"Not even water bottles and milk jugs meet standards for recyclability, a new report finds."
"No plastic is truly recyclable — not even the water bottles and milk jugs that people usually toss into their blue bins.
According to a new report released on Monday by Greenpeace USA, no plastic product meets a common industry standard for recyclability, even though they bear the familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol. The report says industry-backed recycling labels on yogurt cups, ketchup bottles, food trays, and other products perpetuate a “fiction” that recycling will ever scale up to handle the 380 million tons of plastic that companies churn out every year. The U.S. plastic recycling rate has never topped 10 percent, and a report from earlier this year revealed that it has now fallen to just 5 percent.
“Corporations are hiding behind plastics recycling and hoping that it will completely solve the plastic waste crisis that they have helped create,” said Lisa Ramsden, a senior oceans campaigner for Greenpeace USA. She called on companies to scale down plastic production and replace single-use products and packaging with reusable alternatives, like bottles that can be refilled."
