Toxic Legacies / Filtering the Truth
The concept of recycling has gained immense popularity as a sustainable approach to waste pollution and is embraced as a potential solution to our escalating environmental crisis. However, not all recycling practices – especially when it comes to plastic – are necessarily environmentally friendly. In many cases, claims to recyclability are merely greenwashing, a marketing strategy used by companies to position themselves as environ- mentally conscious without implementing actual changes in their production practices. My master project aims to investigate the greenwashing behind recycling and how the concept of recycling can tend to justify the production of waste in a consumer-based system.
The concept of recycling has gained immense popularity as a sustainable approach to waste pollution and is embraced as a potential solution to our escalating environmental crisis. However, not all recycling practices – especially when it comes to plastic – are necessarily environmentally friendly. In many cases, claims to recyclability are merely greenwashing, a marketing strategy used by companies to position themselves as environ- mentally conscious without implementing actual changes in their production practices.
My master project aims to investigate the greenwashing behind recycling and how the concept of recycling can tend to justify the production of waste in a consumer-based system.
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TerraCycle is a US-based company dedicated to eliminating
waste by providing services and solutions specifically for
hard-to-recycle refuse. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, it is
a private business that partners with individuals, businesses
and organisations to collect and recycle materials that are
not typically accepted by municipal recycling programmes.
Their approach starts with a volunteer-based collection process
of pre- and post-consumer waste, that is then baled,
bulked and transported to processing partners who wash,
shred and separate the materials accordingly. TerraCycles’s
logo is a green infinity symbol with the arrows pointed toward
each other.
While the company is a valuable tool in showing that more
waste is technically recyclable than we tend to think, Terra-
Cycle’s approach has also often been subject to criticism and
debate. Whilst the company has been successful in collecting
hard-to-recycle materials, there is a lack of transparency
in what exactly happens to them after they are collected.
There have been instances in which sorted batches of waste
that were collected by volunteers and addressed to Terra-
Cycle were found in incineration centres in eastern Europe –
generating the question whether the company does actually
live up to its claim. 38 Moreover, focussing on hard-to-recycle
waste requires energy-intensive recycling processes that in
some cases may not actually reduce overall waste and environmental
impact.
TerraCycle has most recently been criticised for contributing
to the greenwashing of large corporations in making the
companies they partner with seem greener than they actually
are. 39 A lawsuit filed in 2021 by the California-based environmental
organisation The Last Beach Cleanup brought to
light one of the major issues in terms of labelling: Brands are
able to put TerraCycles logo on all of their packages, even
if they are only contracted to recycle a certain amount. By
making the consumer responsible to recycle and sort their
own waste, TerraCycles service allows for companies to take
no responsibility for their own waste, once again distracting
from the larger systemic issue by deflecting the externalities
onto the consumer and making it someone else’s problem.
This leaves us with the question: whose responsibility is it?
Image 02: Szaky at TerraCycle headquarters
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