Every week, millions of Americans do their part to recycle: they rinse their plastic containers, sort them, and put them in recycling bins. It’s a simple routine built on the belief that small actions make a difference. But this good-faith effort from the public can only get us so far.
Today, less than 10 percent of plastic waste gets recycled. The rest goes to landfills.
The problem isn’t effort. It’s the system those efforts depend on. Traditional recycling systems were never designed to handle many of the complex and mixed plastic products we use today, including shopping bags, bottle caps, and food containers. As a result, most plastic waste still ends up in landfills, and every ton of it comes with hefty costs on everyday Americans.
