I said this before on Medium, and I'll say it again. I'm a former plastics recycling manager and plant owner. I'm here to tell you plastics recycling is a shell game. It's almost but not quite a scam. A few people get mega rich recycling a tiny, insignificant amount of plastic in ways that barely make economic sense. They're aided and abetted by plastics manufacturers and and the petroleum industry as a marketing gimmick, to give consumers a moral sop to justify insanely high plastic use.

Jesus, I spent more money transporting unrecyclable plastic around the country (and sometimes around the world) than any savings produced by recycling a tiny percentage of it.

I don't even sort out my plastic recycling at home. There's literally no point.

(Glass and cardboard? Different story. Those industries actually do recycle effectively, and they don't "need" to as much. It just makes economic sense.)

Final point: I live in western Michigan on top of one of the largest underwater aquifers in the world. Bottled water companies fight endless political battles here to tap our aquifer. If you drink bottled water, you almost certainly sometimes drink water from around here.

Obviously, all the municipal water supplies and private wells around here tap the same aquifer. My well water is cold, pure, and delicious all year round.

But guess what? My neighbors, and most people I know around here drink bottled water. They PAY for the same water that's running out of their taps.

And of course they consume plastic to do it.

Un-fricking-believable.