Recycling plastics has been a fool's errand

Keith

February 20

An article by Dharna Noor in The Guardian called "'They lied': plastics producers deceived public about recycling, report reveals" is an upsetting pronouncement. The subtitle says more - "Companies knew for decades recycling was not viable but promoted it regardless, Center for Climate Integrity study finds." Here are select paragraphs:

"Plastic producers have known for more than 30 years that recycling is not an economically or technically feasible plastic waste management solution. That has not stopped them from promoting it, according to a new report.

'The companies lied,' said Richard Wiles, president of fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), which published the report. 'It's time to hold them accountable for the damage they've caused.'…

…The industry has known for decades about these existential challenges, but obscured that information in its marketing campaigns, the report shows.

The research draws on previous investigations as well as newly revealed internal documents illustrating the extent of this decades-long campaign.

Industry insiders over the past several decades have variously referred to plastic recycling as 'uneconomical', said it 'cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution', and said it 'cannot go on indefinitely' the revelations show.

The authors say the evidence demonstrates that oil and petrochemical companies, as well as their trade associations, may have broken laws designed to protect the public from misleading marketing and pollution."

The gist is the public has been led to believe greater and cost effective success has been achieved in plastics recycling. At the same time, we have huge islands of plastics in our oceans that some of which have been ingested by sea creatures and, in turn, consumers.

We must seek and find truths to deal with this mountainous problem. We also need to have an advertised and concreted effort to greatly reduce the use of plastic. Less bottled water and other liquids is a huge given. Plus we need to move to other types of containers that can be reused, repurposed or easily recycled. This industry seems to have little concern to lying to consumers. We should not forget that key point.