Humanity obviously has a plastic problem, one that has been plaguing us since plastic was invented. Now when I say that plastic is plaguing us, I don’t just mean that there is an island of plastic twice the size of Texas sitting in the Pacific Ocean called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, I mean that plastic is literally plaguing us, as microplastics have been found in every part of the body including your heart and brain.
Imagine dragons might want to update their song:
Whatever it takes
‘Cause I love the adrenaline microplastics in my veins
While there are many different angles to disposing of our waste in a sustainable way, the most prominent method that has always been floated is recycling. According to a Pew Research article, around 94% of Americans have access to some kind of recycling program, which they fund using their tax dollars. Given that so many cities and counties in the country are investing so intently on recycling to tackle our plastic problem, it is worth asking the question “does recycling actually work?”
Plastic Recycling Basics
Recycling is the process of taking material that would be discarded as waste and turning the waste back into usable products that serve a purpose. With plastic, this involves shredding the plastic into flakes, melting and extruding these into small pellets, which can then be used to manufacture new products. Now at first glance this sounds like a great fix, and it seems to validate the country investing so heavily on recycling to solve our plastic problem.
But… when you look at the statistics the story starts changing, from one of incredible innovation intent on tackling a looming waste crisis, to that of a campaign seeking to quell the public’s fears of a problem with a solution that does not work.
According to a Greenpeace report cited by NPR, only about 5-6% of plastic waste in the USA is being recycled. The rest ends up in landfills, oceans, or ends up being incinerated. Now you might be wondering why there is such a big disconnect between the amount of recycling that Americans are trying to do and what actually ends up being recycled. The answer to that is one of basic economics. Recycling is only financially viable for a few select types of plastic products, with the rest being too energy and cost demanding to recycle in an adequately impactful quantity.
If it was simply about the energy demands or the cost of recycling every type of plastic, there are methods to improve efficiency and make all recycling economically viable. However, there is also the stability of plastic that raises concerns. Plastic is not necessarily made to be durable, and yet another way this point is proven is in recycling. Plastic degrades every time it is recycled, so there is a limit to how much plastic can be recycled before it is unrecyclable.
That limit is about 3 times. After that the plastic’s quality tanks as its strength drops, leaving it brittle and destined for a landfill.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the final nail in the coffin for recycling are the health implications. According to a Green Peace report cited by The Guardian, recycled plastic waste is more toxic than freshly made plastic. This phenomenon is partly due to recycled plastic needing extra chemicals and carcinogens to keep its structure. This leads to a higher concentration of chemicals such as toxic flame retardants, benzene and other carcinogens that can serve as endocrine disruptors, causing changes to the body’s natural hormone levels.
Now with all of that said, here is the real question: “Would you consider that to be a long-term solution?”
If you had a pair of socks that only had a 9% chance of being washed, with a limit of three laundry cycles, heading straight to the incinerator after the third time, and potentially leaving you bedridden, would you consider that to be sustainable?
If not, then how did everyone get so drunk on the promise of recycling?
How did we end up here?
Public concerns over plastic pollution was increasingly growing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which only ballooned larger after the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1972. Facing an existential crisis, plastic companies set out on a journey to try to find a solution to this problem that might put them out of business. The answer that they came up with was recycling.
Now plastic manufacturers and distributors realized early on that plastic recycling was not technically or economically viable on a large scale. So what did they do? They promoted it like it was viable in order to avoid facing restrictions on plastic production and to shift blame onto the consumers when plastic pollution became increasingly prevalent. The latter has worked surprisingly well, as the rhetoric around plastic waste in the modern day is more about littering and individual responsibility, rather than it being a conversation about holding the producers of this waste accountable.
What now?
Well, now that we know that recycling is as real as Spider-Man, we can adapt our lifestyle to try to do our part in the fight against plastic pollution. Instead of leaning on recycling to stop plastic pollution, changing your lifestyle to exclude plastic as much as possible is the most we as individuals can do in the fight against plastic pollution.
Here are just a few examples of how you as an individual can make a difference:
Instead of getting a plastic bag at the grocery store, try bringing your own tote bag to carry groceries.
Instead of using single-use plastic bottles, try using metal water bottles and public refill stations for your water supply.
Instead of using plastic straws, try using a metal straw or a paper straw.
While it may not seem like much, if every person, or even most people adopted habits that limited plastic in their life, that would drive down demand for plastic and thus result in less plastic waste. The ultimate reason for recycling being sold as a solution was because without a solution, the industry would die with or without regulations from the government. With the truth now lying in plain sight, it is upon us to act.