This is a huge step. Plastic recycling is a scam literally designed by advertisers to sell more plastic. Much plastic marked as recyclable is not; much cannot be recycled in most areas; much that is technically recyclable cannot be recycled due to cost related to contamination.
It’s something like 70-80% of Aluminium is recycled globally. For plastics, that number is around 8 or 9 percent.
Its been proven that the recycling symbol is placed on things that are not actually known to be recyclable - e.g., yogurt containers - to get people to feel better about buying plastic
It’s actually not the recycling symbol, it’s a plastic identifier symbol that is, for some crazy unknown reason, designed to be very similar to the recycling icon.
Also an article from the AP if you are not a fan of WaPo:
https://apnews.com/article/california-exxonmobil-lawsuit-plastic-8c5830696ffb02031c53c3077457ebc5
The article is a bit shitty. I’m sure exxon-mobile are lying about something and i do not want to defend them. But the article does not spell out what they said on this topic that was actually a lie, and goes on to state how much was actually recycled - plastic recycling is a complex topic, but the fact that not everything that can be recycled is actually recycled is hardly exxon’s fault
This one is a bit better:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-plastics-lawsuit-exxon/
“The attorney general’s office pointed to industry documents from the 1970s calling plastics recycling “infeasible” and casting doubt that recycling plastic could ever be economically viable, according to the April announcement.”
“Bonta specifically named Exxon’s advanced recycling program as being misleading Monday. “92% of plastics in advanced recycling become transportation fuel — only a very small amount is recycled,” he said. “Exxon can only recycle about 1% of its own plastic.””
Oh, come on. Nobody actually believed that recycling was viable except the simpletons that the politicians lied to repeatedly about it. We had seen enough pictures of yards full of plastic that would just “disappear” when it was found.
Now they’re clutching their pearls and lying again. Certainly the oil companies bear a level of responsibility, but it was bullshit all the way down the supply chain to the consumer that gave us a plastic world.
