From a global perspective, recycling has been touted as one of the best ways the general public can help the environment. Instead of letting trash be sent to a landfill, it can be processed and turned into a new item, helping us prevent the wastage of resources and conserve our remaining landfill space. However, have you ever stopped to consider what happens after you drop that can or wrapper in the recycling bin? Where does it actually go?

Unfortunately, various research efforts have revealed the much less optimistic truth behind our attempts to clean up our act. While items such as aluminium and paper are easily recycled over and over again, only about 9% of plastic ever gets recycled. The rest ends up in landfills, incinerators or water sources like oceans. Considering just how much plastic we use and dispose of every single day, it becomes clear why this disparity between recyclable waste is a problem. Furthermore, certain types of plastic, like multi-layer plastic, are more challenging and expensive to recycle due to the high energy cost of separating the parts making the process infeasible. As such, many companies avoid trying to recycle plastic at all. Even worse, companies have been caught in the act of greenwashing, which is when they market themselves through activities that lead customers to believe they are doing more to conserve the environment than they actually are. Corporations have done this by claiming that their products are made of materials people typically consider to be environmentally friendly, only for them to be actually unrecyclable.

Additionally, the world of recycling has been rocked in recent years due to the revelation that wealthy countries, typically in the Global North, have been claiming to recycle, only for them to then ship off their waste to poorer countries in the Global South. Oftentimes, this act of passing the buck results in waste ending up in landfills anyway. This practice has sadly become so common that there is a term for it: waste colonialism. Despite the intention to recycle the shipped off waste, more often than not, the final resting place of the waste simply ends up being the postcode of the poorer country rather than the wealthier one. Some of the waste may get processed, but it is usually accomplished through highly polluting means such as open burning, which releases countless toxic chemicals into the air. Malaysia has been a victim of this too, especially in regards to plastic waste. Millions of tons of plastics are shipped into our country, sometimes illegally, and the burden falls on us to process it despite the waste being produced by another country.

Because recycling is a flawed answer to our waste problem, perhaps the conversation should be shifted to how a more fundamental change might be needed. On its own, recycling is really just a band aid solution that doesn’t have the best long term outcomes. The core principles of waste management are Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, yet so much emphasis is placed only on recycling. This could have the side effect of encouraging people to think in a ‘cure’ rather than ‘prevention’ mindset, such as by overbuying items as long as they choose something environmentally friendly that can be recycled later on, believing it will equalize their choices. However, creating a product still requires resources and energy. 

It is clear that a fundamental cultural shift from consumerism is needed to decrease the amount of waste we produce. Recycling should be viewed as a tool alongside the other Rs that are often neglected when discussing how we can help our environment. Waste will always be a part of our lives, so through reducing what we buy and reusing what we already have, we can choose to minimize it as much as possible, and recycle the rest. No matter how small the impact, making recycling a part of our lives remains important to avoid increasing the burden on our environment.