The massive lies that create our reality
Who else remembers learning about recycling in grade school during the ‘80s? My class made posters, created campaigns, and all learned the “3 R’s”. It all made sense to my 9 year old brain and for about 3 decades I was a believer. This won’t come as a shock to most of my readers, but it was all a lie. I watched industry transform every form of packaging into plastic, only to later discover my naivete. Recycling was corporate propaganda to gain public support for cheaper plastic packaging, propel a burgeoning petrochemicals industry, and offload accountability. For decades, we’ve been force-fed a narrative of individual responsibility designed to protect corporate profits. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo founded “Keep America Beautiful”, best known for its crying Indian (who is actually an Italian actor) PSA. The Reduce, Reuse, Recycle mantra is a corporate shield to hide the fact that plastic recycling is technically unfeasible. Every time plastic is melted and reshaped, its polymer chains...
