Report Reveals 'Fraud' of Plastic Recycling
According to the UN Environment Program, 400 million metric tons of plastic waste is produced around the world each year.
However, less than 10% of the plastic waste humans have produced has actually been recycled. And a new report from the Center for Climate Integrity says big companies have misled the public about the reality of recycling for years.
Called The Fraud of Plastic Recycling, the report says petrochemical companies — companies that produce products from fossil fuels, including plastics — have been promising plastic recycling results that they know are not achievable for decades.
The report names big petrochemical companies like Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron Phillips and Dow as the driving force behind promoting plastic recycling as a "false solution" even as they increase plastic production.
It explains that the recycling of many plastics is often too expensive to be efficient, with the production of new plastics being much cheaper, and with higher quality results.
But this hasn't stopped companies from promoting many plastics as easy to recycle, leading to a growing crisis of misinformation around plastic waste.
The report notes that, as early as 1991, the US Environmental Protection Agency determined that only two types of plastic could be recycled into high-quality products. Those are polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is used for drink bottles; and high density polyethylene, or HDPE, used for things like detergent bottles and food containers.
But many other plastic products are collected for recycling. And instead of being recycled, they're exported, incinerated, sent to landfill sites, or dumped in the ocean.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres says every day 2,000 truckloads of plastic waste is dumped into our oceans, lakes and rivers.
It goes to places like Indonesia, where plastic often washes up in huge piles on beaches and gets caught in fishing nets. Indonesia itself is the world's second-biggest producer of plastic waste, after China.
But the report notes that even plastic that can be recycled can only be recycled once or maybe twice. So all plastic eventually becomes waste — recycling just delays it.
