When I was a sophomore in college back in 2015, I took on my first internship. Despite my intended career path, it wasn’t at a local paper or magazine: It was with the Orange County Waste Management. My goal? Getting University of North Carolina fraternities and sororities on board with recycling.
I got to work rolling up to frat houses with stacks of bright blue bins, factoids about the limited recyclability of red Solo cups, and probably too much optimism. It earned me a campus-wide reputation as the “recycling girl.” My own sorority sisters would roll their eyes or hide their styrofoam to-go containers under tables at meal time. My Secret Santa gave me a coffee mug shaped like a recycling cart.
Was I embarrassed? Maybe a little. But looking back I cringe. I’m embarrassed that my chipper can-do attitude was aimed at the wrong freakin’ problem. Is recycling a good thing? Sure—in the right circumstances. But it’s also a scam.
These days, recycling—specifically plastic recycling—makes me angry. As a sustainability editor, that certainly seems like sacrilege. Let me explain how I got here.
First, though, I’ll clear up what I am and am not talking about: I’m not talking about paper, glass, and aluminum, all of which we’re pretty good at recycling; aluminum in particular can be reborn over and over again without degrading. Plastic recycling, on the other hand, is a mess. According to one Greenpeace report, Americans trashed around 309 pounds of plastic wrappers, bottles, and bags per person in 2021, 95% of which ended up not as a cool tote, trendy area rug, or even a plastic bottle but in landfills, waterways, or as tiny microplastic particles that infiltrate our wildlife and bodies. The problem isn’t a lack of awareness or recycling bins, but that most of those materials weren’t made to be recycled in the first place, the report found.
This isn’t an accident. Recycling is an idea funded and pushed by fossil fuel companies. The industry has known since the 1980s that most types of plastic aren’t readily recyclable, and that circularity would never be a realistic, long-term solution for solid waste. Nevertheless, they funnelled millions into marketing campaigns and imagery like the iconic chasing arrows symbol to convince us to keep buying. In the face of government and consumer pushback, they’ve pivoted the narrative to the promise of “advanced" chemical recycling, which they say is better than the conventional grind-it-up method because it can break down plastics into their original polymers. What they don’t say is that it’s highly polluting.
The problem isn’t a lack of awareness or recycling bins, but that most of those materials weren’t made to be recycled in the first place.
But even the most well-intended folks, myself included, can get swept up. In fact, Ipsos’s 2021 Perils of Perception study found that 59% of people believe that the most important thing they could do to reduce their personal emissions is to recycle more. In actuality, the savings don’t even crack the Top 5 actions in terms of potential impact. According to the same analysis, eating plant-based has 4x the carbon savings, skipping one long-distance flight a year has 8x, and not owning a car has 12x. Plus, overenthusiasm can lead to wishcycling, a phenomenon in which people assume something’s recyclable when it isn’t, put it in the bin, and wind up contaminating the lot and sending even more to the landfill.
Recycling is so appealing because it’s presented as a silver bullet, particularly when you’re just getting started on a sustainability journey. I get it: Who doesn’t love a quick fix? But sorting paper from plastic doesn’t get to the root of the problem. We need to prioritize consuming less stuff (especially things designed to be thrown away), over banking on an easy out to get rid of junk once we’ve used it up. One study found that switching from PET half-liter bottles to glass can reduce carbon impact by 99.6%.
I’m choosing my words carefully here, because nihilism about the recycling system isn’t going to solve anything. And I’m definitely not saying you should put your empty Diet Coke bottle in the trash out of protest. But honest conversations with our friends, family, and elected officials about how recycling is only a bandaid for the problem can get us closer to real answers. What we really need are policies that cap plastic production, make polluters responsible for their waste, and tax excessive packaging, among other solutions.
Don’t take this as me calling anyone out for being a devoted recycler. I just think we can all learn from my well-intended “recycling girl” era. But I do wish I had a time machine to tell my 2015 self I’d have been better off handing out reusable water bottles instead of blue bins.
