Radio-Canada

Recycling fails to reduce plastic. Here’s why

Plastic recycling doesn’t work. The most often cited figure is that only 9% of the world’s plastic has been recycled. This statistic is taken from a 2017 study looking at the amount of plastic released around the world between 1950 and 2015. It’s a lot: 6.3 billion tonnes, or the weight of nearly 54,000 CN towers. The 91 percent of plastic that is not recycled is mostly landfilled, burned, and/or disappearing into the environment — a demoralizing statistic for people who diligently put the