This is Why

It Doesn’t Get Recycled?!

Growing up in the 90’s, we were taught that recycling was this magical thing that our parents and grandparents didn’t do properly. Here was our big chance to do better! Pester your parents to recycle more kids! Save the planet one used yogurt container at a time! What a heroine I was. Recently I started seeing articles like: “More Than 90% of U.S. Plastic Never Gets Recycled. Here’s How we can change that”, by, Tom Udall and Alan Lowenthal.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-21/plastic-waste-never-recycled-u-s

and “Your Recycling Gets Recycled Right? Maybe or Maybe not”, by Livia Albeck-Ripka.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html

90%?! Surely you are mistaken! China used to take our recycling, but now they don’t, so less recycling is getting recycled? Now what do I do?! Well, as Messrs. Udall and Lowenthal tell us in their article, companies producing plastic need to address the problem.

Luckily there are creative and intelligent people applying their energy to finding plastic-free solutions! Huzzah! You can find them on this website and in the MacRae’s shop in Marblehead, MA, because as my slightly annoying high school economics teacher told me, “you are voting for the world you want with your dollars”. His shameless pandering to the popular kids in our class aside, it is something I have really held on to. If enough of us vote enough times less, plastic will get manufactured and recycling can go back to being the hero my 9 year old self knew it to be. I don’t know about you, but I am voting for a place where companies care about what happens to their products and packaging all the way to the end of their life cycle. I vote for preserving our Earth/ home for the people around me and future generations because I don’t live here alone. I live here with you. Let’s try to make a difference together.

*Follow Up*

After this writing my husband sent me the article “How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”, by Laura Sullivan.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled

This article explains (among many other things) why there was a big push in the 90’s for recycling plastic. Plastic manufacturers realized that their product was losing popularity and needed the public to believe it was sustainable. Feeling disheartened? Me too, but I also feel called to action, let’s support companies that are stopping plastic before it starts by choosing sustainable materials. It’s not about being perfect, but it is about doing better.