The recycling myth: What actually happens to our plastic

Recycling is the way to save us from plastic pollution. But not even recycling champion Germany has got it right. Our reporter Kai Steinecke follows the plastic stream into the heart of the German recycling industry to find out what’s wrong with it.

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

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Camera & video editor: Nils Reinecke & Kai Steinecke
Supervising Editor: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann & Joanna Gottschalk

[garry]

Every high school in the world should take the students on a field trip or two to recycling facilities and landfills just to show them the reality of it all.

[jacobreimer]

“Reduce” and “reuse” are so overlooked and are far more important and effective than recycling

[FrancisFurtak]

Wow! I'm 70 now and when I was a child we didn't have this problem. Everything came in a glass bottle which had a 10 cent refund. So if we were lucky enough to find one it meant I could buy an ice-cream which was 10 cents. Meats were wrapped in paper and we used paper bags to transport our food. Paper is very easy to recycle. Seems like we need to do is take 2 steps back and problem solved? Why is this so hard to see?

[thespalek]

I would hereby like to express my gratitude and respect to Martin and all the guys, who get up at 4 am to deal with our trash...I have lately started to perceive them as underappreciated heroes of this age.

[PistonAvatarGuy]

It's ridiculous how many people think that recycling is this magical process which completely renews materials and eliminates all problems with the consumption of resources.

[stephanledford]

Sometimes I think that the entire recycling thing is just designed to make us feel better (or less guilty) about the amount of trash we make. I worked at an office years ago where there were recycling bins set up in the break room, one for aluminum, one for paper / cardboard and one for plastics. I worked a lot of overtime those days and was there when the cleaning people came by with a large rolling bin where they dumped all the trash from trash cans AND all the recycling bins - it all went together into the trash. We of course never said anything to the employee committee who was very proud of their efforts to "save the planet" and I mention it here because while I faithfully recycle my waste every week, I have to wonder whether a variation of the same thing that happened at my office is not happening with my recycled stuff.

[chillyburger]

I am 60 years old and often think back to visiting my grandparents farm. There was literally no garbage . Food was picked, jarred in sealers, and containers where reused . Paper bags where reused waste food was rare and feed to the chickens and pigs . It seemed like most things where reused .
They worked quite hard physically so they lived into there 90s . No need for a gym pass . As I write this I am lying in bed while I stuff my face. We have advanced so much 😅

[VitaliHerasimenia]

I currently live in Belarus - the culture of sorting plastic and other types of waste is either absent or minimal.
On the weekends, we "have fun" with the fact that together with the family we go to the forest and collect plastic, glass and tin cans there. I am proud that I taught my four-year-old son to love nature and take care of it, but the government should do much more - today even containers for the separate collection of resources are far from being everywhere, and we are not talking about recycling in principle ...

[ryanvannice]

Recycling plastic seems to be a good way to make yourself feel better without accomplishing much.

[hingginchu]

Glad that they made this video. As someone who has worked in the recycling business. I would say the actual situation is more dire than what is being depicted. We need to not use plastic wherever alternatives are available even if it meant inconvenience.

[coltonbuhler]

My mom taught me Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Those first 2 are very important. It's disgusting seeing my friends just throw stuff into the trash. Ziploc bags were a big thing for us growing up. You don't throw it out unless it's ripped in half, you take it home in your lunch kit and we wash it and use it the next day. A box of 50 bags can last years.

[piratasdecordoba]

1. Quote: "Infrared scanners sort the plastic by weight". No, they do not sort by weight, but by material - that´s the reason why NIR (Near InfraRed) sorters are used. They can "see" which kind of plastic is on the conveyor belt.
2. Black plastics cannot be sorted by NIR sorters, that´s right and the reason is that black plastic does not reflect enough light for the NIR sorters to "see" it, as mentioned in the video. However, the can be sorted by laser sorters and electrostatic sorters, which both are not really cheap. So, short and clear: Black plastic bottles or other packages are not recycling-friendly.
3. You can recycle PET at nearly 100%, even food-save. Technically this is not a problem anymore. This clip is not up to date in this topic.
4. Multilayer packages are really bad stuff, however there are processes now to separate the materials. Not easy, not cheap, but technically possible. Of course better package design is the key for better recycling.
5. Germany imports more waste than it exports. See Bundesumweltamt statistics before you blame Germany for exporting "waste".
6. How I know this? I´m in the waste treatment business for +20 years. A lot of things are *technically* possible, but someone has to pay for it...

[garry]

I own a dumpster rental business and one of the transfer stations we use is also a recycling transfer facility. I talk to the workers from time to time. Trust me, most of the plastic people think is getting recycled is actually going to our landfills. I think the world would be better off sticking to aluminum, glass and paper for most of our packaging. I mean seriously, we are buying plastic toys that come in plastic packages and it all winds up in a landfill.

[r-type]

Wall-E seems more of a documentary after seeing this.

[gustavnilsson]

This is such a wholesome way to study a topic, to actually go on as an intern at the absolute ground level. Big ups!

[MetalMario]

Wow, recycling is almost a lie. I found that when I changed up my own diet for my own health to focus on whole foods, I had wayyy less trash and waste. I only had a bag-full every one or two weeks, which amazed me. I composted food scraps for the garden. I didn't change my diet because of trash, it was just a side-effect. So I was healthier while also being more efficient!
This problem can only be stopped when the culture of people's lives changes to not generate so much waste in the first place. We cannot have a wasteful lifestyle and have no answer to the waste.
Nature can break down paper and wood. Glass can be re-grinded back into sand. But we have no clue how to deal with mass excess plastic. And there's no money incentive for business to do so. We have to do it ourselves.

[antoniopalmero]

We don’t need recycling, we need to stop the production of completely unnecessary packaging.

[Twisted]

The companies wrapping everything in multiple types of plastics and half empty bags are the problem.

[pavlandr]

That's why I always say 'Reduce, reuse, recycle' should be exactly in this order. Recycling should be last resort.

[theEumenides]

People definitely don't recycle properly, but it may have been helpful to be clear (especially for people who don't live in Germany) that the "gelbe Tonne" isn't just for plastic; it's for packaging. So we also put aluminum foil, tin cans, milk/juice cartons in there as well.