposed of, so recycling cannot be viewed as a permanent solid waste solution, according to a 1986 report from The Vinyl Institute, a trade body.

Roy Gottesman, the founder of The Vinyl Institute, clarified to delegates at a 1989 symposium on plastic recycling that “recycling cannot go on indefinitely and does not solve the solid waste problem.”

In 1994, an unnamed Exxon vice president said that the company’s commitment to recycling was often a publicity stunt. “You see, our dedication does not lie with the outcomes but with the process,” he explained at a meeting of the American Plastics Council, which had seen the company fail to achieve the recycling targets.

In addition, one of Exxon’s lobbyists, Irwin Levowitz, also persuaded the Council to do no talks about missed targets. We have to make sure there is no paper out there with the heading We’re not going to make the goal [Lewoiz wrote in a memorandum marked “HIGHLY SENSITIVE POLITICALLY”]

Moreover, Europe has identified obstacles to recycling. According to the European Vinyls Corporation in 1993, “Recycling is not always the best option as it does not always affect greatest environmental gain,”

The hammer came down on the same report from the European Association of Plastics Manufacturers of 1996, which stated that “there is a limit…to the amount of household plastics waste which can be mechanically recycled with environmental gain.”

To illustrate this fact, state government officials point out that even the recycling symbols found on the bottoms of plastic bottles and containers are greenwashing by industry. At the time of their adoption in 1990, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Conservation pointed out the truth: “The symbol reminds us that the containers made of the plastic materials have been recycled or that they are recyclable. However, this is more often not the actual case, as reported by Heated.