Buzz
What you’ve been told about plastic recycling is mostly incorrect, and a significant portion of this misinformation is spread by those who oppose it. Their goal is to either deceive you entirely or feed you partial truths that downplay the problem.
The primary culprits behind this are the oil and plastic industries. Yes, oil is what plastic is made from, and the two industries are closely intertwined—if they are even separate at all. However, that doesn't mean the environmentalists advocating for plastic recycling are entirely blameless. Keep reading to uncover more.
10. Not All Plastic Can Be Recycled
The plastic industry divides plastic into seven categories based on its chemical composition. However, only plastics in categories 1 and 2 are typically recyclable. While the rest might be recyclable in some cases, they usually aren't.
PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and HDPE (high-density polyethylene) are the plastics categorized as types 1 and 2. PVC (polyvinyl chloride) comes next. It is technically recyclable, but the process is so complex that most recyclers avoid it altogether.
Next in line is LDPE (low-density polyethylene), commonly used for flimsy products like plastic bags. While recyclable, it’s rarely processed because it’s notorious for jamming recycling machinery. Plus, these plastics are incredibly cheap to produce and more costly to recycle than to create from scratch.
PP (polypropylene) represents the fifth type of plastic. Though recyclable, it’s seldom recycled due to its tendency to turn black or gray and retain the odor of the previous contents it encased.
PS (polystyrene) is the sixth type of plastic, while the seventh category isn’t really a specific plastic but rather a general designation for any plastic that doesn’t belong to the first six groups. Both types 6 and 7 plastics are typically not recycled.
9. The Recycling Symbol Means It’s Recyclable
If you were asked to describe the symbol that indicates a plastic can be recycled, you'd probably mention the three arrows forming a triangle. That’s right. But what if we told you that most plastics bearing this symbol aren’t actually recyclable?
There are two similar symbols in use. The first one, which we just described, is the original symbol that indicates recyclability. The second one looks almost the same but has a number between one and seven in the middle of the triangle. This number represents the type of plastic in question.
This second symbol is not the recycling logo but a Resin Identification Code (RIC). Developed by the Society of Plastics Industry (SPI) in 1988, the codes were created to help recyclers accurately identify and sort plastics for recycling.
But does this justify the use of the recycling arrows, especially for plastics numbered 3 through 7, which are rarely recycled or generally considered unrecyclable?
The truth is, SPI was essentially a mouthpiece for the oil and plastic industries. Although they never admitted it, they created the RIC to cause confusion and shield their businesses from anti-plastic and pro-recycling campaigns. And it’s been effective—people regularly mistake the RIC for the recycling symbol.
8. Recycling Facilities Handle All Types of Plastics
An often overlooked fact about recycling is that plastics of different types—and even plastics of the same type produced with varying methods—cannot be recycled together. This is clear with HDPE (type 2), where injection-molded HDPE and blow-molded HDPE are processed separately.
This presents an issue because recycling plants are designed to handle only a specific type of plastic. Even then, these plants will only accept plastics that are free from contamination. But what exactly qualifies as a contaminant?
A contaminant is anything other than the plastic intended for recycling. This includes different types of plastics, or even food and liquids inside the plastic being processed. Contaminants increase recycling costs and can pose hazards to workers. As a result, huge amounts of recyclable plastics with even minor contaminants end up in landfills.
7. We Recycle Our Plastics
Occasionally, we hear about a new recycling plant opening in a city or private company, all in the name of 'saving the environment.' Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, not quite.
The U.S. is actually pretty poor at recycling its plastic waste. A staggering 69% of plastics used in the U.S. fall into types 3 to 7, which means they end up in landfills. Of the remaining 31%, the U.S. has the infrastructure to recycle just 8.4%. So what happens to the rest?
Surprisingly, the U.S. exports its plastic waste. Most of it used to go to China, until 2018 when the Chinese government imposed a ban due to the high levels of contaminants. Instead of sorting the materials, Chinese recyclers simply discarded them in landfills or dumped them into the ocean. This prompted the government to take action and enforce the ban.
6. Other Countries Handle Our Plastic Waste
After China stopped accepting 95.4% of the U.S.'s plastic waste, the U.S. had to find a new solution. Along with Canada, Australia, and South Korea, the U.S. turned to neighboring countries of China—Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines—to take on the task that China once handled.
In total, these countries experienced a 362% surge in plastic waste imports. Their recycling facilities were overwhelmed, but recyclers continued to bring in the waste, only to dispose of it in landfills.
By the end of 2018, those countries had had enough. Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam declared limits on plastic waste imports and announced plans to implement full bans in the future.
5. Recyclers Do It for Environmental Reasons
What’s the real goal of recycling?
Environmentalists claim it’s for the benefit of the environment. However, environmentalists don’t run recycling plants—businesspeople do. And just like any other business, their primary motive is profit.
Even though we often see used plastic as worthless trash, there’s a cost involved in collecting, transporting, and sorting it before it can be sold to recyclers. The waste management companies involved in this process need to generate profits to stay afloat. Similarly, the recyclers who buy and transform these plastics into new products also need to make money.
This means that the price of used and recycled plastic fluctuates based on oil prices, natural disasters, and plastic waste legislation.
If oil becomes ridiculously cheap, recycling won’t be worth it anymore since it’ll be more economical to create new plastic from oil. And if you’re a major importer of plastic waste, like China did in 2018 by imposing a ban, the price of used plastic plummets, making recycling unprofitable.
However, things aren’t any better when oil prices rise or natural disasters, like the 2010 flood in Pakistan, devastate cotton farms. (That disaster significantly raised the cost of polyester, a synthetic fabric made from plastic, as a substitute for cotton.)
While such events would usually promote more recycling, the opposite happens. Waste management companies hike up the cost of used plastics, which in turn increases the cost of recycled plastics. Some recyclers continue to buy at these higher prices, while others who can’t afford it are forced to close down.
4. Recycling Benefits the Environment
Environmentalists often highlight how extracting and converting oil into plastic harms the environment, along with how used plastics end up in landfills and the oceans. While this is true, the same criticism can be applied to recycling.
To begin with, trucks and ships burn fuel to transport used plastics to Asian countries already struggling to manage their own plastic waste. By the time the plastics arrive, between 20% and 70% of them are found to be contaminated, making the entire batch impossible to recycle. As a result, they’re either sent to landfills, dumped into the ocean, or burned, all of which create additional pollution.
But is the situation any better for plastics that actually get recycled? Unfortunately, the answer is still no. Recycling plastic requires fuel and chemicals, and the process itself generates pollutants that contaminate both water and air.
3. Plastic Is Harmful
Why is plastic so heavily criticized despite its widespread use?
Plastic is notorious for its slow decomposition, often polluting oceans and harming marine life. But imagine if we listened to environmental advocates and banned plastic altogether. What could we use instead? Perhaps we should look to the past for answers.
Before plastic became common, materials like wood, glass, ivory, and tortoiseshell were commonly used for items now made from plastic. But wood comes from trees, which leads to deforestation. As for ivory and tortoiseshells, they come from endangered animals like elephants and turtles. So, do we prefer to destroy forests and kill animals instead of using plastic?
History tells us otherwise. The invention of plastic in the 19th century was partly in response to the devastating demand for ivory, which was driving elephants to extinction. Plastic was developed to replace ivory and protect animals, helping save countless creatures and trees in the process.
Before the rise of plastic packaging, food preservation in kitchens and restaurants posed significant challenges. There were limited options for storing food, and bulk food items often lacked proper labeling, increasing the risk of foodborne illnesses. The advent of plastics helped mitigate these health hazards and improve food safety.
The plastic industry champions recycling efforts, but there’s a hidden truth behind their support. Despite the industry's strong promotion of recycling, their profits come not from recycling but from the constant consumption of new plastic. It’s a curious contradiction—why would they advocate for recycling when it doesn’t benefit them financially?
While the oil and plastic sectors position themselves as champions of recycling, their true motives are more questionable. In reality, their support is little more than a strategic move to quiet environmentalists and dodge public criticism, all while continuing to flood the market with more plastic.
The oil and plastic industries do not genuinely support recycling. Their so-called endorsement is merely a public relations strategy, designed to ease environmental concerns and shield them from backlash. They continue to sell more plastic, all while keeping up the illusion of environmental responsibility.
Recall how the plastic industry introduced recycling symbols as part of a clever strategy to mislead the public. Their objective is clear: if people believe most plastics are recyclable, they’ll focus more on the recycling process rather than questioning the industries responsible for creating plastic in the first place.
This is why many of us feel no hesitation in purchasing plastic products, believing they will be recycled. When they aren’t, we end up pointing fingers at the recycling industry for not doing enough, instead of holding the plastic industry accountable for producing non-recyclable plastics and ourselves responsible for buying into the plastic packaging culture.
In 2010, the plastic industry produced double the amount of plastics compared to 1990, and by 2050, their production will triple the 2020 numbers. This is despite the chaotic state of recycling, with less than 10% of plastics actually being recycled. (Oops, did we just shift the blame to the recycling industry?)
1. Plastics Can Be Recycled Forever
The hidden reality is that recycling damages the chemical structure of plastic. As a result, most plastics are downgraded to lower-quality items that are less useful.
For example, plastic soda bottles are repurposed into products like sewer pipes because their material isn't durable enough to become a new bottle. Even the recyclable plastics (types 1 and 2) are seldom recycled more than once.
Take type 1 plastic (PET), which can be recycled up to three times. However, this doesn’t make much of a difference since it's often turned into polyester, a non-recyclable material. So, we can say type 1 plastic essentially gets recycled only once.
Plastic of type 2 (HDPE) can undergo multiple recycling processes. For instance, a manufacturer of recycling machines in Europe managed to recycle it up to ten times, although this was achieved under very specific circumstances. In contrast, plastics of types 3, 4, and 6 can only be recycled once, although, as mentioned earlier, this rarely occurs, and these plastics are often sent to landfills.
Type 5 plastics are recyclable up to four times, yet only a tiny fraction—just 1%—ever gets recycled. Plastics of type 7 can potentially be recycled, but their recycling depends on the type of plastic involved, as this category contains a variety of materials and each may be treated differently.
