The Recycling Industry is TRASH

It’s Time to Stop Waiting for Recycling to Work

You’ve gathered a trove of plastic this week. Triumphantly, you parade over to your blue bin and plop it inside with a satisfying thwack. You dust your hands and pat yourself on the back — you’re a good person; you care enough to recycle.

But, after you and your good intentions drop that plastic off, where does it go?

Spoiler Alert: Not where you think it should.

Paved With Good Intentions

Since the 1960s, we U.S. citizens have significantly improved at recycling. Over the past 60 years, we’ve increased our recycling rate by 25%! It’s a part of our culture to care about our nature and the beauty of our surroundings. Excellent efforts, like trash clean-ups, are being made across our nation every day to help keep our country beautiful!

As admirable as these efforts are, we’ve been misled about how much of a difference recycling makes. Out of all plastic put in blue bins across the U.S., only 9% is actually recycled.

A lot of plastic isn’t recyclable by our plants, and the labeling is quite confusing! Even when there’s a little recycle symbol on your item, it still might not get accepted by your local waste facility. The numbers matter, and each…