Part 2 : The Consumer Perception of Plastic

Conscious ConsumerPlastic

Since we talked about what kind of plastics are recyclable in Part 1 (which you can find here), let's back up and talk about the marketing of plastics when they were first produced. As we know, plastics were created by the fossil fuel industry as another product to fuel the oil industry.

Plastic was able to change the packaging industry. A great example is milk jugs. Traditionally, was distributed in reusable glass milk jugs. The milkman would come and drop off your milk while picking up your old glass containers, sanitizing and refilling them. This was a circular process that continued to reuse the glass material. With the introduction of plastics, many containers and products switched to plastic, a single-use item, due to its cheaper production.

In order to truly get consumers and society on board with this new phenomenon, they marketed plastic as recyclable. The oil industry, including companies such as Exxon, Chevron, Dow, and DuPont spent tens of millions marketing to consumers the idea of recycling.

Why? Because, as NPR quoted, a former top industry leader recalled, “selling recycling sold plastic, even if it wasn’t true.”

Similarly, a document dated back to 1974 quoted an insider writing “There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis.” Recycling plastic requires time for sorting and high amounts of energy and cost to melt it down. However, creating new plastic is much cheaper and efficient making it more cost-effective for companies to use new plastic vs recycled plastic.

New plastic is also better quality as plastic degrades every time it is melted down to be reused. This was also highly documented showcasing how the chemical compounds break down and therefor cant be reused as the same type of plastic but rather a weaker one. Therefore recycling and a true circular lifespan was not possible. It was also known that plastic could only be recycled one to three times before it must be trashed.

However, the plastic industry was more concerned with making plastic a top selling material. "If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment," Larry Thomas, former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, known today as the Plastics Industry Association was documented saying.

A few years later, in 1989 the country was starting to notice a large plastic pollution problem. The public became unhappy and the industry had to come up with a plan. Lew Freeman, who was vice president of the lobbying group at the time recalls executives meeting to talk about how they would change the plastic perspective. And they concluded that “what we need to do is ... advertise our way out of it. That was the idea thrown out." Which began a “$50 million-a-year ad campaign promoting the benefits of plastic” put on by the plastics industry. This campaign did more than just tell the public to recycle, it also funded sorting machines, recycling centers, and nonprofits pushing the idea that plastic can easily be recycled, producing no waste.

However, “NPR tracked down almost a dozen projects the industry publicized starting in 1989. All of them shuttered or failed by the mid-1990s. Mobil's Massachusetts recycling facility lasted three years, for example. Amoco's project to recycle plastic in New York schools lasted two. Dow and Huntsman's highly publicized plan to recycle plastic in national parks made it to seven out of 419 parks before the companies cut funding.”

Why did these projects shut down? New plastic was always cheaper for companies to make and recycling was never the plastic industry product.

Opinion: It wouldn’t make sense for the oil industry to want plastic to be recyclable because then it would require less of their product to produce, which is oil. Meaning less profit and the oil industry makes more than $400 billion a year making plastic,

To continue this marketing ploy, in 1989, there are documents proving oil and plastic executives were lobbying almost 40 states to mandate that the recycling symbol, ♻️ with the number of the plastic in the center, appear on all plastic products, whether they were recyclable or not. This campaign was successful leading to all products being labeled.

This made consumers believe that as long as they saw that logo, that specific item was recyclable. Now we all know that this was not true but was rather a marketing ploy and instead simply indicated the type of plastic vs the recyclability of the item.

In 1993, a report came out informing the Society of the Plastics Industry about this confusion, saying “The code is being misused," it says bluntly. "Companies are using it as a 'green' marketing tool. and that the code is creating "unrealistic expectations" about how much plastic can actually be recycled.” However, no clarification seemed to take place from the plastic industry.

Fast forward to today where under 10% of plastic is recycled and over 8 million tons of plastic is in the ocean and everyone is still confused about what goes in the blue bin. But Jim Becker, the vice president of sustainability for Chevron Phillips Chemicals who is investing $6 billion in new plastic claims to have a plan of recycling 100% of the plastic it makes by 2040. NPR quotes Jim saying, "Recycling has to get more efficient, more economic," he says. "We've got to do a better job, collecting the waste, sorting it. That's going to be a huge effort."

However, I urge caution. These words have been spoken by the plastic industry before when society was cautious of the environmental effects. And their solution was to use advertisements and false promises.

The plastic industry’s own research has proven recycling plastic only works one to three times as it degrades each time. Therefore at some point in the near future of plastic, it must be trashed. So recycling plastic is not the true answer. Rather find circular processes and consume as little as possible.

Understanding that products and industries are created to sell, we as consumers have to be aware of claims put out by those industries. Very few terms are regulated when it comes to marketing tactics. And if they are, new, unregulated terms or designs will be created to convince trust in the consumer. Putting an unfair responsibility on the public to do its own research into each claim, product, and company they support. Similar to what the plastic industry did with the recycle symbol on all plastic products.

Many of the facts and quotes in this article were obtained from NPR’s research. Read more here.

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