Plastic Wars

Plastic Wars (2020)

• Sea turtle with plastic straw up its nose 

• By 2050, it is estimated that global plastic production will triple

• Recycling sent to sorting center 

  • Most types of plastic (other than bottles) are difficult and costly to recycle, which makes it hard to sell = mixed plastics 

  • Most mixed plastics end up in landfills 

• Not everything that has the chasing arrows mark at the bottom is recyclable — in fact most are not, but people immediately believe that they are because it “says it is”

  • Ex: blueberry container 

  • This causes a huge problem because consumers are unaware that the codes within those numbers are the actual keys to indicating if the product is recyclable or not 

• Efforts to change consumer behavior has helped clean up the visible litter problem, but the root cause has not been challenged 

• The plastic industry conserves their image by setting up recycling programs, but then they leave it to the public to pay for its continuation 

  • Making recycling work was a way to keep plastic in the marketplace 

  • Recycling essentially promotes plastic 

• The recycling symbols are bad because the average person misinterprets them

  • Some firms use it as a green marketing tool — they are being misused, and the industries know 

  • Plastic makers would only switch to a triangle 

• If the public thinks recycling is working, than the focus less attention on the environment 

• Advertising programs increased favorability of plastics (from around 30  to 60 percent)  by highlighting their strengths and avoiding what they were being criticized for

• SINGLE USE HANGERS!!!

• China would buy US plastic, only use the “low hanging fruit” or those easy to recycle, and then incinerate the rest (which is very very bad because it leads to respiratory problems, etc.)

• Are we damaging the environment more in the name of recycling?

• Contaminated plastic trash is as big a problem as drugs being illegally brought into Indonesia 

  • The dirty plastic that cannot be recycled is dumped into the community by Newharvest Indo 

    • They have not been charged for any wrongdoing related to dumping 

  • Found plastic from the United States 

• New advanced sorting machines are not economical 

  • You can’t sort your way out of this

  • You also can’t recycle your way out of this 

• No more than an estimated 10 percent of plastic has ever been recycled 

• Environmentalists have also misguided people to recycle 

  • They were overly optimistic for the potential of recycling 

  • Recycling being the solution is a myth 

• Single use plastic is the fallback for oil and petroleum industries

• Recycling CANNOT be the only thing 

• “Reduce reuse recycle” was created upon the sole campaign of recycling 

• Solutions:

  • Educate people on what recycling labels really mean 

  • Producers should publicly disclose the environmental impacts of their products 

    • What is the carbon footprint? What are the toxic submissions? How much water was used to produce it? The actual effect…