‘Stop Saving the Planet?’ is a digital explainer series on PBS Terra, the home for PBS Digital Studio’s science and nature programming with a special emphasis on climate content on YouTube. Hosted by conservation scientist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, this series rethinks an individual’s responsibility to climate change and looks at the larger systemic changes that need to happen to address humanity’s impact on the environment. Our episode, “How Big Business Broke Recycling (And Blamed You)” focuses specifically on how corporations and institutions have used recycling as a way of blaming consumers for the global waste issue.
Recycling has been the gold standard for fighting pollution for decades. But our research uncovered that most plastics can’t be recycled and the companies that push for recycling are the ones often generating the most emissions and waste in the first place. We examined the historical roots and systemic flaws that have plagued recycling efforts. We scrutinized campaigns like “Keep America Beautiful and “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Through these campaigns, individuals were urged to embrace recycling as a panacea for environmental woes, while absolving corporate responsibility of mass production of non recyclable products and ballooning the global waste crisis.
