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Speaker 1

00:00

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns plastic. It's very much the Jane Lynch of materials in that it's incredibly versatile, appears in almost everything, and it isn't going anywhere for the next 400 years. Plastic really is ubiquitous.

Speaker 1

00:16

It's in food packaging, it's in building materials on planes and cars, it's in bicycle helmets, and it's in this strap-on thigh dildo. Just imagine a world before plastics when your femur penis would have to be made from wood, or if you're wealthy enough, ivory. It doesn't bear thinking about. But for almost as long as plastics have been around, there's been a question of what to do with them after they're used.

Speaker 1

00:36

A question that any number of creepy recycling mascots have tried to answer. From the recycling wizard in South Carolina, to recycling Ben from Georgia, to Muncie, Indiana's Mr. Blue, who appears to be either a bag of recycling or an asphyxiated sausage, to my absolute favorite, Totes-ma-Goats.

Speaker 2

00:52

The popular social media news site Mashable writes of Niagara Falls' terrifying new recycling mascot and horrific goat-man hybrid.

Speaker 3

01:00

Sure. Yeah, And you know what? I've seen children cry at the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus as well. But our target market isn't a 3 and four-year-old.

Speaker 3

01:08

Of course, it's someone who's learning about the environment. So, middle school, teenagers, People who maybe aren't so afraid of, goats and clowns.

Speaker 1

01:19

Well, hang on. Who said anything about clowns? No 1 would ever mistake that thing for a clown.

Speaker 1

01:25

I know we've been tough on clowns in the past. They're weird, scary, not funny, and they eat children. But credit where it's due, they do put in the work. You think a look this fresh just comes together?

Speaker 1

01:34

Of course not. The guy clearly made an effort. He didn't just Google, rub a goat mask cheap and buy the first result, which incidentally seems to be the exact mask that that fucked up goat is wearing. And we have produced a lot of plastic for all those mascots to recycle.

Speaker 1

01:49

Since plastic's introduction, production has skyrocketed to 380 million tons in 2015. In fact, half of all plastics ever made have been produced since 2005. And for all the hype about recycling, a lot less plastic winds up getting recycled than you might think. Less than 9 percent of the plastics generated are recycled in the United States, with the vast majority ending up in landfills or in the environment.

Speaker 1

02:16

But before you start blaming yourself or your neighbors for not sorting their trash and separating items, it's actually not that simple. As this reporter found out while walking through a Portland supermarket.

Speaker 3

02:26

It seems like everybody's buying lettuce in a box now. Is this recyclable?

Speaker 4

02:30

In this state, none of this is recyclable.

Speaker 3

02:33

Okay, what about all of these? This is everywhere in every supermarket.

Speaker 4

02:37

In Oregon, again, there are no curbside programs that would accept any of these tubs.

Speaker 1

02:41

Yeah, that is shocking. Because think of what that means. The stuff that we all routinely buy at the supermarket, assuming, understandably, it will get recycled, is, in many cases, not.

Speaker 1

02:52

And that is despite the impression that we might have taken from mascots like Totes Magotes, whose name I'm honestly uncomfortable even uttering out loud, just on the off chance that he's like Beetlejuice and saying Totes Magotes 3 times somehow summons him into... Oh, shit! How the hell did you get in here? This is a COVID-compliant set.

Speaker 1

03:08

You can't be here! Wait, you got vaccinated? How the fuck Are you eligible for the vaccine? Hypertension, Sean.

Speaker 1

03:18

Oh, bullshit. You know what? I don't care. You need to get out of here.

Speaker 1

03:21

Get out of here! You're so much worse in person, totes. You look like a furry who can't commit. Get out of here!

Speaker 1

03:27

The fact is, a huge amount of the plastic surrounding us isn't recycled because it's not really recyclable. And that means that it ends up in landfills, or burnt, or in the ocean where it breaks down into microplastics, gets eaten by fish, and can end up inside us.

Speaker 5

03:45

Plastic in the ocean has a tendency to break down into ever smaller pieces. And these tiny pieces then get taken up even lower down in the food chain. So we know that it ends up on our dinner plates.

Speaker 5

03:57

There is plastic in your food, plastic in your sea salt, and there is plastic coming out of your tab.

Speaker 1

04:04

It's true. A recent study even estimated that an average person globally could be ingesting about a credit card's worth of plastic into their system every week. Which kind of explains Capital One's new slogan, What's in Your Stomach?

Speaker 1

04:17

Good question, Mr. Jackson, because apparently it's 1.5 percent cash back, a few thousand free airline miles, and a fucking shitload of plastic. So, how is it that tons of plastic that we assume is getting recycled can instead sometimes end up inside of us? Well, that is what this story is about.

Speaker 1

04:33

It's about why so little plastic gets recycled, the harm that can do, and how the plastics industry has managed to convince us all that it's our fault. And let's start with some history. As plastic production began to grow in the 1950s, so did plastic waste, and therefore, public backlash. By the 60s and 70s, organizations began drawing attention to all the packaging waste littering the landscape through ads like this 1.

Speaker 6

04:56

Some people have a deep, abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country.

Speaker 1

05:02

♪♪

Speaker 6

05:05

And some people don't.

Speaker 1

05:06

♪♪

Speaker 6

05:08

People start pollution, people can stop it.

Speaker 1

05:12

♪♪ Now, you might have seen that ad before. It really touched people's heartstrings, because apparently, the worst thing white people ever did to America's indigenous populations was litter on the freeway. But there are a few misleading things about it.

Speaker 1

05:25

First, that man wasn't actually Native American. He was an Italian-American actor who played them for a living. And while it's by no means the first time someone of Italian descent inserted themselves into a Native American narrative without asking, I guess at least this time, no 1 named a holiday after him. But more to the point, the organization that produced that ad, Keep America Beautiful, was funded in part by a plastics industry trade group and composed of leading beverage and packaging corporations.

Speaker 1

05:50

Which might seem odd until you realize that the underlying message there is, it's up to you, the consumer, to stop pollution. And that has been a major through line in the recycling movement. A movement often bankrolled by companies who wanted to drill home the message that it is your responsibility to deal with the environmental impact of their products. And nowhere is this co-opting of environmentalism clearer than with that recycling symbol that you find on plastic products that you buy.

Speaker 1

06:16

The famous chasing arrows. They are on everything, and the numbers inside them are pretty important because they represent what type of plastic it is.

Speaker 7

06:24

Number 1 stands for PET. Think water and soda bottles. Number 2 is HDPE, often used as packaging for detergent and shampoo.

Speaker 7

06:34

Then there's 3456, and wild card number 7, which stands for other, meaning everything else.

Speaker 1

06:41

Right. Number 7 is basically the catch-all for everything else. In the same way that that 1 drawer in your kitchen is a catch-all for everything else. Yeah, there's ketchup packets in there, but also rubber bands, the instructions for an immersion blender you lost a year ago, and a Post-it note with just a phone number on it and no indication who it belongs to.

Speaker 1

06:58

Call that number now! I dare you! But crucially, very few of those 7 types of plastic are commonly recyclable. Certain types of number 1 and 2 plastics, things like soda and laundry detergent bottles, do get recycled.

Speaker 1

07:13

Although, depending on where you live, certain other types, like those lettuce tubs you saw earlier, may not. And when it comes to plastics numbers 3 through 7, which can be things like plastic bags, cups, or pouches, we have the capacity to recycle less than 5 percent of it. So out of these 7 numbers, only 2 are really much good. And that is a pretty bad ratio for a group of 7.

Speaker 1

07:35

Ideally, you'd want to balance a little more like BTS. There's not a weak link in that unbreakable chain of heart throbs. With so many people on stage, you would understand if sometimes Jimin only gave 50 percent, but he doesn't. He beats up the dance floor every night like he just caught it robbing his house.

Speaker 1

07:51

And there are a number of reasons why certain plastics don't get recycled. Some are complex mixes of different resins, making recycling them difficult. Other times, there are practical obstacles that the plastic is contaminated or difficult to sort. And then there are economic reasons.

Speaker 1

08:06

Sometimes there is no market for certain types of plastic. And right now, it's actually cheaper for companies to make virgin plastic than for them to recycle it. But the thing is, despite knowing that most plastics can't be recycled, the industry lobbied state legislatures to pass laws requiring that chasing arrow symbol to be placed on all of their containers, regardless of whether they could actually be recycled or not. Manufacturers and companies like Coca-Cola also lobbied local governments to invest in curbside recycling programs, even though behind closed doors, 1 industry insider acknowledged as far back as 1974 that...

Speaker 1

08:49

And honestly, it wasn't all that difficult for them to convince us that all their waste is recyclable because we so badly want to believe it. Lies go down easier when you want them to be true. In fact, our desire for things to be recycled is so strong, the people who work in the industry even have a special term for it.

Speaker 8

09:07

A lot of things really aren't recyclable, no matter how much we want them to be. People just want to throw, you know, everything in, and, you know, they wish it was recycling, so we call it wish cycling. Here's some wish cycling for you.

Speaker 8

09:20

Here's an umbrella. I wish it was recyclable. It's not.

Speaker 1

09:25

Now, first off, he's right that umbrellas are not recyclable, which is a pity as the average American goes through roughly 4,000 of them a year. I've already somehow lost 12 so far this year, and it doesn't even reign in this void. And secondly, the term, wish cycling, is just too good to be wasted on garbage.

Speaker 1

09:43

Wish cycling sounds like a spin class taught by a unicorn, or the sewage treatment system at Hogwarts. And this, children, is where we wish cycle all your collected urine into this delicious butter beer. Oh, it's fine. Calm down.

Speaker 1

09:56

It's magic. Stop crying. It's fine. But wish cycling can end up doing real harm, because at best, non-recyclable items can be a hassle to remove.

Speaker 1

10:06

Plants often have to stop machines to cut out all of the plastic bags that people desperately want to think that they can handle. And at worst, they can end up contaminating loads of plastics that could otherwise be recycled. So, the false impression that we've all been given that all the plastics we're putting into the recycling are being recycled is very much not the case. And for a few blissful decades, America and most of the world didn't really worry about this because we simply shipped much of the lower quality plastic waste we couldn't use in bulk to China.

Speaker 1

10:39

At 1 point, roughly 70 percent of the world's plastic waste went there. But that stopped in 2018 when China flat out banned the import of most plastics. And since then, much of our waste has been left to either pile up in domestic recycling plants with no 1 to buy it, or shipped out to other countries in Asia where it can get dropped into landfills like this 1 in Malaysia.

Speaker 9

11:00

Look at how big this is. Just take a look. Look how far it goes.

Speaker 9

11:07

This is just 1 dump. 1 dump. A vast field of plastic, 2 stories high. See if we can look on the back here.

Speaker 9

11:18

Marysville, Ohio. This is from Italy. Pennsylvania, New York. Look, Walmart bag.

Speaker 1

11:25

Yeah, a lot of our plastic just ends up sitting in giant landfills on the other side of the world. So I guess Katy Perry's question, do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again, should really be, do you ever feel like a plastic warm-up bag drowning in 2 stories of society's unmitigated filth? And since you're asking, yeah, Katy, I do.

Speaker 1

11:45

All the time. And the problem is, those countries don't necessarily have the capabilities to deal with their own plastic waste, let alone millions of tons of ours, which can have serious consequences for the health and safety of people who live there. In Malaysia, some operations are illegally incinerating lots of plastic waste. And just listen to this community activist describing what it's like to live nearby.

Speaker 1

12:23

That's terrible. And I have to say, there is just no way that the people responsible for burning that waste don't know the fumes are toxic. When you smell burning plastic, you don't think, ooh, ooh, that smells great. It's someone baking cookies.

Speaker 1

12:36

You think, my nose seems to be dying, and it's taking my brain down with it. Now, the good news is, more than 180 countries agreed last year to place strict limits on exports of plastic waste from richer countries to poorer ones. The bad news is that the United States is 1 of the few countries in the world that didn't ratify that global ban. And the thing is, when plastic isn't burned, it can end up in landfills or in the environment.

Speaker 1

13:00

Across the world, more than 8000000 tons end up in our oceans every year. There is famously even a swirling garbage patch of microplastic waste in the Pacific Ocean spread out over an area that's bigger than France, Germany, and Spain combined. And by 2050, the ocean is expected to contain, by weight, more plastics than fish. That is all fish.

Speaker 1

13:20

That includes the red slapper, salmon, and of course, the blobfish. The only fish with a face that screams, I would be voiced by Richard Kind in a Pixar movie, and he'd absolutely nail it. Isn't that right, blobfish?

Speaker 2

13:32

Oh, absolutely, John. 100%. I mean, look at me.

Speaker 2

13:35

I'm a blobfish! I'm Slurp the Blobfish!

Speaker 1

13:39

Of course you're called Slurp. That is some spot-on casting right there.

Speaker 2

13:43

Well, I'd only be a supporting character. But look, with this face, you know damn well I'm gonna steal the show.

Speaker 1

13:49

I know you will, Slurp.

Speaker 2

13:51

I would provide comic relief throughout a very fun, yet intermittently touching film. And word has it, there's gonna be at least 2 sequels. And John?

Speaker 2

14:02

Entree new? I die at the end of the third 1! But don't worry, I got profit participation.

Speaker 1

14:08

Good for you, Slup. Get that money. And frustratingly, the plastic industry's response to all the damage you've seen has been to make a big show of tiny improvements, and then revert to what they've always done, which is heavily push the idea that if we as consumers simply tried hard enough, we could make our plastic problem go away.

Speaker 1

14:28

Keep America Beautiful, the people behind that fake Native American ad, is still around, making dumb commercials like this 1, where a bottle goes on a long, inspiring journey to a recycling bin, and ends up fulfilling its dream of becoming a bench. And if bottles were sentient, I would genuinely be surprised if their biggest dream was, I wish old people would play chess while sitting on my face. But I will say, at least they're being honest there that the bottle became a bench and then nothing else. Because the truth is, only about 2 percent of all plastic winds up in a so-called closed loop system.

Speaker 1

15:00

That's where it becomes the thing that it originally was. In other words, a bottle getting recycled and becoming a bottle again. Instead, most recycled plastic gets down-cycled to become a carpet or a fleece sweatshirt or indeed, a bench. And then, it cannot be recycled again.

Speaker 1

15:17

And yet, despite this fact, companies like this Nestle Water Division have gone out of their way to make ads indicating that if we simply did our part, plastics could be put into continuous reuse. Like in this ad from 2012.

Speaker 10

15:31

Nature has a biological metabolism where 1 thing's waste becomes another thing's food. So if I look at something like a plastic bottle, I don't see waste. I see a nutrient.

Speaker 3

15:45

This is raw material?

Speaker 7

15:47

So if this is raw material, people need to start thinking about it that way.

Speaker 10

15:51

It could come back as a bottle, of course.

Speaker 11

15:54

We only have to make this virgin material 1 time. And the rest of It's up to you. We get the bottle back, we'll make this bottle out of recycled content again.

Speaker 1

16:05

Well, that sounds amazing. Unfortunately, what that executive board, Ken Doll, is suggesting there is complete bullshit. Because that company doesn't, in fact, have to make virgin plastic just 1 time if you simply give your bottle back.

Speaker 1

16:19

And the reason that we know that is, even 8 years after that aired, only 20 percent of the plastic they use was recycled, meaning 80 percent was from virgin material. So that is the most obvious overstatement in an ad, since this 1 for Game Boy in the 90s that claimed it was... That ad is real. And I'm sorry, Mario, but no, you're not more fun.

Speaker 1

16:42

Not if the ferret knows what it's doing. And the crazy thing is, that company actually has a better track record than many other brands when it comes to this. That is how bad things are. Take Coca-Cola.

Speaker 1

16:55

Brand audits of plastic waste collected at cleanups have consistently found Coke products as the number 1 top global polluter, which is damning. And probably why Coke has been so anxious to make splashy promises that we all so badly want to hear, like pledging to use at least 50 percent recycled material in their packaging by 2030, which does sound really good. The problem is, Coke has been making and breaking promises like that for decades. Over the years, they've repeatedly loudly launched big recycled plastic initiatives that they then quietly abandoned with no 1 really noticing.

Speaker 1

17:32

In 2009, they announced plans to source 25 percent of their plastic from recycled material by 2015. Except, you'll notice that it's now 6 years past that deadline, and their current proportion is just 10 percent. So, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if by 2030, the main thing Coke is recycling is the same bullshit promises that it's been making for years now. And look, on a personal level, I know this can feel demoralizing because it can seem that recycling is pointless, but it's important to know that it's not.

Speaker 1

18:03

We should absolutely keep recycling paper, cardboard, and aluminum, and even recycling plastic. While it might be 90 percent more pointless than you assumed, can still have modest environmental benefits. Although we should absolutely do it more mindfully. You should check with your local municipality to see what types of plastic they accept and then only recycle those.

Speaker 1

18:23

Otherwise, remember, you could end up contaminating usable materials. And as a good rule, definitely don't wish cycle things like umbrellas, because there is a non-zero chance that you're gonna end up angering totes magotes. Oh, shit. No.

Speaker 1

18:38

No. Absolutely not. No. Leave this place.

Speaker 1

18:42

No! But more importantly, our personal behavior is not the main culprit here, despite what the plastics industry has spent decades and millions of dollars trying to convince us. So, yes, we shouldn't be using single-use plastics like grocery bags or takeout containers. Reducing that would make a huge difference, as nearly half of the plastic waste generated globally in 2015 was plastic packaging, most of it single-use.

Speaker 1

19:10

But it can be hard on an individual level to end their use. A better move would be to implement smart, thoughtful, targeted bans that force the introduction of alternatives. And to their credit, many cities have banned single-use plastic bags. Unfortunately, the industry has fought those bans hard, even lobbying some state legislatures to the point that 18 states now have preemptive laws stopping local regulation, which is a bit weird.

Speaker 1

19:37

I guess those states just have a hard-on for plastic bags, not seen since that creepy kid from American Beauty. The kid loved bags. So what can we really do here? Well, the real behavior change has to come from plastics manufacturers themselves.

Speaker 1

19:54

Without that, nothing significant is going to happen. We have to make them internalize the costs of the pollution that they are creating. And there is a way to do this, through a concept called Extended Producer Responsibility, or the Polluter Pays Principle. The idea is to create laws that essentially shift responsibility and the cost of collection from the public sector and all of us to the actual producers of the plastic waste.

Speaker 1

20:17

EPR laws could, among other things, force companies to either create the infrastructure and markets to recycle the products they make, or force them to stop making them altogether. The U.S. Is 1 of the only developed countries on Earth without a national EPR law addressing packaging. Because, of course it is.

Speaker 1

20:36

But on the positive side here, several states are currently considering EPR laws. And there was even a national law introduced in the last Congress. It went nowhere, but it will soon be introduced again. And we are going to need some version of an EPR law to pass, and soon, because this problem is only getting worse.

Speaker 1

20:53

Plastic production is expected to triple by 2050. And it is obvious that meaningful change is only gonna come through being able to force this very powerful industry to do things that it has shown for half a century it has absolutely no interest in doing. We have to make them change. And if not for our sake, or the sake of future generations, let's at least do it for all the fish who are about to be outnumbered by plastic in the ocean.

Speaker 2

21:21

Just like me! Ain't that right, John?

Speaker 1

21:24

Exactly, Slurp. Just like you. That's our show.

Speaker 1

21:26

Thanks so much for watching. We're off next week, so we'll see you in 2 weeks' time.

Speaker 2

21:30

A hiatus? Are you fucking kidding me already? Jesus God Almighty, John.

Speaker 2

21:35

Come on, John, buckle down. You got more writers than the Jonestown Massacre. My God!

Speaker 1

21:41

Slurp, it's a very intensive production. Our staff is entitled to a break. We'll see you all April 4th.

Speaker 1

21:47

Good night.

Speaker 2

21:47

Hey, look at me, everybody. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I look like something another fish coughed up, huh?

Speaker 2

21:54

That my head looks like a basket ingredient from Chopped? Yeah, okay. To everybody out there on the internet who said I look like Ted Cruz. Remember, I got feelings, and you've hurt them.

Speaker 2

22:05

Good night, I love

Speaker 8

22:15

you