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There are, of course, some great reasons to make your design solution recyclable, or even from recycled content. But we must be crystal clear that making something ‘recyclable’ with no responsibility for it actually being recycled, or indeed there actually being a system in place for said recycling to happen, is no longer acceptable and is the worst kind of greenwash. We can no longer offset responsibility for the material and production decisions we make.
Paper, pulp, cardboard, Aluminium, Steel, Tin – all these materials have a profitable and global recycling infrastructure that has been built over the last 50 years. Glass is also well recycled, but percentages can be improved with better collection systems.
Plastic, as everyone now knows, is rarely recycled. It is a material that was not invented for recycling. In fact, it was invented as a super-material that can last for centuries – so why would recycling ever be needed?
Only 9% of plastic ever made has actually been recycled
Less than 1% of used clothing is material to material recycled
The US plastic recycling rate is less than 6%. Globally, the US is the biggest exporter of plastic waste
The problem of course, is that we took this incredible but toxic and indestructible material and misused it for temporal purposes. Some decades ago, the fossil fuel industry recognised that a pollution problem was brewing and the plastic recycling myth was born. 9% of plastic ever made has been recycled once, rarely twice, as it is usually downcycled into an inferior material. The US plastic recycling rate is less than 6%.
Even if we had the infrastructure and know how in place to recycle plastic, the science is now known on how the toxic chemicals added to plastic compound up through the recycling process, destroying any chance of accountability or traceability in the quest to use more recycled content to avoid plastic taxes.
We rarely talk about plastic on PlasticFree. We are much more interested in the materials of the future, materials that fit into Nature’s infinite circle of growth, growth borne from nutrients, with not a drop of waste ever made. But the mythical bubble of the recycling fairies must be popped once and for all. It delays real change, allows the petrochemical industry to continue to pump out millions of tonnes of virgin plastic every year whilst focusing the conversation on ‘let’s recycle more’. We are looking at the wrong end of the pipe - the waste rather than the production. We cannot allow plastic in all its incredible forms, from textiles to product and packaging materials to the buildings we live in, to be the fossil fuel dinosaurs Plan B. It’s time for change.
