After months spent digging into internal industry documents and interviewing top former officials, investigators found that the oil industry sold the American public on the idea that plastic could be — and would be — recycled, all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic. In reality, less than 10% of all plastic has actually been recycled. The industry’s awareness that recycling wouldn’t keep plastic out of landfills and the environment dates back to the recycling program’s earliest days. One industry insider wrote in a 1974 speech: “There is serious doubt that recycling plastic can ever be made viable on an economic basis.” Yet the industry spent millions encouraging the public to recycle, even if it wasn’t true. “If the public thinks recycling is working, then they’re not going to be as concerned about the environment,” said Larry Thomas, former president of the Society of Plastics Industry. The basic problem is that all used plastic can be turned into new things, but picking it up, sorting it, and melting it down is expensive. Plastic also degrades each time it’s reused, so it can’t be reused more than once or twice. While television commercials carried the distinct message that recycling was a good thing, plastic was buried, burned, or in some cases wound up in the ocean. Analysts now expect plastic production to triple by 2050.
