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Opinion: Time to get real about plastic recycling

Some call plastic recycling a "false solution" to the waste problem.
Killari Hotaru
/
Unsplash.com
Some call plastic recycling a "false solution" to the waste problem.

Writer Karen Mockler was thrilled when her city of Tucson, Arizona, announced it was starting a pilot program to deal with hard-to-recycle plastics, turning it into building blocks. Then things got complicated as the plastic waste piled up, and Dow Chemical and Hefty bags got involved. Burning the plastic turned into the new solution, and Mockler now concludes: “Instead of recycling plastic, we need to focus on phasing out its use—everywhere we can.”