Critics call out recycling “fraud” by plastics industry

About 48 million tons of plastic waste is generated in the United States each year, but only 5 to 6 percent of it is actually recycled. A new report from the Center for Climate Integrity, “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling,” accuses the plastics industry of a decades-long campaign to “mislead” the public about the viability of recycling. Correspondent Ben Tracy talks with the report’s co-author, Davis Allen, and with Jan Dell, a former chemical engineer, about an inconvenient truth surrounding the lifecycle of plastic. [Originally broadcast April 14, 2024.]