You may have heard that recycling has problems. That's true, but it still helps.
 | By Eliza Barclay Climate Editor, Opinion |
Many of our best solutions to address environmental crises have been hijacked by corporate interests looking for ways to deflect attention from the messes they're creating. Recycling is no different, according to the writer Oliver Franklin-Wallis, whose Opinion guest essay this week observes that oil and plastic companies have used recycling to mislead consumers and exacerbate the very problem it was meant to address. |
"Packaging companies have used the promise of recyclability to flood the world with disposable and often toxic plastic trash," Franklin-Wallis writes. "The consequences are now clear — in the trash, in our rivers and oceans, in the microplastics in our bloodstreams and in the plastic quite literally falling from the sky." |
But, Franklin-Wallis argues, recycling is still worth our time and can and should be redeemed. Rather than giving in to defeatism and abandoning the practice of sorting our waste into bins, we must insist that companies phase out products that can't be recycled and design "more products that are easier to recycle and reuse rather than leaving sustainability to their marketing departments." In the short term, Franklin-Wallis writes, it might be the best option we have against our growing waste crisis. |
We need not be resigned to an endless stream of waste and greenwashing, but rather reimagine a new era of managing our waste where recycling isn't just easier but is actually better. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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