After Years of Recycling and Bag Bans, America’s Plastic Problem Is Getting Worse

After New Jersey banned single-use plastic bags, plastic consumption in the state increased three-fold, a report found.

Plastic scrap in production at Arizona Pacific Plastics. Courtesy of Michael Lipton

Plastic recycling in the United States faces a serious conundrum. For decades, American homes and businesses have dutifully placed their used polymer wares in special bins to be hauled away and broken down by professionals. 

Mountains of landfill-bound plastic being recycled is still considered a cornerstone of ethical waste management.

Jumping on the bandwagon, 12 U.S. states have bans on single-use plastic bags and consumers have spent years bringing reusable shopping bags to stores. Yet after decades of recycling, bag bans, and “reduce, reuse” campaigns, America’s plastic waste problem is worse than ever.

The United States is the number two plastic waste producer in the world after China. Anywhere from 20 million to 40 million metric tons of plastic waste is being produced per year in the United States; but only 5 percent is actually getting recycled, according to a Greenpeace report. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a bit more optimistic, putting that figure closer to 10 percent. Nevertheless, most U.S. plastic is ending up in landfills.

This becomes more problematic as estimates forecast that plastic trash will triple by 2060.

However, recycling industry leaders have marched alongside America’s crusade to curb its plastic trash. They say the infrastructure is already in place and business is booming. Evidence supports this, with a Fortune growth analysis showing the market for recycled plastic stood at just under $48 billion in 2022 and grew to nearly $51 billion in 2023. It’s expected to reach almost $89 billion by 2030.

With demand for recycled plastic soaring and millions of tons of polymer trash already being processed, many have asked the obvious question: Why is so much of it still ending up at the dump? Experts say it’s a combination of irresponsible business practices, manufacturing, and public misinformation.

Behind the 8 Ball

“The manufacturing part of it is troubling. I don’t understand why they don’t make [plastic] products easier to recycle,” Michael Lipton, president of Arizona Pacific Plastics, told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Lipton’s company handles post-industrial plastic scrap that comes right off the manufacturing line. His company then turns it into “high-quality plastic regrind.” With as much attention as plastic soda bottles and grocery bags get, the public eye has mainly been drawn away from the manufacturing end. According to Mr. Lipton, making a dent in America’s plastic waste starts here.

Plastic scrap is being processed at Arizona Pacific Plastics. Courtesy of Michael Lipton

He explained that many manufacturers make polymer products containing multiple kinds of plastic. Some have other materials woven in that are metallic or contain products that make recycling a significant challenge. When packaging or a product contains mixes—especially non-plastic elements—there’s an excellent chance it'll end up in a landfill regardless of whatever feel-good message is on the packaging.

“So called eco-friendly toothpaste is an example. Toothpaste in a tube just isn’t recyclable,” Mr. Lipton said. “It’s ridiculous. That stuff has like six different films on it. There’s no way that’s being recycled,” he said. Also on the nonrecyclable list are disposable, single-use coffee pods, along with packaging around beef jerky, and dog food.

Mr. Lipton emphasized that it’s how a plastic product is made and what it’s made from that will determine where the item will ultimately end up. “Post-consumer recycled material is great, but if it’s made with multiple types of plastic, we’re already starting behind the eight ball here.”

On the post-consumer side of the industry, Bobby Bandy is the owner and operator of Earth Savers. His Nashville-based business has recycled 40 million tons of waste over the past 20 years. Mr. Bandy told The Epoch Times that many problems plastic recycling faces come from years of poorly handled government recycling programs combined with corporate laziness.

Money is the deciding factor in many business decisions, and it’s just easier to say no to complicated items or just send them to the landfill.

“We’ve been doing things for 20 years that people act like is still so hard to do today. ” Mr Bandy said.

He said the process for breaking down plastics has gotten better over time, but some municipalities are “oversimplifying” the problem by scaling back the types of plastic they’re willing to take.

Nashville’s municipal program, he said, won’t take any post-consumer plastic that isn’t a “bottle or jug,” which is usually a type 1 or 2 plastic container.

There are a total of seven labels or “codes” of plastic products. The larger the number, the more mixed and complicated the material becomes. Mr. Bandy said the municipal recycling centers in his area stopped taking plastics in larger number codes since they cost a lot more to recycle. To make matters worse, he asserts these same programs have just lied about why they’re turning away some plastic codes.

And this is how recycling myths are born. All types of plastic can technically be recycled. It just costs more money. Mr. Bandy said this lie wove its way into the fabric of recycling culture and has been accepted as fact instead of  “just telling the American people that it costs more.”

Mr. Lipton agrees, and said politicians tend to repeat the same misinformation.

This includes the notion that reusable shopping bags, which replaced single-use plastic bags in many stores and states, can’t be recycled.

“Those [bags] are one thousand percent, completely recyclable. There’s no reason that bag can’t be recycled. But the reason why it isn’t, is because it’s very expensive. So when that reusable bag comes in, it’s hard to separate. It gets caught up in equipment, so it just gets thrown away,” Mr. Lipton said.

Bag Ban Paradox

Mr. Lipton says banning single-use plastic bags in stores is another misguided effort based more on emotion than logic.

“It will cost way more to recycle that [reusable] bag than it will to use a regular plastic bag. We create all these workarounds, but in the end, we just add to the problem,” he said.

A New Jersey case study highlighted the problem by looking at the effects of the state’s of a single-use plastic bag ban.

The shift to alternative bags resulted in nearly a three-fold increase in plastic consumption and a six-fold spike in plastic used to produce reusable shopping bags, a recent report by Freedonia found.

Mr. Bandy added that single-use plastic bags have been eligible for recycling for a long time. The only reason companies stopped is because consumers weren’t submitting them correctly. “We used to be able to take their plastic bags. Tied all together, they’re easy to sort. Random solo bags are problematic because they could jam or melt on equipment,” he said.

Mr. Lipton concurred. “That’s the funniest part. It was easier to recycle that flimsy little [grocery] bag.”

A Canadian environmental group study showed that between reusable shopping bags and single-use plastic, the latter has much less of an overall environmental footprint. When taking the life cycle of a product— including manufacturing—into consideration, single-use plastic bags have less of an impact than polymer or cotton reusable bags.

Moreover, many reusable shopping bags end up in the trash anyway, according to Mr. Lipton and Mr. Bandy.

One report created for the United Nations Environmental Programme observed that a thick polypropylene reusable bag needs to be used 10 to 20 times to offset the environmental impact of a single plastic bag. Emissions in manufacturing also have to be considered. The Freedonia study also revealed that increased consumption of polypropylene bags contributed to a 500 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

And it’s even worse with cotton. One Danish analysis concluded a cotton bag would need to be used a minimum of 7,100 times to negate its carbon footprint.

ACI Plastics processing facility. Courtesy of Scott Melton

“Part of it is education. But our officials think the same thing,” Mr. Lipton said while noting a lot of eco-activists are ”very uninformed” when it comes to the reality of plastic recycling.

“The consumer at home is not well informed ... Helping the consumer understand what they can recycle and then getting that plastic to a recycler are two key factors in raising the recycling rate,” Scott Melton, president of ACI Plastics, told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Melton is an advocate for sustainable recycling programs, but admits one of the biggest hurdles is cost. “We still need to cover our costs and make a profit to be sustainable and reinvest in our companies.  There are many companies in the market who are committed to buying recycled resins even when the price of virgin is below the cost of buying recycled,” he said.

Money remains the primary reason for the disconnect between millions of tons of U.S. plastic being recycled while, at the same time, even more gets tossed into rubbish heaps. Recycling has become more cost-effective over time, but it’s still expensive.

Dollars and Sense

“There are some types of plastic that need many steps to recycle and the selling price is too low to spend the money on recycling. With virgin prices of polypropylene and polyethylene so low, it can be difficult to cost justify buying recycled resins,” Mr. Melton said.

Mr. Bandy has also experienced cost challenges in his industry. He shared that when he first started out in recycling, he could make $25 per ton of plastic scrap brought in for processing. Now it actually costs him money. “Today, I bring in that same material, and I get charged $60 per ton. So I had to pass that on to my customers.”

But he hasn’t heard any complaints and believes the majority of Americans would pay a little extra to know their plastic trash is actually getting recycled.

Another reason it costs more to recycle plastic is the amount of “contamination” from other trash. Polymers covered in liquid, oil, or other debris aren’t necessarily deal killers for recycling, but there are higher costs associated with the extra sorting. For example, the loads Mr. Bandy brings in for processing must contain less than 5 percent contamination, otherwise he pays a penalty.

That’s why, as he put it, the state recycling programs have been “dumbed down.” It’s not that certain items can’t be sorted, cleaned, and recycled. It’s just easier and cheaper to say no and let those items go to landfills.

Mr. Lipton believes municipal waste management officials are the “worst offenders” in this arena. “According to them, they recycle everything. It’s the biggest scam of all.”

All of this aside, most American consumers would prefer to see their plastic get recycled. A Blue Yonder survey showed that 69 percent of U.S. consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products.

“Recycling, however you look at it, has a high moral value,” Mr. Bandy said.

Mr. Melton has also found this to be true with his clientele. “I can say that more of our customers are seeking out ways to reclaim their scrap and they understand the importance of recycling.”

Low-density polyethylene or LDPE film wash line at ACI Plastics. Courtesy of Scott Melton

China enacted a ban on 24 types of solid waste imports that went into effect in 2018, including plastics. Up to that point, the United States had been sending millions of tons of its polymer waste to China for processing. Once that ended, American waste management operations scrambled to find ways to deal with an influx of difficult-to-sort and recycle mixed plastics.

This is how plastic got branded as the “villain,” according to Mr. Lipton.

It’s also how the idea of a plastic tax has made its way to Capitol Hill. U.S. Senators reintroduced the REDUCE Act last year that hadn’t moved when first introduced in 2021. If passed, it would impose a 20-cent per pound fee on the sale of virgin plastic resin used in the manufacturing of single-use plastics.

“A polluter fee would hold the biggest plastics companies accountable for the damage they’ve caused and increase the amount of plastic that actually gets recycled,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in an official press release.

The legislation has been sharply criticized by plastic manufacturers as a “tax on everything” that would be passed directly onto the consumer.

Meanwhile, industry workhorses like Mr. Lipton, Mr. Bandy, and Mr. Melton continue to roll up their sleeves and get on with the herculean task of recycling America’s plastic.

“We recycled 19 million pounds of material last year that would’ve ended up in a landfill. I’m doing my part,” Mr. Lipton said.

Mr. Bandy says private businesses are up to the challenge of recycling what municipal waste management has turned away. “When government gets involved, it’s going to get mucked up in some way ... Business always does things better than government.”

Like his colleagues, Mr. Melton is optimistic. “The plastics recycling industry is growing every year, and we are getting smarter on ways to recycle with more cost-effective methods.”