And by the corration for public broadcasting. Major support is provided by thn john d. And catht. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org. F the fondation working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. At fordfoundation. Org. Additional support is provided by the abrams foundation,co itted to excellence in journalism. The park foundation,gh dedicated to hning Public Awareness of critical issues. The john and helenlessner family trust. Supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. And by the frontle urnalism fund, withajor support from jon an jo ann hagler. And Additional Support from the millicent and eugene bell foundation. water burbling Laura Sullivan in 2015, a marine biologist came across a sea turtle in distress. I dont want to pull it too hard. Yeah, i mean, its bleeding already. Oh, poor baby. Im sorry. bleep bleep christ. That is plastico. Oh, man. Thats plastic. Dont tell me its a freaking straw. I ts just freaking. Va sullin her video of the encounter quickly went viral. This poor sea turtle. Tr sullivan it would atact more than 35 million views. Action. Ecame a rallying cry for sullivan and focused public attention on a growing problem. That turtle video certainly did have an impact. Plastic pollution a planetary crisis. Sullivan plaics in the decades. Ave been building up for in an underwater paradise, a plastic nightmare. S sullivan recurring ima dead whales. 80 plastic bags found inside the whale. Sullivan bloated seabirds. Oh. Sullivan . And littered waterways have fueled a global antiplastic movement. Enemy number one the plastic straw. Many u. S. Citieare taking steps to ban Plastic Grocery bags. Save our earth before its too late sullivan and yet, despite the backlash, the industry that makes plastic isxpanding. The start of construction on that multibilliondollar plastics plant. Sullivan plentiful supplies of natural gas are driving down the cost of making plastic. The u. S. Is now one of the Worlds Largest plastic proders. Its going to be the largest plant of its kind in the world. Sullivan and industry is investing tens of billions of dollars in new plastic plants. Construction will eventually employ 6,000 people. Sullivan by 2050, its estimated that Global Production of plastic will triple. A plastic boom. Theres going to more plastic than ever on the face. Sullivan i wanted tome understand how we o this moment, how the Plastic Industry has been able to thrive all thesyears in the face of a growing crisis, and opsition thats now stronger than its ever been. For decades, the natnal response to the growing plasticwaste problem has focuseon one solution recycling. And few places have pursued recycling more aggressively than oregon. What we put in our recycling bins ends up in sorting plants like this one, outside of portland. Were actually very full right w. Sullivan this is, this is all coming in fresh. This is the first unload, right . Yeah. When it comes in. Looks like sullivan vinod singh is the outreach manag at far west recycling. Slivan every single piece of this has to be sorted in some way. Yeah, you havto separate paper and then the metals and then the plastics. Sullivan there are a lot of different kinds of plastics that have to be sorted. And what were doing here is werrting it out into the milk jugs, the naturaldpe, theen pigmd hdpe, p. E. T. Water bottles. Va sulli theyre looking for plastics. Yeah so all the plastic will come off before the line ends. Li suln some items, like soda bottles and milk jugs, e easier to recycle, so theres money to be made. So, this is all plastic that has a home. Sullivan but most other pes of plastic are techniclyn difficult and oftecostly to recycle. And that makes them nearlyo impossiblesell. So they keep piling up. This is plastic that haso home. This is plastic that has home, so its your clamshells, ziploc bags, film, a cd, a food, like, a food wrapper. Sullivan ithe business theyre called mixed plastics. Now, youre getting more mixed plastics, like pouches, and everything comes in a, in a clamshelnow. Sullivan so, if somebody throws their te bottle into their bin, thats a win. Yeah. Sullivan but what youre saying is youre seeing more and more othis stuff. Packaging is evolving. Sullivan most mixed plasticp enn a place like this. What youre seeing happening right now is, thats a fullsize, thats a, probably a 53foot trailer. Sullivan in medford, oregon, rogue disposals landfill takes about a hundred loads of tra a day. And more and more of it is plastic. Plastic films, plastic bags, the plastic wrapping that comes around a lot of packaged goods that all goes into the garbage. Its margarine tubs, clamshells, the deli containers. Until there is a viable optione for recycling things, we should be putting it ia landfill. B sulliva thats not what weve been told for decades, as the things we buy have been increasingly packaged in astic. Are you david . Im Laura Sullivan. Very nice to meet you. Slivan nice to meet you, too. Welcome to portland. Sullivan David Allaway is a senior policy analyst with the egon department of environmental quality. So much of all this stuff in the Grocery Store is plast now. Its rely inexpensive. Sullivan its an easy way to package it. It is, and it performs, it performs very well. It has really good engineering qualities, it protects food very well. Sullivan this is my basic question, because it seems like everybody is buying lette in a box now. Is this recyclable . In this state, none of this is, none of thiss recyclable. Sullivan okay, what about all these . This is everywhere in every surmarket. In oregon, again, there are no curbside programs that would accept any of these tubs. Sullivan okay, so, this is classic, when, a lot of americans dohis, like what youre doing right now. Yep, thats right s livan they flip it over. What are we looking at . At the bottom of all these plastic containers is this little chasing arrow, the little recycling symbol, with a number. And e number, theres somet words, isays, 1 p. E. T. E. This package here is technically recyclable. You could recycle this in a lab. Sullivan oka b its not economical to recycle it, given the current economics of recycli. Sullivan but if its not happening in oregon, it makes me wonder whats goinon in the rest of the country. Yeah, i would, i would say that this package is rarely recycled in most parts in the country. Sullivan yeah. Can i give you another example here . Sulliva so, lets take a look at these blueberries. Sullivan okay. This is classic. And if you turn this over, you see the chasing arrows. On the bottom, it says, 100 recyclable. Er is no program in oregon that wants this in the curbside. But more than half of all people that live in the portland areae believthis belongs in the curbside container. Sullivan well, it says its recyclable. Ys it ts recyclable. It has the recycling logo. Its very confusing to a lot of people. Sullivan this confusion eabout what can and cant recycled, and where plastic ultimately ends up, is no accident. Over the past year, weve been vestigating the plastic crisis and found that many of the problems we face today were t in motion decades ago by the very companies who make plastic in the first place. One of those companies is dupont, and on the grounds of the first Dupont Family home, ia found gley library. Ld movie score playing it holds one of the worlds largescollections of industrial history. This is an american city, aty real commuf homes and homemakers like thousands of others across the nation. We call it plasticstown, u. S. A. Sullivan id come to see what its archive could tell me about the evolution of the the table is set with polyethylene products, too. Sullivan americas postwar boom preseed endlessis opportunities for ew durable, lightweight material. Modernday miraes that were made with the help of peochemicals. Sullivan from packaging to clothing to home furnishings. Very durable. Sullivan plastics wideranging applications. Glassine, pyethylene, mylar. Sullivan . Promised a new world through chemistry. Step into the world of manmade materials that take up where nature left off. The thing that made them unique was the ability to do l more with justtle bit of material, to make things that we usedighter and more efficien so, plastic came to be used in many applications because it performed better. That was not a trick. It did a good job of doing what it was asked to do. It made life more efficient and easier. chanting save our earth sullivan but by 1970, the confront the Turbulent Times of americas environmental awakening. One in every ten americans took part in rallies. Sullivan earth day was o of the largest mass protests in u. S. History. Oh, earth day was profound in terms of people waking up to the fact that we live on a finite planet. D there was a lot of concern about the trend that was happening towards the more throway, disposable lifestyle. dramatic music playing sullivan in respse, many compies, including plastic makers, and even some environmenlists, got behind an iconic ad campaign that focused attention on the pubrole. And i remember being a kid and watching those ads, theon most famous with the crying inan. Some people have a deep, abiding respect for the Natural Beauty that was once this country. He was actually italian, dressed up like an indian, but the fake crying indi, the most famous one, ends with this very dramatic sentence where they say. T people stllution. People can stop it. People all around the country bought that line and thought it was our responsibility to take americans discard more trash than any other country in the world. Sullivan while the efforts to change Consumer Behavior helped clean up the more visible litter problem, they did little to address the root cause. Li what makes our ves convenient is burying us. Sullivan the unchecked growth in household waste. Ba a barge filled with g is causing quite an international stink. Loaded with more than 3,000 tons of waste from new yorks long island. Sullin by 1987, a wandering barge called the mobro became an emblem of the growingr is. Greenpeace went and climbed aboard it and took a huge banner that we put on it. We said, next time, try recycling. It really became a metaphor of, we are bumping up against limits her we cannot keep just continuing this mindless consumerism, mindless consumption, and dump it somewhere else. Rb american has a e problem too long ignored. Sullivan at hagley, we found stcollection of internal p industry documents. Thk you. voiceover . About this period of time, when the industry was in the crosshrs of the environmental movement, and plastics we under attack. As wcontinued reporting,e found even more internal documents and court filings, and spoke with over a dozen industry insiders, including three top executives who represented the big plastic producers and agreed to talk publicly for the first time. Back then, one of the vice y president s at the societof the plastics industry was lew freeman. He now heads a local environmental coalition, but he remembers a pivotal Board Meeting in the late 80s, when the industry was worried about its publicmage. The ve president of the Dupont Company pulled me asidean said, you, you guys better get up to wilmington. Theres dissatisfactn about whats going on with the solidwaste issue. We took a trek up to wilmington, and this one dupont executive, he sd, i thk if we had five Million Dollars which seemed like a lot of money then. Sullivan five million . We had five millionar do we could, we could, we could solve this problem. Sullivan they created the lutions, drawn from their ranks of bigil and Petrochemical Companies that made plastic, like amoco,ex chevron, dow, ann. The group had a plan and turned to a veteran of the industry, ron liesemer, to execute it. They wanted to know, was ied interen being the guy who actually made recycling happen across the. S. . Sullivan i mean, you got handed this task. Yeah. R sullivan . Ycle plastic in the united states. In the united states. Literally me. I had no sta but i had millions of dollars to do what i felt wasecessary. In a highly controversial action, one county in new yorks state ted to ban all packaging made of two kinds of plastic. Sullivan it was a critical moment. Growing backlash was threatening the future of plastic. In what may be part of and national tthe city council of saint paul, minnesota, voted to outlaw the use of polystyrens cs. Sullivan liesemer was sent to minnesota on an urgent mission. Plastic were facing banat used their products. There was an attitude that if your product was not rycled, then it should not be in the marketplace. P so, it was us in the plastics industry solve this problem so that they could continue to package their oducts in plastic. Sullivan and liesemer found a solution. To appease government officis, the industry funded a local recycling pilot project. The industry attitude was, well set this up and get it going, but if the public wants it, they are going to have to pay for. Sullivan the plastic bans were averted. Do you think that they took a lesson away from how to fight the ba . Oh, yes. It was, we need to be doing things. L sullivae what . Dont wait until legislation appears. E sullivan yourying yes, do it first. And we did. Sullivan did you feel like they cared more about selling plastic than they did about making recycling work . Making recycling work was a way to keep their prodts i the marketplace. Ll plastic. it was a way to yes. Its a winwin situation. You get recycling going, that has its benefits, and it improves the image of the material. Sullivan the industry found another way to promote plastic using recycling. Responding to pressure from states and environmentalists to better identify thny types of plastic, it created a code t. Tell them ap that code was a numbering system put inside the wellknn symbol for recycling, the chasing arrows. The problem, recyclers said, is that it left the impression that all those kinds of plastics were actually being recycled. Coy smith ran recycling centers in Southern California in the 1980s and early 90s. All right, thereou are. During that time, the plastics industry, they went around to states, and theye convinced thates to pass laws, and they did this very quiey. They passed laws that required that symbol with the nber on it be put on plastic containers sold in that state. I mean, for most states, they did it in, recyclers dnt even know it happened. And the next thing you know, all the plastic containers he these symbols on them. Sullivan is this a good thing or a bad thing . Its a bad thing. Sullivan why . Because the average person saw the symbol, they know the symbol, and said, well, its recyclable, righ sullivan its got three arrows. Well, like, all of a sudden, our own customers, they wouldan bring it in d not only say it has the triangle, but it would,u they would flasay, it says its recyclable right on it. And id be, like, i can tell you i cant give this away. Theres no one that would even take it if i paid for them to take it. Thats how unrecyclable it was. Sullivan stuckith plastics they couldnt sell, smith and other recyclers met with representatives from the Plastic Industry. Do you see the one. Yeah, theres my name, right there. C sullivan ame up with report identifying key problems with the numbering code. Some firms e using it as a Green Marketing tool. The code is being misused. Sullivan the Plastic Industryhat you were working with agreed to these and signed onto this report. They did. Sullivan so they knew thatth e problems existed. They knew these problems existed, absolutely. Astic makers couldnt agree onpl how to cnge the code. Industry would only switch to a triangle, which recyclers said was too similar to the chasing arrows. Industry wouldnt en consider, say, no triangle, or a circle, or, i mean. They didnt want to gono anywhere neariangle. We said, go to a square, go to some other symbol, just not the triangle, and they, they said, no. Coming up with ways to have their product perceived asla more rece and more environmental makes their product look bette theyant to sell more plastic coainers. Li svan recyclers also appealed to government industry. S, but they sided with they sd that the chasing arrows symbol was okay, as long as it was small and on the bottom of packaging. What if its got a chasing arrow sign on it, and you think that means its getting recled . Uh, that, that was one of the comments early, that it impliedt thse products were being recycled. Sullivan were they . Were they misleading the public . Iont think so, because when i looked at them, at the arrows, i thought, this is a way to identify the products so that recycling, the early stages of recycling can take place. Sullivan but even as liesemer and his colleagues were publicly promoting recycling, privately, the industry had long expressed doubt it was everon going to happen a broad scale. One internal document from the society of thelastics industry cautioned, the techniques of cleaning and separating the mixed plastics. Has not beenlo defor largescale economic application. Another saidthere are no effective marketechanisms for mixed plastic. D this document was candid there is serious doubt widespread plasticecycling can ever be made viable on an econic basis. How could they go into all of these communities and tell people, you just have to recycle, when they knew there were so many problems and so many hurdles . Some were very skeptical t felt they had to do it. I think others were, were more hopeful. Th e was never an enthusiasti belief that recycling was ultimately going to workn a significant way. Sullivan freemans boss at the time, larry thomas, the head of theociety of the plastics industry, was blunt about it. I was the front man for the astics industry. No getting around it. Sullin thos wouldnt sit down for an oncamera interview, but agreed to talk on the phone if blic thinks the recycling is working, theney e not going to be as concerned about the environment. Think they knew that the infrastructure wasnt there to really have recycling amount to a whole lot. Sullivan thomas wrote a confidential memo in 1989 out the precious position the industry was in. The image of plasti among consumers is deteriorating at an alarmingly fast pace, it says. Were approaching apoint of no return. business is being lost. Analysts are beginning to take notice. We Must Immediately undertake a Major Program of unprecedented proportions to reverse this fastmoving tidal wave of growing negative public perception. So the big plaic producers came up with ad multimillilar solution. When you look at plastic. Sullivan advertising. Helps things stay fresh and safe and light. F it spent mosts money, millions and millions of dollars, on advertising. Plastic also saves energy. To tout the virtues ofcs plass a way of heading off the criticism the industry was experiencing. When we started that advertising program, i think the image of plasticwas in t mid30s you know, 30, 35 favorability. Sullivan thats pretty low. If youre in politics, youru in deep e with a 35 rating. Presenting the possibilitie of plastics. When they were running the advertising on television, they were not about how plastics can be recycled, but all the wonderful things that plastics bring to us. Plastics make it possible. The fact that you now dont have to worry about dropping a shampoo ttle that was made out of glass on the bathroom floor because its plastic. G and theres nothinong in an dustry promoting those kind of addressing the problem people are criticizing you about. Sullivan and it worked . Nd t worked. Sulliva chuckles cause y went from 30 favorability. From, lets say mid30s to mid60s. N sulliavorability. Mmhmm. commercial music playing glass . Thats the past. Thermaset is the future. Sullivan over the next several decades. W what once was glal soon be plastic. Sullivan plastic became the unrivaled material of choi for consumers. Busy lifestyles and a growing urban populaon mean an increase in demandor food that is fresh. Sullivan plastic sales exploded convenient. Ul van from 1990 to 2010, production more than doubled. And fast. Flexible pacging has bece part of our daily lives. Sullivan and with all that new plastic me mountains of here we are at our gdb South Brunswick facility. Li sn south, okay. In new jersey, i met a man who built a 180 million recycling business off of that waste. Use and discard, and then this is where it all ends up. Sullivan Sunil Bagaria is naonal chairman of the , Plastics Division for ise institutfor scrap recycling industries. His company buys throwaway plastic from some of theor largesbigbox in the u. S. Oh, my god, what is this . This is just hangers, one typef plastic. Sullivan gasps why are these all here . Well, you would imagine that when you, you know, you take a garment off the rack and take ito the checkout counter. Sullivan yes. Then this should go back. Sullivan that they wou just reuse it. Yeah, but they said, oh, you know what, well just buy new hangers. In the meantime, let me just recycle this. Sullivan o boy. Hanger gets used one time. One time. Sullivan starting in the late 90s, bagaria and other recycling brokers had a oneword answer to the growing plasticwaste problem china. I mean, china did a big one for the recycling industry, i must say. Sullivan yeah. You know, because, as long as it remotely resembled plastic, sullivan they would take it. Yeah polystyrene, p. E. T. ,le pvc, polypro. Because thats how big a demand of manufacturing was there in china. W they wanted terial. Give me raw material, thats all they wanted. Sullivan how long did th go on for . Almost 20 years. But later,e surely realized that the was always another aspect of whatasoing on in china. Sullivan which was what . They would just take, like, the whanging fruits. Sullivan the good stuff. Good stuff, easy to do. Sullivan yeah. And the remaining Plastic Waste will then be disposed of. Sullivan eventually, the reality ofhat was happening in china became clear. These chinese children spend most of their waking hourstw n plumes of smoke and mountains of plastic. Sullivan and in 2018, china stopped taking impted Plastic Waste. Now the country is trying to clean up its image. Because we thought that it the freedom okay, no problem, lets, let me continue to use it. It is ultimately getting recycled. What is the, what is the problem . N er asked the question, are they doing it the, the right way . Are we damaging the environment more in the name of recycling . Sullivan when the recycling market in china went away,an bagariother brokers scrambled to find a new home for their plastic. And countries like indonesia saw a business opportunity. Last fall, i met up with bagaria there. He was checking out a recycling company that he sells his plastic to. This is his factory. Sullivan this is your factory. Sullivan bagaria he to make sure his plastic was actually being recycled and turned into tiny pellets thatew are used to makelastic products. This is your pellets. Li suln ah, there they are. This is the holding tank. N sullivaot pellets. How much responsibility do you feel like you have over whats happening here . Oh, we, we are the shipper of the scrap. It all originates with us. We could ship scrap and hope that it is being recycled in the way it should be. S, or the other way i come here, see how serious he is about doing it the right way. Sullivan but there are growing concerns herthat a lot of Plastic Waste is not being handled the right way, and indonesian officials are trying to prevent what haened in china from happening here. Is this one of the big priorities here . Yeah. L speaking longuage sullivan so, contaminated plastic trash is abig a problem for you guys asug narcotics and coming into the country . Yeah, yeah,eah. Sullivan wow. Nd last year, customs fhat half the containers of Plastic Waste they inspected. Sir, sir, can you explain little bit . Sullivan . Were contaminated with trash and plastic that cant be recycled. We wanted to see for ourselves what was happening to the plastic coming here. Oh, its here, right there . Yeah. Sullivan that opening . Onrecycling company here caught our attention. Yeah, pt new harvestindo. voiceover based on indonesian customs documents wed obtained. 191 containers being held right now. Ju lets go knock and see if maybe someone will talk to us. voiceover with the help of an indonesian journalist, we tried to speak to someone at new harvestindo. But we were ld there was no one available. We need to confirm. speaking local language is the data that we have is correct or not . Sullivan can we come in and look . journalist speaking local language guard responds sullivan looks like a lot of shipping containers. Yeah. Sullivan i think were in the right place. Yeah. Sullivan the customs document we had said the company was getting plastic from the u. S. With no one from new harvestindo willing to speak tus, we still wanted to know what they were Plastic Waste and whether itf was all being recycled. Wed heard about an environmental acvist whos been tracking what happens to the plastic coming into indonesia. Hi. I met up with Yuyun Ismawati in a small Rural Community nearby. Thislace, its huge. Yeah. s ituge and very wide. T you can see from tharner to the end of that valley over there. Sullivan whats it like to a loa field this size and see it covered in plastic trashi an show you the pictures. Sullivan oh, really, you took pictures . Yes. Sullivan yeah, id love to see that, yeah. Oo wea seat by the side of the road, and she showed mepi ctures shed collected of plastic that locals said had been dumped here. The sacks are from a astic company. Ked them, where did they get this from . And then they said its from harvest, they call it. Sullivan harvest. voiceover Waste Pickers woult look for ps of value, and the rest would be burned. Hi so,is how it looked like when they burn it. Sullivan so its like a big, sort of a big fire on this pit. Yeah, yeah. People with respiratory problem, th really get affected. And some children got hospitalized. horn honks sullivan after the community complained to the government about the burning, the dumping stopped here. I mean, w, how big a problem do you think these kinds of dumping grounds are in indonesia . Big. They are everywhere around this area. Re the recycling system that we have at the moment is not really recycling, because some part of it exported, being exported all over the rld, to be recycled. Sullivan yeah. Its really recycled, beinger recycled overseas or not. There is no proof. Sullivan we reached out to the two recling companies known locally as harvest. New harvestindo still wouldnt respond to us, and the other compy denied it was behind t dumping. But later that night, on a back street, i met up with a new harvestindo worker who agreed to talk to me about what the company do with its pltic waste. Hi. Hi. Sullivan thank you so much for coming to meet me. voiceover as long as weid didnt disclose hitity. When you get a bale of plastic, how much of that bale is plastic that the company wants, and how much of it is stuff that is just plastic that youre not going to do anything with . speaking local language sullivan what do you do with the rest of it . Sullivan how long has that been going on for . Sulliva he told me he could take me to a place where the company had recently been dumping plasc. After a 30minute drive, we reached a quiet neighborhood with an area hidden from the road. The smell of burnt plastic was in the air. And all around, there were sacks of plastic and big piles, too. This is from purchase, new york. This is totally american. This is om california. This is a pile of u. S. Recycling. Oiceover new harvestin eventually got back to us and denied it was responsible forma doing anything that d the environment. It sd in an email that it hadiv a comprehesystem to handle Plastic Waste,nd it follows all indonesian laws and regulations. The company has not been charged with any wrongdoing related to dumping. In last 20 years,eve seen more environmental degradations and environmental problems in indonesia because we are struggling to, to clean up thern modern debris and moitter in indonesia. The additional burden of waste i from overseaont know how we are going to handle it. Sa sullivan yourng youve got plenty as it is. Yes, because we, we are struggling to handle our own waste. Sullivan a lot of that wastn is eup in the ocean. One study estimates that 60 of Ocean Plastic comes from asia. What do you think americans need to know . Americans need to know that your waste ended up here. And the consumption and lifestyle that you have, i think its, you have to rethink, because have to reduce the o amouplastics that we, that we produce at the moment. Save our earth before its too late sullivan that message is reinvigorating a backlash against plastic, the likes of which the industry hasnt seen for decades. I can talk loud. Ng sullivan its fa opposition to the construction of new plants. Everybody up here said theyt dont the plant. There shouldnt be any more talk about it. As ofoday, plastic bags are banned in jersey city. Sullivan and plastic bans are spreadg across the country. This is our moment, california. Lets get these bills passed. Lets do right by our future. N sulli major showdown is shaping up in california. The legislature wants to impose new fees on plastic makers and restrict singleuse astics. This is a big moment. Sullivan this is big moment. Yeah, so, if the california market changes, we know its p going to putressure on kind of, the kind of products tha are out there. Sullivan amid the backlash, i headed to the texas gulf coast, where oil and gasde companies are unpressure from Climate Change and increasingly turning tow plastics, notheir biggestgr th market. We reached out to more than a the only one that would sit down with us was chevron phillips. Jim becker is the Vice President of sustainability. Youve seen california, the legislation. Yeah, yeah. Sullivan some bans across the country, and a lot of targets on singleuse plastic. Uhhuh, yeah, our view is, you have to be very careful with that, cause sometimes the substitute products can have a bigger Environmental Impact than the thing you are banning. Sullivan right so, we dont think banning these products is necessarilygo the, the right way t sullivan what does chevron phillips want to see happen . C. C. Goals americanly, the chemistry council. Sullivan yeah. Goals of getting plasti waste out of landfills by, i0. Think, the date is 2 sullivan chevron phillips would li to see all of that plastic recycled back to make new plastic things yeah. Sullivan how, how do you get o a place where 100 of this plastic getting recycled . How do you get there . Much more Education Needs to happen. Y sullivah. On how to recycle. You also have to really build up the infrastructure for collection. E were going to h invest in innovation, becae some of these technologies still need tv be furtheroped. Sullivan if the oil industry is able to get 100 of, of the material recycled. Yeah. Sullivan doesnt that affect the bottom line . Yes, it would, iter would, but the ative is, having Plastic Waste in the environment. We dont want that. Ou sullivan hink that the company feels so strongly that it is willing to make less money . I think thats true. An investment in managinge as astic waste. Sullivan once again, the industry is pushing recying. Today, its main lobbying group is the american chemistry council, and until recently, ite resident of plastics was steve russell. You fundamtally think that in the united states, recycling could ramp up a capacity to handle the vast majority of plastic that being produced . So, i understand that theres a lot of skepticism around that, because the systems today have not kept pace. Our system is woully inadequate, and it needs dramatic investment. It needs improvement. But the proof here is the dramatic amount of investment thats happening right now. Our member cpanies, sabic and shell and lyondellbasell, all of whom have made major announcements in traditional and advanced recycling to ben to intervene in that space in order to bring their scale, their technical knowhow, and their capacity to start providingpr ucts that are based on waste. Sullivan but youre talking about a couple of companies. Theres also an entire industry thats goingiple production by 2050. Mmhmm. T sullivan how ase two things going to meet anywhere in the middle . Its not going to happen thin month or by thof the year, but were moving now. Old types of recycling nd to be modernized, and new types of recycling need to be brought on board. The good news is theyre coming. Sullivan back in oregon, found one of these new technologies. In south portland, the Plastic Industry was showcasing a demonstration oject. Has everybodyot their gear . Stopped by, local lawmakers had been invited in to hear about the benefits of new sorting machine that industry says will make recycling plastic more onomical. If you want to step up, up above, you can see the machine in action. Sulvan one of the sponsors was the american chemistry council. The idea be that particular facility is if, if we recyclables move down thet conveyor belt, right, so they get separated, were going tocr te better, cleaner streams of like materials. When we do that, we end up with bales that are more easy to sell and that are more easy for consumergoods companies to incorporate into their packaging. Sullivan but as we continued our reporting in oregon, w heard about a surprisingly similar effort that took placen more t years ago, at a recycling company 50 miles away called garten services. Were going into the office. Ive got a couplof newspaper articles i want to show you from the past. Sullivan the Plastic Industry had broht a demonstration project here in 1994. The Garten Foundation of salem unveiled a new sorting machine that may change the way we recycle forever. This milliondollar plastic sorting system in salem is thets first ofind in the world. So here, weve collected some Old Newspaper articles from 1994. S livan will posegate is the chief operating officer of garten. I mean,t says, sorts out the problem. Sullivan a sorting. A sorting machine, thats right. Sullivan you got this from. From the plastics council. Sullivan the plastics. Or they wanted us to plastics, when people thought plastics might be starting to be a problem. Tod, the American Plastics council unveiled the machine. They say residents will put all their plastic containe in one bag. It just keeps getting better, doesnt it . Sullivan what, what happened to it . Years later, we, we shut it down, because there was no way make money at it. And we sold that 1. 5 million machine for scrap. Sullivan you sold the machine for scra for scrap, thats right. It didnt make any sense. And im afraid that that same thing is happening right now. This is the plastic that nobody wants. The whole idea about, oh, justr sort better, itll bt. Lets make more singleuse plastics dont buy into that. Not a good idea for the environment, not a good idea for the earth, not a gd idea for your wallet. Sullivan you cant sort your way out of this. No, no, period. Sullivan it all made me wonder whether the plastic ideas. Ry is just recycling old they said i couldnt dream. Called me a piece of trash and swore thats all id ever be. Sullivan like in the 90s, money on ads. S been spending and now im what ive always wanted to be. Sullivan . Encouraging consumers to recyc. Remember, a lot of the Plastic Packaging that you have in your kitchen is recyclable. Smoke jumping is the pinnacle of wildland firefighting. Sullivan and tting the virtues of plastic. Were covered in plasticbased gear fm head to toe. commercial music playing commercial music playing this is the world we see. Lets be the ones. That came together to change the world. T sullivan what do youhink . Deja vu all over again. Sullivan why do you say that . Tell me about that. This is the same kind of thinking that ran in the, in the 90s. Sullivan what doou think the messaging is here . Its showing the people picking up the litter. That kind of impli that thats where the responsibility lay. I think the chemical industry, anthe plastics industry specifically, need to take very seriously this reaction thats going on. I dont think this kind of advertising is, is helpful to them at all. Lately, theres been a lot of talk about how plastics impact our lives, for better or worse. Sullivan the reality is, for all the ads and promises over the years, its estimated that no more than ten percent of plastic has ever been recycl. And the guy industry tapped decades ago to get recycling going isnt surprised. I showed ron liesemer industry reports we found dating as far a backthe 1970s. And this one talks about thela cost of separating pstics fromas other tr therere various types of plastics, and that the cost of new plastic is so low that sorting and reprocessingst used p cant be justified economically. And this was in 1973. Have we made any progress . I would say that their conclusions in 1973, you said . Are still true. The economics that are described there are, still prevail today and likely will prevail tomorrow. Sullivan its hard to have faith in the plastics industry, when it got out of its crisis in the 90s by telling americans to recycle, even though they knew it was not economically viable. The crisis passed. Now here we are again in a crisis. Plastics are once again on the, the low end of the publics opinion, and now the industry is telling the public again to recycle. The industry is not telling the public just to recycle. Weve got to fix the recycling system, clearly, thats, thats e. But more importantly, we have to look at reuse models, using less where we can, developing new materials which is the plaic makers responsibility that can be better recycled, and also really impornt that we deploy the technologies that are now available to us at scale. Sullin so you dont think this is just an industry coming up with a way to get out of a crisis. No, no, this is about all ofg us understanhat we each have a role to play in, in making the system that we have better and achieving the goals that i think everybody would have to say, we cannocontinue with business as usual. Its time for change, and this is that time. Sullivan hmm. Lets put these away. Anlet me show you another recycling label. Sullivan back in oregon, i put the question to David Allaway. T the question tpeople are going to have is, what are they supposed to do to make this better . The common refrain in thisha whole fielisits all upsu to conrs. And thats the way recycling has been sold, as well, okay . And, you just need to sort out your recyclables and do your part. Rt do your save the earth, recycle. And when icomes to understanding and reducing the Environmental Impacts ofac materials, includingkaging, consumers have the lowest amount of leverage. The big leverage is with the producers. Producers should disclose the environmental impas of their materials publicly. And by impacts, i dont meanor whetheot it can be recycled. I mean, what is the Carbon Footprint . What are the toxics emissions . How much water was withdrawn to produce this product . Sullivan the effect on the planet. The effect on the planet. Sullivan that thisharoduct thats right. Heres this flexible bag, and its a, its a plasticmetalmi te. Sullivan allaway is a leading authority on the Environmental Impacts of p materials listic. So youre saying consumers stand here and think, hat can i recycle . But the question really is, ho . Do i red reduce the impact. The producers know what the Environmental Impacts of these different formats are, but they dont disclose it. Instead, what they disclose is the recycling logo. Because what it allows industry to do is, it allows industry to keep the conversation focused oa recyclin never move the conversation on to the biggere issues, which are ll Environmental Impacts of all th stuff. Sullivan but it isnt just industry thats ke consumers focused on recycling for so long. Environmentalists ve, too. Looking back, do you think putting the banner on the mobro was a mistake . You know, i have looked at th picture and pondered th for decades. I think we were naive. I think we were overly optimistic about the potential of recycng. And perpetuating that narrative led us astray. I mean, absolutely, sociy wide, we bought this myth that recycling will solve the problem and we donteed to worry about the amount of plastic being produced. Sullivan in washington last november, during america recles week. Welcome to e. P. A. s 2019 amica recycles innovation fair. Sullivan e. P. A. Administrator Andrew Wheeler was talking up the futurof recycling. In many ways, were just getting started. We need to increase the interest in and demand for Recycled Materials and more products madr frycled materials. Their latest ideas. Ies came with its 100 recycled content. S sullivae, like keurig, saw a need for better technology. Hi, im Laura Sullivan, npr d pbs frontline. Whats happening with kcups . Kcups are going recyclable. Sullivan i mean, you gotof a, a couplurdles, in the sense that youre going to have to have people sorting out tiny cups, right . Ideally, mechanical sorting. Sullivan h many kcups do you sell . About 11 billion. Sullivan 11 billion, a year . A year. N sullio, the idea would be mechanical sorters pick out 11 billion kcups, right . Ideally, we want all of them back. Sullivan others, like colgatpalmolive, saw a need for better education. So, were here today to showcase our firstofitskind recyclable tube. Sullivan so, if, if you put this in your curbside tonight, do you think that this tube would be recycled . We need more work. Were working with other organizations to get the word out. Va sulli so, not yet . Not yet, not yet. Sullivan i notice that you guys puthe big chasing aows. Correct. Sullivan do you think that because s not quite recyclable yet, that that might be a little misleading . T we doink thatere being misleading because technically it is recyclable. Sullivan as i made my way through the innovation fair. We are keep america beautiful, were a nonforprofit. Sullivan you guys have beend arouor a long time. Weve been around for over 65 years. Sullivan the mood wasic optimi less than ten percent of plastic has actually ever been recycled whatu think . Well, that is a, its a challenge, and i think whats goods that were all working together to help improve some of those recycling habits and understanding behavior. Sullivan do you think that america can recycle its way out i believe with the proper infrtructure and the proper education, and we all work together, as aollective, we cahe t world is flooded with plastigarbage. 18 billion pounds of Plastic Waste end up in the ocean ever year. The equivalent of a garbage truck dumped every minute. Sullivan how does is conflict compare to what you saw haen in the 80s and 90s, when this sort of last came up with this kind of fervor . Well, one thing thats different is, the, the actual ecological context is different, that were really bumping up agait ecological limits. Like, we cant delay this for oanother ten, 20, 30 year were going to. Sullivan so, this is it. This, this is it. Fo the oil and gas industry, the stakes are higher, too, because singleuse plastic is their plan b. Theyre not going to be able to continue drill that oil and gas and burn it for energy anymore, because the climate cat sustain it. So this is their lifeline. They are going to double down on hsingleuse plastic like e never seen. So were heading towards a real battle. Th is it. This is, this is the big war. The u. N. Estimates, by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Plast in your food. Microplastics are invading our water supply. Sullivan how big a moment is this . I think its a transitional moment. I think it is a big moment. Sullivan biggest youve seen, in your career . Itthe biggest ive seen. This is the first time youve ever seen companiefrom across the whe supply chain all coming together to, to say, we need to fix this. So you can talk about this stuff a lot. We have to show hard results. We have to start showing success. And we know that sullivan 40 years on, despe a plastic crisis that been getting worse, the industrys future seems bright. Demand for lowcost plastic continues to grow. And the producon of new plastic is rapidly expanding. Significantly reduce our useeed of materials overall, and yet for the most part, the policykers are still focused with laserlike intensity on recycling. Theres nothing wrong with promoting recycling, except when recycling sucks all the oxygen r t of the room, and we ne anything else. 4 for the layears, the conversation in this country has been about the recycle part of reduce, reuse, recycle. Sullivan that wasnt an accident. No, it was not an accident. It was creat it was manufactured. Go to pbs. Org frontline for more on what consumers need to know about recycling. The little recyclingnu symbol with er. And follow our latest reporting on the coronavirus. Including a new series of our podcast, the frontline dispatch. If you could look at italy. 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