You know that satisfying little clunk when you toss a LaCroix can or a plastic Starbucks cup into the recycling bin? That quick rush of eco-pride, like you just saved a sea turtle with a single flick of the wrist?

Hate to break it to you—but most of that stuff isn’t actually getting recycled.

This episode pulls back the curtain on one of the biggest climate lies ever sold: the idea that recycling alone could solve our waste crisis. From carefully rinsed plastic that still end up in landfills, to decades of PR campaigns shifting the blame from corporations onto consumers, we’ll dig into how we got here—and why the system is crumbling before our eyes.

Recycling isn’t worthless, but it was never meant to carry the weight of an industrial-scale problem. Waste is a design flaw, baked into our throwaway economy. So let’s sift through the garbage, uncover the truth behind the blue bin, and talk about what really needs to change if we want a cleaner, more sustainable future.

Works Cited:

Geyer, Roland, et al. “Production, Use, and Fate of All Plastics Ever Made.” Science Advances, vol. 3, no. 7, 2017, e1700782.

Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. “Plastic Waste Trade.” Our World in Data, 2018.

Chen, Meiying, et al. “Microplastics in Aquatic Environments: Occurrence, Distribution, and Ecological Effects.” Marine Pollution Bulletin, vol. 188, 2023, 114619.

Oceana. “Recycling Myth of the Month: Those Numbered Symbols on Single-Use Plastics Do Not Mean You Can Recycle Them.” Oceana Blog, 2020.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “Environmental Justice: Examining the Environmental Protection Agency’s Compliance and Enforcement of Title VI and Executive Order 12,898.” 2016.

Food for Thought. “The Impact of Refill Stores on Household Waste.” Two-Minute Reads, 2022.

U.S. Congress. Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act of 2023. 118th Congress, S.3127.

Closed Loop Partners. The Center for the Circular Economy. Closed Loop Partners, 2023.

Closed Loop Partners. Bringing a Reusable Packaging System to Life. Closed Loop Partners, 2022.

Closed Loop Partners. Plastics & Packaging. Closed Loop Partners, 2022.

Closed Loop Partners. Reuse and Refill Models: NextGen Consortium Impact Report. Closed Loop Partners, 2023.

Closed Loop Partners. Findings on Small Format Packaging Recovery. Closed Loop Partners, 2022.

Closed Loop Partners. Results from the Petaluma Reuse Project. Closed Loop Partners, 2022.

Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners Advances Major Progress for the Circular Economy with Portfolio Companies Keeping over $5 Billion of Materials and Products in Circulation through Local and Regional Investments. Closed Loop Partners, 2023.

Closed Loop Partners. Reuse Insights. Closed Loop Partners, 2022.

Closed Loop Partners. NextGen Consortium Reports and Insights. Closed Loop Partners, 2023.