Is plastic recycled?

There’s a story doing the rounds about how plastic recycling has always been a scam. Consumers started to get concerned about the ecological consequences of throwing plastic away and — despite knowing it was infeasible and uneconomical to actually recycle — they slapped little logos on everything implying that they can and will be recycled, thus alleviating the consumer concern without doing anything about the problem.

NPR’s Planet Money did a show on whether recycling is worthwhile at all.

In particular, people argue that recycling as a solution suits the corporate agenda by shifting responsibility from the firms creating the problem to individuals, regardless of whether they are at all positioned to make things better. This can be equated to the ‘carbon footprint’ idea and the approach to climate change mitigation based on individual action, helping the fossil fuel industry avoid regulation and responsibility.

Related:

• The hopelessness of the voluntary
• Climate change and individual ethics
• ‘Resistance’ versus ‘abstinence’ in responding to climate change
• Taking one action
• ‘Hair shirt’ environmentalism
• Ethical consumerism: worthwhile or harmful?
• Carbon offsets

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here. View all posts by Milan