“While recycling campaigns can help limit what heads to the landfill, scientists are now saying that it’s masked the glaring problem of over-production and de-emphasized other waste reduction strategies that are far more sustainable.”
University of Virginia researchers asked people to rank reduce, reuse and recycle by effectiveness. The slogan already lists them in order, and 78% still got it wrong. Recycling became the permission slip to keep buying. The industries making the single-use stuff keep making more, and their own mitigation pledges are voluntary. Consumers get the guilt and producers get the volume.