The Conspiracy Behind Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

**Discussion begins at 5:00**

Plastic was invented in the early 20th century, with the first synthetic plastic being created in 1907 by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland. He developed Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, which was a revolutionary material due to its ability to resist heat and electrical conductivity. Bakelite was initially used in electrical insulators, radios, and automotive parts.  Since that time, plastics have changed the world.  They are widely used in medical devices, and provide safe and sterile packaging for medical supplies, as well as extend the life of food and water.   It is cheap to produce, and more lightweight than older materials.  At the end of the 21st century there were mounting concerns about the environmental impact of plastic.  As a result, the general public was instructed to recycle and the idea that their discarded plastic was being reused, caused people to embrace the use of plastics.  I, for one, had the childhood chore of separating all of the recycling every Sunday night for pick up on Monday morning.  But what if I told you that 90% of plastics aren’t even being recycled and that this government project promoting recycling was all a business tool used by big oil companies to pad their pockets?  

Transcript

Welcome back.

Hello.

Isn't me you're looking for.

I almost said, was that Adele or Sam Smith, but neither.

Oh, my God.

Journey.

Full turkey.

I was thinking, Adele has a hello, right?

Hello.

Isn't me you're looking for.

No, that's Journey.

Hello from the other side.

Yeah.

I want to do Adele on the way home.

We all got it at the same time.

Yeah.

I've been thinking the Journey song was Adele for a really long time then.

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Hey, Kait.

Hey.

What should the people do?

Oh yeah, they should scroll on down, leave us a five-star review, leave us a comment, share us with your friends and family.

And you know what you should do right now?

Stop.

Stop.

Take out your phone, share us with one person.

Only one.

Or two, or three, or 10, that you think would like this episode or a previous episode of ours.

Share this episode with anybody who has a mustache.

So is it time for our drink check?

Drink check.

Hey, guys, guess what we're drinking?

Nothing in a plastic container, that's for sure.

Oh, yeah.

We are drinking Uncaged Chardonnay by the one and only Zach Brown.

Wow.

Zach Brown.

The Zach Brown band?

Yes.

Does he correlate to the episode?

I like this.

I just picked a Chardonnay because I wanted to drink out of something that wasn't plastic.

Yeah.

And I was remembering, I had this wine club before the podcast started.

Pre-COVID, I had a wine club, and we had a theme one time that was like, everyone should bring a celebrity wine.

And I remember that Zach Brown and Dave Matthews were the big hits.

Oh.

So today, I was like shopping for some Chardonnay, and I was like, Zach Brown, haven't had that in a while.

So I thought I'd give it a try.

And when we're all done, I'm going to deposit this bottle in a multi-stream recycling bin so this glass gets recycled.

And you're looking at me blankly, but we're going to talk about that.

I like that fit, Megan.

That was good.

What do you think, Kait, about the chard?

Oh, the chard is buttery.

Yeah.

Lovely.

I will drink a crisp steel barrel chard, and I love a buttery, oaky chard.

Yes.

And, but when I'm shopping and I'm going to see Kait, I always have to like check the back to be like, is this oaky?

Is this buttery?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So to your liking?

Yes, it is to my liking.

And I love that buttery feeling.

I love getting white wine drunk.

There's something about it.

It just brings out the best in you.

I mean, Kait was such a red drinker until she met me.

Yeah.

It was the best of times.

My mom said, my mom came up the last week and she was like, do you want me to bring wine?

She was like, what kind?

I was like, chardonnay.

What'd she say?

And then I said, but if, and then she was like, what about pinot grigio?

And I was like, absolutely not.

No.

If you're bringing up a different kind, you bring sap blanc.

That's enough whining.

Shall we get into it?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right.

So we're talking about recycling.

We are.

So this was actually a listener request.

Oh.

From who?

Alana.

Oh, thank you, Alana.

Shout out, Alana.

When I investigated this, we were waiting for Kait to get over here and Colleen and I were talking, and I was like, I learned so much, and Colleen already knew most of these things.

But this was very enlightening for me.

Yeah.

So I'll tell you what I learned.

I bet I know.

I'm a really big, before you get into the nitty gritty, when I started living alone, this became my like low key obsession about like reusing things.

So we are, I'm gonna talk like a hobby.

I'm gonna talk a little bit at the end about all the recycling, but the big conspiracy is really around plastic.

Yes.

Right.

So this is why you should not, I'm gonna get on my soap box, but I'll hold it first later.

Plastic was invented in the early 20th century with the first synthetic plastic being created in 1907 by Belgian chemist, Leo Baekeland.

He developed Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, which was a revolutionary material due to its ability to resist heat and electrical conductivity.

Bakelite was initially used in electrical insulators, radios and automotive parts.

Since that time, plastics have changed the world.

They are widely used in medical devices and provide safe and sterile packaging for medical supplies, as well as extend the life of food and water.

It is cheap to produce and more lightweight than other materials.

At the end of the 21st century, they were mounting concerns about the environmental impact of plastic.

As a result, the general public was instructed to recycle, and the idea that their discarded plastic was being reused caused people to embrace the use of plastics.

I, for one, had the childhood chore of separating all of the recycling every Sunday night for pickup on Monday morning.

But what if I told you that 90% of plastics aren't even being recycled, and that this government project promoting recycling was all a business tool used by big oil companies to pad their pockets?

I'd believe you.

I'd also believe you.

Guys, tell me your thoughts before we get into it.

You can recycle, but it's very, very, very specific.

And all of the education given to us growing up about recycling was never specific enough.

And so people have to do their due diligence to look up their rules right in their neighborhoods and their communities.

When you look at the triangle, it has a number in it, and not everything in that number can be recycled at your recycling plan.

You just have to be paying attention.

I try to buy things that I don't even have to recycle, like things I can reuse over and over and over again.

I actually don't buy a lot of plastic because of this reason.

I'm going to say you guys are on the right track, but I think even you were going to be surprised by the conspiracy behind this.

I'm going to guess that Kait, you probably also have a health benefit involved in your lack of anti-microplastics.

I'm anti-proglass.

Yes, proglass.

Plastic is so bad for you and every time you put it in the microwave, every time you put something hot in it, anytime it sits in your car and then you drink the water, it is like chemical city.

You can taste it.

It leaches all of that into your bloodstream.

I mean, you guys do what you want with your frozen foods, but the idea of putting plastic packaging in the microwave.

Well, you know what, guys, if you want to hear more about that, go back and listen to the microplastics episode, which is glitter.

Oh, I was like, we did a microplastics episode.

I was like, what?

I was like, did Kait present that?

Colleen, you presented it.

Yeah, there's glitter in everything.

Okay, I'm going to tell you about, again, other materials shortly, but we're going to focus primarily on plastic in this episode because that is really where the conspiracy lies.

So are you telling me that plastics don't actually break down so that you can reuse them?

Let me tell you about that.

It depends on the plastic.

I just want to be very clear that like plastic in and of itself is not the enemy.

I mean, Kait would argue differently.

But no, because you know what?

Our meat packaging, I don't know how any other way you would package meat unless it was in plastic that was like saran wrap.

You know what I mean?

The plastic in medicine.

Yeah.

It's needed.

You stole the line.

But yeah, so plastic in and of itself is not the enemy.

The problem is like the waste associated with plastic.

Yeah.

So plastics have improved human lives in many ways.

You guys both just got to it.

Specifically, health care would be completely different without plastics.

And again, yes, the use of plastic to store our food just exponentially prolonged the life of food.

So that's, again, food that would be wasted in the past.

But the basic problem is there's a lot of waste caused by plastic use.

In an attempt to limit waste, there was a movement to reuse it in other plastic products.

And it is true, all used plastic can be turned into new things, but picking it up, sorting it out, and melting it down is very expensive.

Plastic also degrades each time it is reused, meaning it can only be reused like once.

You can't just keep recycling plastic.

On the other hand, new plastic is very cheap.

It's made from oil and gas, and it's almost always less expensive and better quality to just start fresh.

There was actually a Redditor who explained it like this.

A ton of plastic costs about $700.

The cost of a ton of aluminum is over $2,500.

So the value of metal is why it's so much easier to recycle metals like copper, steel and iron, and you get a lot more money for it because it costs so much to make new metal.

Plastic is just so cheap to make and so expensive to recycle that it's not financially valuable.

And so less than 10% of plastic gets recycled.

Do you hear what I'm hearing?

Follow the money.

There really is a conspiracy here, okay?

I hear it.

Here's where the conspiracy comes in.

Documents show that industry officials knew this reality about recycling plastic as far back as the 1970s.

Whoa, of course they did.

Direct quote.

There is serious doubt that recycling plastic can ever be made viable on an economic basis.

In fact, there's a 1970 report written by scientists tasked with forecasting possible issues for top industry executives.

Recycling plastic, it told executives, was unlikely to happen on a broad scale.

It said plastic degrades with each turnover, as I mentioned.

Quote, a degradation of resin properties and performance occurs during the initial fabrication through aging and in any reclamation process.

The recycling plastic is costly and sorting it is infeasible.

So people knew this in the 1970s.

Kait, do you remember in the 1990s, all of the like reduce, reuse, recycle ads?

Yes, reduce, reuse, recycle.

There was a week at school, reduce, reuse, recycle, and people would talk to us about it.

It was like everywhere.

Yes.

We were brainwashed.

Yeah, you are brainwashed.

It was 100% a brainwash indoctrination.

Yes.

So in the 1990s, the public saw an increasing number of commercials and messaging about recycling plastic.

$50 million a year was spent to get the word out to the public about the value of recycled plastics.

So you would think that like, this is the EPA or someone who's funding this, right?

Wrong.

Who was funding it?

Follow the money, huh?

Yeah.

They were paid for by the plastics industry.

Comprised of companies like, wait for it, Exxon and Chevron.

Of course.

Did you guys realize that the oil companies are the plastics industry?

That's crazy.

That kind of makes sense, right?

Yeah.

I guess you need oil to make plastic, which I didn't, I learned that.

So it's all the big oil companies that are the plastics industry.

Follow the money.

Plastics account for 14% of oil use today.

And today, the oil industry makes more than $400 billion a year making plastic.

Yep.

So in the 90s, the plastic industry was coming under fire.

There had been proposed legislation the decade prior, and there were initiatives to ban the use of plastics due to the amount of waste.

In 1989, there was a strategy meeting at the Ritz in DC.

Have you been there?

I've been there.

You know what else happened in 1989?

Taylor Swift was born?

Yeah.

In 1989, there was a strategy meeting at the Ritz in DC, where Exxon, Chevron, Amaco, Dow, DuPont, Procter & Gamble and others got together.

But looking back, it is definitely clear that they saw the barriers to recycling, but they needed to buy goodwill from the consumers.

So this whole recycling initiative, PR stunt.

In fact, in 1994, an Exxon VP said, We are committed to the activities, but not committed to the results.

That's crazy.

Well, are we surprised?

It's all about the money.

How can we make a buck?

But it's so frustrating because it's like, you can recycle.

Well, you can't, but you can, but just wait.

Remember in the 90s when it was like a big deal that the rainforest was dying?

Yeah, and then they wouldn't give us paper.

I had like no paper through like second through sixth grade.

We had like no worksheets.

I just remember that being such a big thing in my childhood.

The teachers were paying for their paper.

Hey, that don't hear about it.

That goes back to this.

It was just like the environment was a hot topic in the 90s.

And now suddenly it's like, you have to use paper.

Well, I will say that paper disintegrates is one of the best things to recycle, but we'll get there.

Yeah, you can make more paper from paper.

Yes.

So to be fair, these oil companies did have some projects they tried to implement.

NPR actually went back and they reviewed some of the industry projects from that era and found that none of them lasted beyond a few years.

Mobles Massachusetts Recycling Facility.

Mobles.

Lasted three years.

Amicos Project to Recycle Plastic in New York schools lasted two years.

Dow and Huntsman's Highly Publicized Plan to Recycle Plastic in National Parks made it to 7 out of 419 parks before the company's cut funding.

So they had all these big ideas, but they were just too expensive.

Yeah.

Big idea people.

Yeah.

I can relate.

I know what that's like.

So initially, in response to these ads, the general public wanted to recycle plastic.

So the recycling company said, you can recycle milk jugs and soda bottles.

That's it.

And they said, it was actually a financial loss to recycle.

So these big recycling companies, they get your soda bottle, your two liter bottles, your milk jugs, and this is actually a financial loss to them, but they're willing to accept it because the money being made on aluminum paper and steel kind of made up for that.

Right.

Then the triangles, I think Kait mentioned, started showing up on products.

And suddenly, citizens were putting all of the plastics in the recycling because they're like, there's a triangle, it must be recyclable, right?

So now the recycling companies are just getting all of this trash that they couldn't sell.

So it was just losing the money.

And why did this happen, you ask?

Well, plastic lobbyists had gotten almost 40 states to mandate that that triangle symbol appear on all plastic.

And actually, environmentalists initially supported this move, thinking it would help recycling facilities kind of sort out the plastic.

But really, the purpose was to manipulate the general public into thinking that these products are going to get recycled, and companies can market themselves as green.

But most of these are too expensive, as I mentioned, to actually be recycled.

So this was all greenwashing.

Greenwashing.

I was going to say...

Do you know what greenwashing means?

Yes.

Tell the people.

Greenwashing is basically when you market something as good for the environment or a clean product, and it really is...

Labeling it natural.

Yeah, like natural or like organic.

So you're manipulating the consumer into thinking that they're being environmentally conscious.

Yes.

But they're not.

Yeah.

It's making no difference.

Yeah.

So now fast forward to 2019.

Public concern over the environmental impact of plastic waste was surging.

David Attenborough's Blue Planet in 2017 had broadcast images of sea turtles stuck in plastic bags.

With straw.

We'll talk about the straw too.

Wait for it.

And an NGO report estimated floating garbage patches covered 1.6 million kilometers of the Pacific Ocean.

And this is around the time where, yes, we saw the picture of the one sea turtle with the straw on its nose.

Yes.

And that must have sucked.

I'm just going to say it was one straw.

But can we not do something about the paper straws?

Like that would be an appropriate use of funds.

Did you know that the paper straws are actually worse for our health than plastic straws?

I have heard that.

What about the potato ones?

Why is that?

Why are they worse for us?

They use more chemicals.

I love the potato ones.

Potato straws?

The ones that are starch straws.

You can technically chew them and eat them.

Around this time, 2017, this is when we start seeing the five cents per grocery bag and the paper straws.

I hate this.

Yes, I got to be honest.

I hate this movement.

I click the I've used zero bags.

When you've used bags.

When I've used bags.

Well, I reuse my bags.

So I use my bags as trash bags.

I put kitty litter in it.

I put kitty litter.

Yeah, that's a trash bag.

I mean, I actually prefer paper bags at the grocery store.

I do too, actually.

I really like paper bags.

It took me a while to realize you could still do that.

You could say like no plastic bags.

We needed paper bags.

This is brand new information for me.

Oh yeah, so if you go to self checkout, there's usually a stack of paper bags and those don't get charged.

And you can ask the checkout for paper.

We used to need paper bags, because that's how the poor kids made book covers.

All those little bitches had those little silk...

Lisa Frank.

Sock ones.

Yeah, yeah.

Book socks.

We all had paper.

Oh, I had book socks.

Yeah, my mom didn't think that was worth the money, so we had to make our own.

But I remember when this first happened, and I was living in DC, and I went to brunch and I had some bottomless mimosas.

I was walking back from brunch, and I went into the Safeway that was a block from my house, and I was in my buzzed state, unwilling to spend 20 cents on the plastic bags.

20 cents is a lot.

So I put my six bags of groceries in two bags, and then the bags were just tearing the whole walk home.

And some girl in front of me went into her house, and then she came out and she gave me her reasonable bags.

And I was like, I just live right there.

And she was like, you're never gonna make it.

We love women supporting women.

What an ally.

Yeah, she was an ally.

Okay, so let me tell you about the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which was launched in 2019.

Hmm, by whom?

And this is also, I'm gonna tell you about it.

And you know what, guys, this story I've got for you here, this is breaking news.

So the Alliance to End Plastic Waste.

This is a group of five petrochemical agents, Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Total and Dow, set up in 2019.

They promised that over the next five years, they would divert 15 million tons of plastic waste from the environment by improving collection and recycling.

Okay, the report just came out, guys.

Five years down the line, 2024.

Okay.

How do you think they did?

Awful.

Terribly.

Yeah, they removed 118,500 tons of plastic waste.

Well, that's pretty good.

But they produced 132 million tons.

So they removed 118,500 tons of plastic waste.

And then produced.

They produced $132 million tons of not just plastic.

This is just two types of plastic.

So wait, what's their net negative?

Wait, wait.

They're not negative.

They're positive.

Yeah.

What's their net positive?

Okay.

So this is like plastic bottles, bags and food packaging.

This doesn't even include all plastics.

It's just like the two most commonly produced plastics.

There's so many.

They pledged $1.5 billion on cleanup initiatives, but to date, they've only spent $375 million.

Oh my gosh.

And at least $10 million of that?

Nobody.

With PR.

This is what kills me.

It's like we can be doing things to actually help our environment, but these big companies are not doing it, and they're the only ones that matter.

My conspiracy theory is about our neighborhood isn't making an impact.

Well, my conspiracy theory about the environment is no one actually really cares about the environment, because if we actually cared about the environment, we would stop building new houses, driving everywhere.

We'd all just stop for a day.

Right.

And that's why the atmosphere was so nice when it was during COVID.

Remember the plants were like...

Everything was thriving.

Everything was thriving during COVID, because everyone just stopped.

But people are so busy, it's like they recycle to make themselves feel better, right?

I'm doing better for the environment, but no one actually cares what they sound with.

And Megan's gonna get into it.

But what you recycle in your house makes no difference.

Like you need to be like...

And it's so frustrating, because it's like things can be done, but they're just not being done.

And PR, it's all wasted on like PR.

And when you talk about things that you can do, it's like things that you can do is just not by plastic.

Or like...

What's my net positive?

That's the only thing that matters to me.

That means the industry has produced over 1,000 times more plastic than it has cleaned up.

And that was just within the last year.

I have five years.

With the surprise.

In fact, these five companies I named have produced more plastic every two days than the Alliance has cleaned up in five years.

If these five companies have no haters, I'm dead.

Well, of course, these companies have haters.

Oil companies.

That's what I mean.

Like if there's no haters, that means I'm not here anymore.

Oh, like a hater.

Yeah.

OK.

Shell has almost doubled its plastic making potential since it joined the Alliance after it opened a $14 billion polyethylene facility in Pennsylvania two years ago.

Hold on.

I do want to say this.

I am not an oil hater.

I'm not an oil company hater because I would love that money.

But you know what's also frustrating?

It goes hand in hand.

Is that like the money in the plastic industry is like employing millions of people?

So like it's a huge job source?

No, and it really is, again, we really do need plastic.

It has made our lives better.

But do we need every single thing to be plastic?

I think we just need to figure out.

We need upgraded plastic things.

How to get rid of it.

Yeah.

I mean, just think about everything is literally made of plastic.

Your phone case.

Everything.

Your glasses.

My glasses.

Helmet.

Toys.

Stickers.

Yeah, helmets.

Yeah.

Remember when we got into that argument about like, what is there more of?

Wheels or doors?

Oh, was I present for that?

I don't think that was us.

Definitely was you guys, because I remember fighting you guys.

Are you sure it wasn't like your college friends?

Who was I fighting?

But do you remember that when that was like a thing online?

Like, what is there more?

I don't remember that.

Doors are wheels.

And I was like, there's even wheels on doors.

If you count a hinge.

I think there's more wheels than doors.

Yeah, regardless.

I don't think a hinge was a wheel.

I'm pretty sure I went, well, hold on.

What do you classify as a wheel?

What do you classify as a door?

Yeah, I do not classify a hinge as a wheel.

Colleen does, apparently.

Like, and like screws, you know what I mean?

I don't think I classify that as a wheel.

I don't know.

There's a lot to it, okay?

I think there's more wheels.

I think there's more wheels too, but I'm certain.

But my argument would not be hinges and screws.

Okay.

Okay.

But like, like, it makes you think about all of the doors and wheels in the world.

Like, you think about now I'm thinking about every single thing that's plastic.

You know what I mean?

Also, are we talking physical doors or metaphorical doors?

Do you count the fridge?

Oh, that's a door.

What about the freezer?

No, that's a drawer.

You know, I would count that as a door.

I would have counted that as a door.

Yeah.

But then think about everything that's a wheel here.

So it's like...

Well, I don't really think about it in the...

I'm thinking about like all the cars, all the bikes.

Roller blades, that's four.

Roller blades.

For shoe.

We digress.

But regardless, it makes you think about everything around you.

Then you start assessing everything.

You think, look at all the plastic just sitting around, your stickers, your pens, your Polaroid camera.

So as I mentioned, Shell has almost doubled its plastic making potential since it joined the Alliance after it opened a $14 billion polyethylene facility in Pennsylvania two years ago.

That project alone cost nearly 10 times the amount the Alliance pledged to spend on its cleanup and adds 1.6 million tons a year to the environment.

This expansion is set to continue.

Exxon's new petrochemical complex in China is expected to open in 2025, and will bring in at least 2.5 million tons of polyethylene and polyperylene.

Meanwhile, Total is building an $11 billion petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia.

Dow is building a $6.5 billion project in Canada.

So the point is, they can't invest money in the recycling, the cleanup, the ramifications of these products, but they have plenty of money to spend to produce more plastic.

Oh, 100%.

It's crazy.

It's profitable.

Because there's nobody stopping them.

Right.

So do you know what produces the batteries in the battery cars?

What?

Coal factories, oil factories.

So we think we're actually being more environmentally friendly, but actually we're not.

Well, you think about the solar panels.

Yeah, the solar panels and the windmills are the same problem.

When the solar panels, there's no way to dispose of them.

Exactly.

And so it's like, again, how much help are you getting from them?

It's not actually any better.

And then I just start getting frustrated when I think of Wall-E.

I know.

We're halfway to Wall-E, I've already told you guys.

But then it's like, I just get, oh my God.

Don't get me started on Wall-E.

And then I just get so existential dread about the future.

And I'm like, I can't possibly fix the world in 90 years if I live to 90, which I won't.

Like, I can't possibly think about it.

You guys ever think about growing old with your friends and then watching your friends die?

I don't want to be the last one.

I want to be the first one.

Fuck all of it.

I will be the last.

So you probably will be the last one because that's what you want.

Yeah.

And then sadly, because Kait is like the healthiest of us, it is like first you are, you're going to get cancer first, even though you're doing all the things right.

Don't put that on me.

Okay.

Only the good day.

Oh, guys, don't even get me started.

Sad facts, guys.

Okay, sad facts.

Like this hasn't been sad enough.

Insert that audio from SNL, Debbie Downer.

Oh, yeah.

So globally, only 9% of plastics are actually recycled.

The COVID-19 crisis.

Oh.

So COVID did lead to a 2.2% decrease in plastics use in 2020 because we had a slowing of our economic activity, but we did have an increase in litter.

Food takeaway packaging, for sure, we were all uber-eatsing and door dashing, right?

Oh, and the gowns.

And plastic medical equipment such as masks.

Yes.

Gowns.

That all caused an increase in littering.

Yeah.

But as like the economy kind of rebounded in 2021, plastic consumption also rebounded.

So that's just a fun fact for you.

Just medical plastic alone, like-

You ever think about-

Is insane.

Or just like the, again, I remember walking around, again, when I lived in DC and I really walked everywhere, and yeah, it would just be like masks all in the streets.

And yeah.

Did you guys do with your masks?

Did you pull out the strings?

You got to save the birds.

Yeah.

Yeah, of course I did.

Just like-

Save the turtles, save the birds.

The outlook study.

Let me tell you about that, guys.

Okay.

Like the email?

Close, but no.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD, it's an International Policy Organization.

They just completed a Plastics Outlook Study, and here's what they found.

Plastic consumption has quadrupled over the last 30 years, doubled from 2000 to 2019 to reach 460 million tons.

Oh my goodness.

Plastics account for 3.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Nearly two-thirds of plastic waste comes from plastics with lifetimes of under five years, with 40 percent coming from packaging, 12 percent from consumer goods and 11 percent from clothing and textiles.

Only 9 percent of plastic waste is recycled.

So 15 percent is collected for recycling, 40 percent of that is disposed of, 19 percent is incinerated, 50 percent ends up in a landfill, and 22 percent evades waste management system and goes into uncontrolled dump sites.

So like burned and open pits or ends up in like aquatic environments especially and for companies.

In 2019, 6.1 million tons of plastic waste leaked into the aquatic environments.

We love our oceans.

I know we do.

We're terrified of them, but we love them.

Maybe the aliens in the oceans can do something with our plastic.

What do you think?

They probably are.

They probably are building an entire colonies out of it, you know?

Yeah.

There's now an estimated 30 million tons of plastic waste in season oceans, and a further 109 million tons has accumulated in rivers.

The buildup of plastics in rivers implies leakage into the ocean will continue for decades to come, even if mismanagement.

Like if we fixed everything now, there is so much plastic in the rivers that our oceans are still just screwed.

Oh my gosh.

This makes me sad.

Okay, let's talk about some non-plastic things, okay?

Okay.

Wood.

When you put in the recycling...

If I would check wood, how much wood could I check?

Okay.

When you put your recycling in the recycling, when Patch takes the recycling out for you, that's his chore, right?

Right.

The pizza box, the food containers, not getting recycled.

Greasy.

Because generally what they do is they take all the cardboard and they soak it down in water and they grind it up to make new paper and cardboard.

Right.

But if there's any food residue, they can't do that.

I always throw a pizza box in the recycling.

No, never.

You shouldn't.

No, I know.

And if you have something like, say you throw a pizza box in your recycling, all of that recycling is now contaminated.

And every recyclable, quote, quote, plastic you put in there has to be clean.

Soap and water.

Yep, soap and water.

Sometimes I run things through the dishwasher just to put them in the recyclables.

I also didn't realize how expensive recycling is.

Did you know that a lot of our recycling is sorted by inmates because the cost of machines or manual labor to like separate your recycling is so high?

Also, so we're talking about plastic.

I'm going to talk about glass shortly, but like actually metals and paper, if they're not soiled, are very easily recycled.

Yeah.

Like their process, they were used.

Your cans.

But really, that's it, guys.

I recycle a lot of glass and I recycle a lot of glass.

I'm going to tell you about the glass.

I'm going to tell you about the glass.

Also, in my county, glass, they don't even take glass.

And I didn't know I already told Colleen.

I didn't know that for a year.

I was throwing my glass in the recycling, which now I'm thinking a lot of places, they don't even pay to sort that.

So if you already sabotage your recycling.

It has to be intact glass.

It can't be broken glass.

I'm going to get to that because that's not necessarily true.

But I lived here for a year and then the neighbor texted the cold sack and was like, I'm going on a glass run, I don't have glass.

And I was like, fuck, I've been throwing that in the library because most of them are at community centers.

I want to tell you why that's a better place to do it.

But hold that thought.

That's where I brought mine.

So in 2018, the US recycled 31.8% of glass made that year, which is less than a third of the roughly 10 million metric tons of glass that Americans throw away each year.

About 5% of landfill waste in the United States is glass.

But you know who does a really great job recycling their glass?

Europe.

So what's the problem?

Of course they do.

What's our issue?

Smaller populations.

Let me tell you about our issue.

They probably have more regulation on like, what can be in plastic versus what goes in glass versus...

Do you guys know, single stream versus multi stream?

No.

Are you talking about urine?

Sort of stream.

No, you're both wrong.

That would be multi stream.

So single stream recycling is the guy who comes to your house, he throws your bin in his truck, everything's all mixed up.

Then he goes to like a sorting facility and they separate it, okay?

Multi stream is when you go like what Colleen's describing when she goes by the library and there's like glass here, cardboard here, paper here.

Okay, got it.

And you have to sort it.

Okay.

Okay.

So since glass is so fragile, it does often get broken and that can make it very difficult to sort, and it will contaminate other recycling.

So if you're single stream recycling, if you take your blue bin out to the street and like Colleen said, maybe you broke a wine bottle in there, they don't have the time or energy to like separate all of that.

So probably to save the recycling company money, they're just going to trash that whole bin.

Okay.

I mean, I don't think you shouldn't recycle, but you just have to think it is a conspiracy.

This is especially an issue when you have what we call wish cycling.

So this is say wish like to make a wish.

Yeah.

So this is when you say like, oh, look, I have this light bulb.

I don't know if it's recyclable or not.

I'll just throw it in.

In worst case, they won't recycle it, right?

But that's not true.

Again, they don't have the time, the money to separate this.

So when they find a light bulb, they're probably just going to throw it all away.

It contaminates it.

Yeah.

So again, this load gets to the materials recovery facility.

They're trying to sort through it.

It just costs too much time and money.

And so sometimes it's just more financially sound to just send that load to the landfill than to pay the cleaning and sorting fee.

So only 40% of the glass that goes into your single stream recycling system actually gets recycled.

This makes me want to buy a truck and recycle yourself.

Yeah.

Well, let me tell you what you can do.

If you care about the glass.

I mean, the plastic is just a lost cause.

The plastic is probably above us.

We can try to be more conscientious about the plastic we're buying.

Right.

Again, I think plastic is in of itself very good.

It's been life-changing.

Paper metal glass, guys, paper metal glass.

But when you have your glass, here's what you can do.

You can take it to the multi-stream recycling places.

Normally, it's at a community center.

This multi-stream bypasses the materials recovery facility where they have to sort everything and it just goes straight to the processing facility.

So 90 percent of the glass that you recycle at a multi-stream recycling location actually gets recycled.

My new favorite company, I've yet to actually send them anything, but it's a company that takes glass, grinds it up finely and makes it into sand, like glass sand, and is then putting it into our coastline to limit.

So you're supposed to mail your glass in?

Yeah.

You've paid for that?

That sounds expensive.

I don't know how it works, okay?

I just know of the company and I was like, I like them, so I follow them.

So what do you think?

Sounds like a conspiracy, right?

I mean, I don't think it's a conspiracy.

I think it's just a billion-dollar company.

No, I think it was a conspiracy that in the 90s, in the 90s, these big companies all got together and said, oh man, people aren't buying plastic because they're afraid it's impacting the environment.

Let's just put this little triangle on and they'll all think that-

It's not a conspiracy, it's true.

That's what they were doing and they're lying to you.

They did that to tell the general public that all of this is being reused and recycled, but those triangles, most of those are not even recyclable.

So that is a conspiracy.

Conspiracy and a conspiracy theory is that conspiracies are true.

They're like people conspiring together to make-

This was a bunch of big companies conspiring together.

This is definitely a conspiracy.

We're gonna spend billions of dollars on propaganda to tell the public they have to recycle if they wanna be good citizens.

But fake news.

We're gonna put triangles on all the plastics that they think they're being good humanitarians by recycling.

But we know that none of these triangles are actually recyclable because it just costs the recycling companies way too much money and they can only recycle one time anyway.

This is a hundred percent of conspiracy.

Yeah.

Well, they lied.

And then the world just listened to them because we don't know any better.

Imagine that imagine, imagine people hearing things, but then not looking deeper into them.

That's weird.

All right.

Do you guys have any other thoughts?

I'm just, I'm sorry.

I just got aggressive with Colleen because she said it's not a conspiracy.

No, I'm not disagreeing with you.

It's definitely a conspiracy.

Thank you.

Yeah.

But it's a true one.

That's what conspiracies are.

Is it true or false?

It's true.

It's a conspiracy.

It happened.

It's like the diddy, the diddy things.

We're calling it a conspiracy because it's actually like-

His charges are conspiracy.

Because maybe I don't understand the definition of conspiracy.

A conspiracy is a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.

Oh, well, yes.

Five companies got together.

They are tricking us at the expense of the environment and they're greenwashing us.

I think that we are doing-

But it's sad because it's ruined what like energy saving is.

You know what I mean?

Like it's ruined how to help the environment because now nobody's ever going to trust it ever.

It's all hoax.

Yeah.

That's what's upsetting the most.

Well, it does go back to two when we, like, Kait talked on this.

This is a deeper whatever, but like all these things, there's so much, I feel like there's so much back and forth about like, you know, we need to protect our environment and why are we not investing in like solar panels and windmills and-

And companies lying to us.

And you guys are right.

I think I'm like, the problem is you guys haven't, it's not just that this costs a lot of money upfront, because I think if it was proven, people would invest the money.

But the problem is that like, you want all this money to do these things that have actually not been proven to be any better for the environment, because yes, then you just have these massive-

Lying to you.

The landfills full of solar panels.

Yeah, it's so frustrating.

And then it makes people not want to do anything.

And it's all so bad.

It's a freaking circle.

All right.

Well, that's all we have.

This was kind of deep and serious, but you know what?

Kate's got us next week with a little more lighthearted.

People are going to hate us.

Any final thoughts?

No, except for, yeah, I don't think anyone actually, I stand by my opinion that no one actually cares about the environment because if they actually cared then their whole life would be different.

I agree.

Yeah, that's all these things.

If you dug deep, you would figure out that we've all been lied to.

Yeah.

But yeah, people don't.

You got to do your duchilines, limit your plastic.

Buy glass.

Yeah.

Buy glass just because it's better for your health.

I also just like to keep the glass.

I think it's so pretty.

Oh my gosh.

All right.

So big takeaways for me, for my research, which again, many takeaways, plant more wild flowers to help save the bees.

That's how you can help the earth.

Literally.

That too.

But I just feel like many of you might be listening to this, like Megan, we all knew this, because...

I don't think people do that.

But my mind was blown.

So, I mean, plastic is good.

I think higher than us, we can limit the plastic we use.

Plastic is a necessity.

It is life changing.

I think that the government, the industry needs to work on how to make that more environmentally conscious.

Use your glass, but make sure if you're using your glass, you're taking it to a multi stream recycling center.

Just look into your community resource.

And paper and metal, very recyclable.

Just make sure you're not putting any dirty pizza boxes in your recycling bin.

All right.

See you next Tuesday.