Are you a horrible person? Of course you’re not. You recycle.
You put your paper products and cardboard in one spot, your cans and bottles in another. And you separate the plastics. Why? Your entire life you have been told to do this, that it’s a good thing. You are saving the planet.
Humans are taught from an early age that recycling is righteous. However, not all recycling is good for the environment, nor waste reducing. When it comes to plastic, recycling is mostly a big hustle. And like other scams it has everything to do with profits.
The history of plastic and recycling has been filled with lies, deception and greed. The story of plastics starts in the 1930s in the run-up to World War II. The allies needed a cheaper, more flexible and lighter product to replace much heavier steel and wood construction in planes, tanks and equipment.
Plastic was then invented and its use quickly adopted. However, when the war ended the use of plastic dropped dramatically. What would now happen to the plastics industries? Corporate leaders conferred to see how consumers could utilize as much of their product as possible. Americans would be taught to love plastic products to save the new industry.
However, Americans chose to reuse their new plastic items to save money rather than discard them. That was the American way. Traditional metal and wood containers and even cloth sacks were cleaned and re-purposed. For the plastics industry to make more profit America must literally become wasteful.
Madison Avenue’s mission was to convince Americans to not clean and reuse plastic utensils and containers but to simply discard them. They were told “single use disposable items were the way of the future.” Life would be easier to throw everything away. That was the pitch.
It worked. By 1960, plastic had surpassed aluminum, to become one the largest industries in the country. However, the groomed behavior of being wasteful lasted only a decade when many consumers said enough.
In 1970, the back-to-the-earth movement took aim at the plastics industry and other gross polluters. The plastics industry, their marketing successes now under attack, used lies and manipulation to push back to remain profitable. Decades earlier the industry pressured consumers to use and toss. Now, rather than making their product less damaging, their advertisements turned against users accusing them of being wasteful and destroying the environment. People must recycle!
Under continued pressure the plastics industries began doing research in the 1980s to recycle their products to reduce waste. Unfortunately, they found that most of their plastic items could not be recycled. Products made from recycled plastics had less durability. It was more cost effective and energy efficient to make new plastic from petro-chemicals.
The Society of Plastics could not improve their product and reusing plastic was unprofitable. So it decided to deceive the public convincing them that recycling was working and society was doing a great job, all a lie. “If society thinks recycling is working then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment.”
The international insignia designed in 1970 noted on a recyclable product then was cleverly changed for plastic to a triangle of arrows with a number inside. Only numbers 1 and 2 means that the plastic item can be used for other products. The higher numbers indicate those plastics are simply incinerated or dumped in landfills. It’s all a big scam, leading consumers to believe plastics are re-purposed.
The plastics and recycling industries are massively profitable, are gross polluters and liars. The ten largest plastic recyclers on the planet earn $60 billion annually. In the US alone plastics companies spend more than $300 million a year to encourage people to use their product, that recycling plastic works and that they are saving the planet, all a fraud. Major product manufacturers are in on the virtue-signaling feel-good scam by noting “this product made of recycled plastic.”
What’s the answer? Do what our grandparents did. Revisit the idea of reusing wood, glass and metal. It was working just fine until marketing propaganda brainwashed people to believe the lie that plastic was better.
Plastics today are in everything including clothing. Micro-plastics have even been detected in human blood. Hardly any plastic is good plastic. What we can do is our best to quit feeding the plastic industry beast until a better product is invented.
(Lou Binninger can be heard on No Hostages Radio podcast, live on KMYC 1410AM 10-1 Saturdays, read at Live with Lou on Facebook and at Nohostagesradio.com)
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