I am one of those ‘tree huggers’ that recycles and have been for decades….but in recent years with so many reports about the useless trend of recycling has got me wondering if I should continue to do so.

There are a bunch of disturbing reports about plastic waste…..

A report released Thursday estimates that countries worldwide are on pace to generate 220 million tonnes of total plastic waste this year, a finding that comes as governments are set to convene in Ottawa, Canada later this month to hash out a binding global treaty to limit the toxic pollution that is inundating waterways and communities across the planet.

The new report from EA – Earth Action (EA) projects that Plastic Overshoot Day—the point at which the amount of plastic waste produced exceeds the capacity of global management systems—will arrive on September 5 this year. Over a third of the total plastic waste created this year will end up in nature, according to the analysis.

On average, each person globally contributes 28 kilograms of plastic pollution per year. Previous research has shown that just 20 companies are responsible for more than half of the world’s total single-use plastic waste.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/plastic-waste-2024

That is a scary amount of waste….but there is always recycling, right?

The most recent article shows me that we all may have been ‘hoodwinked’ by big oil….

The petrochemical industry—including major oil companies like ExxonMobil—knew for decades that recycling was not a sustainable solution to the problem of plastic waste, yet continued to promote it in order to avoid regulation and deceive consumers into continuing to buy and use their products, a report released Thursday by the Center for Climate Integrity reveals.

The report, titled The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the Plastics Industry Deceived the Public for Decades and Caused the Plastic Waste Crisis, includes newly disclosed industry documents proving that companies and trade groups knew that plastics could not be recycled indefinitely in the 1980s and 90s even as they launched a massive public relations campaign to sell voters and policymakers on the process.

“This evidence shows that many of the same fossil fuel companies that knew and lied for decades about how their products cause climate change have also known and lied to the public about plastic recycling,” Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) president Richard Wiles said in a statement. “The oil industry’s lies are at the heart of the two most catastrophic pollution crises in human history.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/plastics-industry-lie-recycling

Here is another link to this study….

Explosive new report accuses major corporations of lying for decades: ‘It’s clearly fraud they’re engaged in’

I believe there is a term being thrown around these days….’greenwashing’…..WTF?

Greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or misleading information about how a company’s products are environmentally sound. Greenwashing involves making an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company’s products are environmentally friendly or have a greater positive environmental impact than they actually do.

In addition, greenwashing may occur when a company attempts to emphasize sustainable aspects of a product to overshadow the company’s involvement in environmentally damaging practices. Performed through the use of environmental imagery, misleading labels, and hiding tradeoffs, greenwashing is a play on the term “whitewashing,” which means using false information to intentionally hide wrongdoing, error, or an unpleasant situation in an attempt to make it seem less bad than it is.

So should we continue to recycle?

“No,” Cirino told Salon. “Even if plastic recycling rates were higher, recycling alone could never come close to solving the serious and wide-ranging health, justice, socio-economic, and environmental crises caused by industries’ continued plastic production and plastic pollution, which go hand in hand.” Cirino argued that, given how plastic production has grown exponentially and its pollution problems have likewise worsened, emphasizing recycling over meaningful solutions is at best irresponsible.

“It’s clear recycling is not enough to solve the plastic pollution crisis,” Cirino concluded. “The fossil fuel industry, governments, and corporations really need to turn off the plastic tap, and the UN Plastics Treaty could be an opportunity to do so on a global level—if member states can come together and form a treaty with real ambition. Ultimately, our world must decide what it values: money or life.”

(salon.com)

A couple of years ago I wrote about recycling here on IST….

Do You Recycle?

Ultimately this is one of those issues that the individual has to decide what is best (pause here for side splitting laughter….like most have no care what happens as long as their Mtn Dew is cold)

Me? My family has already started dialing back the amount of plastic we discard…..we care what happens if you do not then that is your problem.

Be Samrt!

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“lego ergo scribo”