NPR: “How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”

It’s been over a month since NPR published this story about oil companies’ lie that most plastic was recyclable, but I still can’t get over the scale of the deception. Turns out most plastic isn’t recycled, and oil companies are only interested in producing new plastic. Those numbers on containers? Recycling theater:

Industry documents from this time show that just a couple of years earlier, starting in 1989, oil and plastics executives began a quiet campaign to lobby almost 40 states to mandate that the symbol appear on all plastic — even if there was no way to economically recycle it. Some environmentalists also supported the symbol, thinking it would help separate plastic.

Smith said what it did was make all plastic look recyclable.

The more I reread this story, the angrier I get.