A program on National Public Radio recently referenced and recapped the 4-part PBS Frontline documentary, Plastic Wars: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/
The bottom line is that all five points made in that documentary are still true:
- Virtually all plastic products and plastic containers have a recycle symbol on them.
- That symbol is there because the plastics industry wanted to improve their image by fooling everyone into thinking plastic is recyclable.
- The only plastic that really get recycled is milk jugs and soft drink bottles.
- All the other plastic ends up in a landfill because recycling those other types of plastic is so difficult and expensive that it's a lot cheaper to make new plastic instead of recycling the old plastic.
- Putting those non-recyclable plastics in your recycle bin hurts the recycling process because the recycling companies have to spend money sorting them out from the recyclable milk jugs and soft drink bottles and disposing of them.
So for the most part everything you see and hear about recycling plastic is a plastics industry propaganda lie.
If there are any local programs where you know for a fact that other types of plastic actually get recycled with a lower environmental impact than making new plastic. Feel free to contradict both me and Frontline.