Public Transportation and Smart Growth

And I watched a Frontline episode about plastic waste a few months ago.

Unfortunately, these folks are using one of the few plastics that recyclers actually use (the kind in water bottles). Many other types of plastic are not re-used or recycled at all and end up being hauled all around the planet, eventually ending up in the oceans once they land in a poorly regulated country.

So....either plastic manufacturers/proponents need to use only the "good" kind of plastic that people can recycle or, better yet, we just stop using the bad kinds (the government could help here). Recycling campaigns have been fully supported by plastic manufacturers ever since people began to be aware of the environmental hazard they present---and they admit only a fraction is ever really recycled. They just want to make people feel better. But most plastics that we diligently place in recycling bins, to be picked up by big trucks, are then shipped God-knows-where and end up in the ocean. It would be more efficient for us to just take all that plastic with us when we go to the beach and just throw it right in, since that's where it will end up anyway