"How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled" by Laura Sullivan
How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled Wrong Kind of Green Aug 11, 2021 Social Engineering , Uncategorized NPR September 11, 2020 By Laura Sullivan Landfill workers bury all plastic except soda bottles and milk jugs at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon. Laura Sullivan/NPR Note: An audio version of this story aired on NPR’s Planet Money. Listen to the episode here. Laura Leebrick, a manager at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon, is standing on the end of its landfill watching an avalanche of plastic trash pour out of a semitrailer: containers, bags, packaging, strawberry containers, yogurt cups. None of this plastic will be turned into new plastic things. All of it is buried. “To me that felt like it was a betrayal of the public trust,” she said. “I had been lying to people … unwittingly.” Rogue, like most recycling companies, had been sending plastic...