<
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://aninjusticemag.com/recycling-is-a-lie-plastic-manufacturers-spent-1b-to-make-you-think-its-working-e07c8fbbd454>
"In 1977, residents of New Zealand discovered plastic littering their beaches.
In response to the growing crisis, policymakers began discussing how to reduce
the public’s growing dependence on plastic.
Fearing new legislation might be detrimental to their industry, plastics
manufacturers launched a new campaign to desensitize the public to plastic
waste. It was called recycling.
The idea behind recycling was simple. Consumers feel bad tossing a bottle in
the garbage when they hear these same bottles are killing marine life. But if
people are told to sort their trash, they’ll stop blaming plastics for
polluting our oceans — because those products would have magically disappeared
if only they had been properly recycled.
Still, executives feared this plan might backfire and reduce demand for virgin
plastics. These concerns were alleviated when a (leaked) internal memo
concluded “there is serious doubt that [recycled plastic] can ever be made
viable on an economic basis.”
Whenever policymakers threatened to regulate plastic, manufacturers lobbied to
redirect efforts toward making recycling more feasible. This fake solution
proved an invaluable tool for distracting everyone away from the real problem.
In 2020, Larry Thomas resigned as president of the Society of the Plastics
Industry, the largest plastics lobbying group in the United States. The push to
recycle had worked — even after Thomas came clean about his organization’s
deception, recycling was so ingrained into our collective consciousness that
many refused to blame manufacturers for the growing environmental crisis. After
all, the real culprits are lazy consumers who refuse to sort their trash."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
