Environment & Energy

Recyclers have to collect and sort so much mixed material, which is costly in and of itself, but a high percentage of it is actually trash or “wish” cycling that people think or hope is recyclable. The plastics industry uses the promise of recycling to tamp down the negative PR they have. But most plastics are not recycled because the MARKETS for recycled content resins is volatile, heavily regulated (as it should be), and undercut by cheap fossil fuel virgin plastic raw material. The packaging producers, part of the gaslighting propaganda peddlers, only focus on slapping the recycling logo on their products, yet THEY DON’T TRULY SUPPORT RECYCLING BECAUSE THEY DON’T USE RECYCLED CONTENT in their manufacturing. We can collect and sort it, but someone has to buy it from us. That is what these gaslighters refuse to fix.

So they slap that logo on falsely which confuses the consumers who put it in their recycling cart, and then processors like us have to fish all the unrecyclable crap out and then pay to have it landfilled. And producers have the gall to blame us for low recycling rates!

That’s also not even including all of the single use plastics, and including the needles from the diabetes and Ozempic craze that public puts in their recycling cart that harm our workers and cost a ton to responsibly dispose of.

They are evil and don’t care about recycling—it’s just to avoid the PR scrutiny of litter and ocean harm as they continue to make UNRECYCLABLE packaging but tell you it’s “recycl-ABLE” that makes you confused and recyclers pay for it all. If it is not able to be recycled, it doesn’t matter where the logo says, we can’t recycle it. The packaging industry makes it not recyclable because they don’t care about the end of life responsibility. They keep the profit and spread the harm of managing it all out to cities, recyclers, and confused consumers.

RECYCLING PLASTICS RULE OF THUMB:
The recycling symbol with a number in the middle of it is merely a plastic resin identifier, not a green light for recyclability. (I know, that is part of the scam that the plastic industry created and where all the problems lie.)

The only plastics that have any market value and that we can recover in a mixed material recycling facility is number one or number two containers. Think sizable rigid items like bottles, jugs, tubs and jars. NO flimsy things like bags, wrappers, or tiny things like utensils, loose caps, or straws. Bags tangle, our equipment and tiny things slipped through are sorting operations. It’s all trash that we have to pay to landfill so when in doubt throw it out.