7 Things You Didn’t Know About Plastic (and Recycling)

When you recycle plastic, you prevent it from polluting the oceans. This myth is based on the enduring delusion that plastic from curbside bins can be efficiently turned into other products. But sorting the stuff is so onerous and labor-intensive—and the resulting materials of so little value—that recycling plastic is hopelessly unprofitable in the... See more

First, recycling programs across the U.S. are successfully recycling plastic today, and we know what it will take to recycle more of it.

If people believe they can buy aluminum coffee capsules, plastic water bottles or even new cars expecting that everything will be recycled and reused, it allows them to consume with a clean conscience.

“The positive emotions associated with recycling can overpower the negative emotions associated with wasting” — Monic Sun and Remi Trudel, professors

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The third and newest sign of a bright future for plastic recycling is that plastics packaging itself is changing

But politicians and environmentalists have other ideas. They’re doubling down on their mistakes by banning more plastic products and demanding alternatives that are more expensive, less convenient, and worse for the environment. Even experts familiar with the facts succumb to magical thinking. Yes, they acknowledge, we shouldn’t be exporting our pl... See more

The second reason to believe in the future of plastic recycling is that there is a mature and growing domestic plastics recycling industry that needs the collected material