plastic_waste

Plastic is just about everywhere, and there’s going to be a lot more of it. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development expects global plastic use to triple by 2060. So what are we to do with all the waste?

Tossing empty iced coffee cups, peanut butter jars and blueberry containers into a recycling bin might seem like the obvious solution. But while the plastics industry has been working hard to promote recycling as a fix since the ’70s, it turns out our recycling systems are not equipped to handle the various plastics we use.

“Think of your own home. On top of your washing machine, you probably have a bright orange, hard plastic detergent bottle. And then in your refrigerator, you might have a squeezable clear ketchup bottle. Those two plastic containers cannot be recycled together,” said Judith Enck, founder of Beyond Plastics and former regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

On the show today: the fundamental problems with plastic recycling and the ubiquitous chasing-arrow symbol, and what we should do about it.

Then, we’ll discuss Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to China, and why it may be time for Chinese officials to make a visit of their own. And is Yahoo is making a comeback?

Later, we’ll hear some listeners’ thoughts on robotaxis. And this week’s answer to the Make Me Smart question comes from one of the economists behind our favorite nerdy econ game, Tradle.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• • “Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work” from The Atlantic

• • “Toward a circular economy: Tackling the plastics recycling problem” from The Conversation

• • “The recycling myth: A plastic waste solution littered with failure” from Reuters

• • “Decades of public messages about recycling in the US have crowded out more sustainable ways to manage waste” from The Conversation

• • “The Plastics Industry’s Long Fight to Blame Pollution on You” from Tahe Intercept

• • “What a reporter learned after cataloging her plastic use for a week” from Marketplace

• • “UN Agency Provides Path to 80 Percent Reduction in Plastic Waste. Recycling Alone Won’t Cut It” from Inside Climate News

• • “U.S. Does Not Want to ‘Decouple’ From China, Raimondo Says” from The New York Times

• • “How Yahoo is coming back from the dead” from Axios

We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. You can reach us at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Trash from humans is constantly spilling into the ocean — so much so that there are five gigantic garbage patches in the seas. They hang out at the nexus of the world's ocean currents, changing shape with the waves. The largest is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. These areas were long thought to have been uninhabited, the plastics and fishing gear too harmful to marine life. But researchers have recently uncovered a whole ecosystem of life in this largest collection of trash. Today, with the help of marine biologist Fiona Chong, we meet the tiny marine life that calls this place home.

Read Fiona and her collaborators' paper, High concentrations of floating neustonic life in the plastic-rich North Pacific Garbage Patch

Interested in hearing other tales of marine life?

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For many, recycling feels like a tangible way to personally combat climate change and to positively affect the environment. But after a years long investigation, NPR correspondent Laura Sullivan finds that reality is generally the opposite: Only a small fraction of plastic is ultimately recycled. Moreover, plastic production is on the rise.

Further reading:
- Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse
- How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

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Recycling most plastic doesn't work. It never has. In 2020, we ran an episode showing how big oil companies misled the public into thinking plastic would be recycled. That episode just won a duPont-Columbia award. Here it is. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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