Is there any point to recycling plastic aside from getting your five or 10 cent deposit back? A new study from the Center for Climate Integrity finds the plastics industry has misled the public for decades about the benefits of recycling plastic.
The study's lead author, Davis Allen, joined KNX News' Margaret Carrero to go in-depth into their findings.
Allen, an investigative researcher for the Center for Climate Integrity, said simply, "We found that plastic recycling doesn't work."
What's more troubling, Allen said, is that "Big oil and the plastics industry knew that recycling wouldn't address the plastics waste issue going back decades, but when the industry faced pressure from the public, they lied to us and told us that recycling was the answer - repeatedly."
"Misleading ad campaigns, sponsored educational materials for school children, all these tactics made us believe that it was possible at a much greater scale than it actually is," said Allen.. "In reality, plastics recycling is just not really technically or economically viable at scale."
The problem now is consumers rely on plastic products for much of their everyday lives, and Allen said that was the industry's goal.
"They create the disposable plastic waste issue, and then, we say 'selling recycling sell plastic' - if consumers believe that [recycling] works, they're more likely to use more [plastic]," he said.
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In Allen's view, corporations have a long history of shifting the blame onto consumers, and this is just the latest example, but "Unfortunately, none of our individual actions can resolve this issue."
He said recycling plastic is extremely difficult, and even with the public's efforts, the recycling rate in the United States has never hit 10%.
The American Chemistry Council put out a statement about the report, saying, "It says this flawed report cites outdated, decades-old technologies and works against our goals to be more sustainable by mischaracterizing the industry and the state of today's recycling technologies."
It goes on to say, "Changing how plastics are made and remade is a top priority for America's plastic makers. We've set an ambitious goal for all US plastic packaging to be reused, recycled, recovered by 2040."
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