Is it a major loss in profit or do current bottles make it impossible?
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Fun fact some of us environmentalists think that recycling is the worst thing to happen to the environment for exactly the reason they don’t: consumers choose the convenience of single serving plastic bottles when coupled with the illusion that they will be recycled. However, according to the American Petroleum Institute, in whose best interest it would be to have this number as high as possible, only 5% of all plastic actually is. Meanwhile, plastic production is now 500% what it was in the 90s. All because consumers now tell themselves that individual plastic bottles are okay.
The onion did a headline once that read “Recycling does nothing for the environment, alleviates American guilt by 70%.” And this is unfortunately highly accurate.
(Some recycling – such as aluminum and steel – is quite efficient and hugely positive. However, that kind of recycling was ALWAYS done because it is cheaper than manufacture of the metal and metal alloys themselves.)
Final point: reduce, reuse, recycle was meant to be an order of operations with recycling on the bottom. The exact shift youve identified away from both reduction and reuse towards …recycling (?can 5% be called recycling?) is the problem.
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