Ocean Conservancy CEO issues blog post on Recycling and the Ocean

Is Recycling Broken? Yes. Do we need to fix it to solve the ocean plastic pollution crisis? Absolutely” is a June 7, 2019 blog post issued by Janis Searles Jones, CEO of the Ocean Conservancy. The post notes that “… Approximately 6,300 million metric tons of plastic waste has been generated since the creation of plastics in the 1950’s. Only 9% of this plastic waste has been recycled, with the remainder incinerated, landfilled or left in the natural environment. Of the roughly 9% that has been recycled, only 10% of that has been recycled more than once; this means that only 1% of all plastic produced has been recycled more than once … [There is] an additional 8 million metric tons (and growing) spilling into the marine environment from land every year … how do we tackle this crisis? First, we must reduce the amount of plastic being produced. We need to start with phasing out unnecessary and single-use plastics … Second, for recyclable plastics, we must collect and recycle them better and smarter …”