Plastic Recycling Is A (Miserable) Lie That Is Killing Our Planet
<p>We have a colossal problem.</p>
<p>Pandemonium.</p>
<p>Plastic recycling is a big fat lie.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1587378129978490882?s=20" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Environmentalists</a> even now say:</p>
<p>Throw your plastic in the garbage not the recycle bin.</p>
<ul>
<li>A landfill is better than the ocean.</li>
<li>A landfill is better than shipping it off.</li>
</ul>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. Recycling glass, tin, and paper is (actually) effective.</p>
<p>But recycling plastic has never worked and will never ever work.</p>
<h1>It is cheaper to ship it off to poor countries</h1>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/new-greenpeace-report-plastic-recycling-is-a-dead-end-street-year-after-year-plastic-recycling-declines-even-as-plastic-waste-increases/#:~:text=Plastic%20recycling%20was%20estimated%20to,it%20was%20burned%20or%20dumped." rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Greenpeace</a>, it's getting drastically worse every single year.</p>
<ul>
<li>2014: 9.5% of plastic was recycled in the US.</li>
<li>2021: 5% of plastic was recycled in the US.</li>
</ul>
<p>So what happens to that 95% of plastic?</p>
<ol>
<li>Most of it gets <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/climate/plastics-waste-export-ban.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">shipped off to third-world</a> countries.</li>
<li>Then massive amounts end up in the ocean.</li>
</ol>
<p>It has come to a point where environmentalists are asking people to please throw their plastic waste in the garbage where it can at least go to a landfill instead of ending up in the ocean.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/swlh/plastic-recycling-is-a-miserable-lie-that-is-killing-our-planet-1e09456f40ba"><strong>Website</strong></a></p>