Recycling is a Lie. Plastic Manufacturers Spent $1B to Make You Think It’s Working

In 1977, residents of New Zealand <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0025326X7790193X" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">discovered</a> plastic littering their beaches. In response to the growing crisis, policymakers began discussing how to reduce the public’s growing dependence on plastic. Fearing new legislation might be detrimental to their industry, plastics manufacturers launched a new campaign to desensitize the public to plastic waste. It was called recycling. The idea behind recycling was simple. Consumers feel bad tossing a bottle in the garbage when they hear these same bottles are killing marine life. But if people are told to sort their trash, they’ll stop blaming plastics for polluting our oceans — because those products would have magically disappeared if only they had been properly recycled. <a href="https://aninjusticemag.com/recycling-is-a-lie-plastic-manufacturers-spent-1b-to-make-you-think-its-working-e07c8fbbd454">Learn More</a>