A Poison Like No Other

 

 

America Recycles Day is celebrated on November 15 every year and is a shadow of its former self. It used to be our favourite day to question the recycling industry and the companies behind the event. In my first post about it in 2008, I wrote:

 

"Let's call recycling what it is – a fraud, a sham, a scam perpetrated by big business on the citizens and municipalities of America. Look who sponsors the National Recycling Coalition, behind America Recycles Day: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, Owens-Illinois, International Bottled Water Association (IWBA), the same people who brought you that other fraud, Keep America Beautiful. Recycling is simply the transfer of producer responsibility for what they produce to the taxpayer who has to pick it up and take it away."

 

Of all those fancy big sponsors, only the International Bottled Water Association remains, joined by a Dutch beer company, an insurance company, and a craft distiller I have never heard of. This year they are pushing job creation.

 

“Educating and motivating Americans to recycle is one of the most important aspects of our mission at Keep America Beautiful. Today we celebrate those who passionately work to create programs and projects to increase awareness and action for a circular economy. Thank you for being stewards of sustainability,” said Jennifer Lawson, Keep America Beautiful's president and CEO.

 

But as we have noted before, the purpose of educating and motivating Americans to recycle is to make them feel good about single-use products. The reason for talking about the circular economy is because recycling is broken and circular sounds better. And while aluminum and cardboard have value and are recycled, most single-use plastics are not worth very much. That's why, as a Greenpeace report recently showed, less than 5% of plastics in the U.S. are recycled, and the rest is being burned, landfilled, or lost on land or in the oceans.

 

Sources/Links:

https://www.treehugger.com/a-poison-like-no-other-matt-simon-book-review-6828665

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