the thing about recycling plastic is that it's a lie. oh, you likely spend time sorting out what stuff goes in which bin, good on you, but the truth is that once it's picked up, chances are much higher than 50% that both end up in your local landfill.
this is partly because the plastic industry doesn't want to recycle plastic. it's more expensive than making new plastic, and they are all about keeping that money. in fact, they have many, many sham organizations that talk about recycling (like the alliance to end plastic waste, which is actually a lobbying and pr organization owned by basf, chevron phillips chemical, exxonmobil, dow chemical, mitsubishi chemical holdings, procter & gamble, and shell oil), but only exist to keep anyone from making it happen.
as a result, not only are the oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams full of plastic, but there is not one shovelful of earth from anywhere on the planet that doesn't contain microplastics. in fact, it's a lot worse than that. the concentration has been found to be as high as 62.2%. and even worse: a lot of it is being added on purpose, in fertilizer.
now, here are a couple of reasons why this should make you shit your pants:
- plastic doesn't hold water anywhere near as well as natural soil, which means rain and irrigation are wasted on it
- plastic doesn't give plants the nutrients that they need to live