Examine, a free weekly newsletter covering science with a sceptical, evidence-based eye, is sent every Tuesday. Below is an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.

Last week, my colleague, Chris Vedelago, broke one of the biggest stories of the year: Australia’s soft-plastics recycling system had collapsed.

Megan Herbert’s view.Credit:Megan Herbert

REDcycle, the company that collects plastic bags and other soft plastics at Coles and Woolworths, was unable to recycle them and had been storing them in huge warehouses for months.

There was outrage: at the supermarkets, at REDcycle, at Australia’s broken recycling system.

Economist Jason Murphy has a different take. Recycling plastic, he argues, is “kind of bullshit”.

Here’s my summary of Murphy’s hypothesis:

In sum: recycling does not work and just makes us consume more.

QOSHE - Is recycling the problem, not the solution? - Liam Mannix
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Is recycling the problem, not the solution?

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15.11.2022

Examine, a free weekly newsletter covering science with a sceptical, evidence-based eye, is sent every Tuesday. Below is an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.

Last week, my........

© The Sydney Morning Herald

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