There is no "silver bullet" for the plastics recycling problem, but here's what could help in the future.
Oddly, the next soda bottle you buy will be on this planet long after you're gone. That can be a jarring thought, particularly if you recycle.
Recycling a plastic bottle might seem straightforward: Chuck it in that blue bin and move on with your day. Rest easy knowing that bottle will see multiple incarnations in the future. The problem is, though, that there's more to that bottle than meets the eye, which is why it might end up in a landfill instead.
The bottle itself is likely made of PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, plastic. The label may be made of another type of polyethene or polyvinyl chloride plastic. Both are recyclable, though not together. If the bottle has an additive color, that could send it straight to the dump. And then there's the cap—to literally top it all off—possibly made of polypropylene, yet another type of plastic.
The sheer variety of plastics in the world and the fact that you can't simply melt them down together to make more plastic is just one illustration of how complicated recycling plastics is. Since 1950, the world has produced more than 9.5 billion tons of plastic, according to a report from Our World in Data. The report also said that less than 9% of plastics get recycled, leaving the rest to be either discarded or incinerated. Sometimes, they're turned into low-grade fossil fuels that environmentalists argue contribute to the production of greenhouse gasses.
You've likely seen your fair share of recycling campaigns or heard about various states charging for plastic shopping bags or coffee shops nixing plastic straws. They might have wondered which container to throw a used takeout box or sheet of bubble wrap. Maybe they've asked if it's worth figuring out at all.
"Plastic has given recycling a bad name," said Judith Enck, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator and the president of Beyond Plastics. "People are understandably confused because they reach for products that often have the recycling logo on them, when in fact, they never get recycled."
The upshot of a situation where humans are generating more plastic than ever ranges from projections that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by weight to the unsettling idea that every person may unknowingly consume a credit card's worth of plastic every week, thanks to the pervasiveness of microplastics, or the tiny particles of plastic created when larger plastics are produced or broken down.
Still, experts in the field think there's reason to hope.
Enck cited a 2022 poll from Oceana that found 8 in 10 American voters support policies reducing single-use plastic.
"[That's a] pretty strong indicator that the public is ready for change," Enck said.
Recycling our way out
Plastics have been helpful over the last more than half a century for plenty of reasons. The Plastics Industry Association's website points out how lightweight polyethene-insulated radar cabling gives British warplanes a weight advantage over the Germans. Plastic helps reduce food waste by keeping food fresh for longer, and it keeps medical devices and equipment free of bacteria and other contaminants.
For companies, manufacturing single-use plastics is cheaper and more convenient than searching for an alternative. This is surely a benefit for them, but it's also one of the reasons plastic consumption has exploded.
One point of frustration for folks like Enck is that over the years, the responsibility for recycling plastics has been placed on individuals rather than the companies cranking out virgin plastic daily.
When you order something online, it might arrive in an envelope with recycling logos on it. The fate of that envelope might depend on whether your local municipality has an adequate program set up or whether you have the time to find a store drop-off location and take it there.
"We can't recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis that we're in," said Emily Tipaldo, executive director of the US Plastics Pact, which is a consortium of nonprofits, government agencies, companies, research institutions and the like founded by The Recycling Partnership and the World Wildlife Fund.
Beyond recycling
Despite the despair-inducing images of landfills and plastic mounds in the ocean, experts in the field remain hopeful that there's a future where the plastics situation is more under control.
On an individual level, people can reduce their use of single-use plastics by using refillable water bottles and reusable shopping bags. They can also bring their own mugs to the coffee shop and buy products from companies offering reusable packaging.
There's also research being done to improve plastics. Christopher Noble, director of corporate engagement for the Environmental Solutions Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talked about work being done in polymer engineering to create plastics that can degrade given a specific trigger. Think about plastic shopping bags that break apart when exposed to salt water. For the lifetime of that bag, it does its job holding your groceries from the store, to your car, to your kitchen. But if it ends up in the ocean, it'll dissolve instead of choking a fish.
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