Big Oil Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic, and Left Cities Grappling With a Costly Waste Problem

NBC Washington
By James Pollard and Danielle Abreu

Just because that plastic item you rinsed out and placed in your recycling bin is labeled as recyclable doesn't mean it actually is.

In fact, according to a 2020 Greenpeace report, most types of plastics in the U.S. are not recyclable and usually end up in landfills or incinerators, if not polluting the environment. The vast majority of recycling facilities across the country can only accept two types of plastics, the report found, and even then only a small fraction of that plastic waste is actually processed.

How small? According to the Environmental Protection Agency less than 9% of plastic material generated in the U.S. Municipal Solid Waste stream was recycled in 2017 and 2018, the last years for which data is available. Another 15.8% was combusted for energy, while 75.6% was sent to landfills. Millions of tons also ends up in our oceans and rivers each year.

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Hirsch pointed to a 2020 investigation by NPR and PBS’s “Frontline,” which found the makers of plastic — the nation’s largest oil companies — lobbied states in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s to mandate the “chasing arrows” symbol appear on all plastics. These petroleum companies and the industries that depend on plastic to bottle their products sold to the public the notion that the majority of plastic could be recycled, despite knowing otherwise and making billions of dollars in the process.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/most-of-your-plastic-waste-isnt-recyclable-and-ends-up-in-landfills-heres-why/3030840/

This is so depressing. The world is drowning in plastic.