Yves here. The Greenpeace report outlined below offers a comprehensive look at the issues surrounding plastic use and recycling. For quite some time, I’ve been frustrated with companies that market supposedly healthy products, like “organic” or “natural” cleaners, while still relying on plastic packaging. My basic understanding has been that only clear or white containers are recyclable, and even that is contingent on effective collection and transport to recycling facilities—something I rarely see. Why is it so difficult to use a clear container with a colorful label? Or, as some brands do, an outer cardboard sleeve that houses a plastic liner?
This summary of the Greenpeace report does not delve into the energy costs of recycling, which serve as another counterpoint to the claimed benefits.
In broader terms, our former writer Jerri-Lynn Scofield addressed the (unsuccessful) battle against plastics. Having traveled frequently to India, she noted that plastic packaging is significantly less prevalent there than in the United States. This demonstrates that much more can be done to minimize plastic waste through reduced consumption. However, don’t expect Americans to abandon their cherished convenience.
By Brett Wilkins, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
A report released by Greenpeace on Wednesday reveals the plastics industry as “merchants of myth,” continuing to promote the flawed idea that recycling can solve the global pollution crisis, despite the reality that most commonly produced plastics are not recyclable.
“After decades of minimal investment, coupled with misleading claims and a well-funded public relations campaign from the industry asserting that recycling makes plastic use sustainable, plastic recycling has proven to be a failed endeavor—economically, technically, and environmentally unjustifiable,” the report states.
“Recent data from the U.S. government reveals that only 5% of plastic waste is recycled annually, a decrease from 9.5% in 2014,” it continues. “Meanwhile, the annual production of single-use plastics continues to rise, generating increasing amounts of plastic waste and pollution.”
Key findings from the report include:
- Only 20% of the 8.8 million tons of the most frequently produced plastics—found in items such as bottles, jugs, food containers, and caps—can actually be recycled;
- Major corporations like Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Nestlé have secretly begun retracting their sustainability commitments while continuing to depend on single-use plastic packaging;
- The U.S. plastics industry is undermining significant plastic regulation by making false claims regarding the recyclability of their products to evade bans and mitigate public backlash.
“Recycling is a deceptive narrative propagated by the plastics industry, now supported by a pro-plastic narrative emerging from the White House,” stated John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA’s oceans campaign director, in a statement. “These corporations and their collaborators persist in selling the public a comforting illusion to obscure the harsh truth: we must stop producing so much plastic.”
“Rather than investing in genuine solutions, they have funneled billions into public relations campaigns that keep us dependent on single-use plastics while our communities, oceans, and bodies suffer the consequences,” he added.
Greenpeace is one of many climate and environmental organizations advocating for a global plastics treaty, a consensus that remains elusive following six rounds of discussions due to resistance from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other nations that produce the petroleum products from which nearly all plastics are derived.
The petrochemical industry, having spent decades funding and promoting dubious research to cast doubt on the climate crisis caused by its products, has deployed an extensive lobbyist network to influence international treaty negotiations.
Beyond environmental and climate repercussions, plastics—whose chemicals often leach into the food and water we consume—are associated with various health risks, including infertility, developmental challenges, metabolic disorders, and certain cancers.
Plastics also decompose into tiny particles found nearly everywhere on Earth—including within human bodies—known as microplastics, which can lead to issues such as inflammation, immune dysfunction, and potentially cardiovascular disease as well as gut biome imbalances.
A study recently published in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated that plastic is responsible for over $1.5 trillion in annual health-related economic losses globally—impacts that disproportionately affect low-income and vulnerable populations.
Jo Banner, executive director of the Descendants Project—a Louisiana group focused on combating environmental racism in frontline communities—remarked in response to the new Greenpeace report, “It’s the same narrative everywhere: marginalized communities—poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous groups—are being treated as sacrifice zones so oil companies and large corporations can continue to profit.”
“They label it development—but it’s exploitation, plain and simple,” Banner continued. “There’s nothing acceptable about poisoning our air, water, and food for the sake of selling more disposable plastic. Our communities are not sacrifice zones, and we are not expendable individuals.”
In a recent piece for Time, Judith Enck, a former regional administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and current president of the environmental justice organization Beyond Plastics, stated that “putting your plastic bottles in the recycling bin may provide a momentary sense of self-satisfaction or alleviate your guilt regarding your climate impact. But recycling plastic will not resolve the plastic pollution crisis—and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise.”
We have all been duped into play-acting our roles in the blue-bin fantasy that plastics recycling is real. It’s not.https://t.co/KacqPvAiQJ
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) December 2, 2025
“So what can we do?” Enck advises. “First, companies need to significantly reduce their plastic production and transition to reusable and refillable systems. If it’s not feasible to reduce packaging or use reusable options, at the very least, companies should switch to paper, cardboard, glass, or metal.”
“Companies will not take these steps voluntarily, which is why policymakers—the individuals we elected to safeguard our interests—must enforce such changes,” she added.
While some lawmakers in the 119th U.S. Congress have proposed a few bills to address plastic pollution, such initiatives are likely to be unsuccessful due to the Republican majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate, alongside the pro-petroleum policies of the Trump administration.
