allthecanadianpolitics:

Although our landfills and oceans are full of it, we are as dependent as ever on plastic. And since COVID-19, it’s gotten worse.

Last year, Canada announced it was working on a ban of single-use plastics, which was initally sidelined by the pandemic. Recently, the government announced that many single-use plastics will be banned by the end of 2021. At the same time, CBC News reports our single-use plastic use increased by 250 to 300 per cent as people tossed their personal protective equipment and stopped using reusable bags and containers over fears they would spread the virus.

What makes our lives convenient is also burying us. Plastic Wars, presented by The Passionate Eye, looks at the mounting crisis and how the industry has spent millions promoting recycling — just to sell more plastic.

Although activists sounded the alarm about plastic waste in the 1970s, the documentary claims from 1990 to 2010, plastic production more than doubled. We’ve been sorting our trash for decades, believing it would be recycled. But the truth is the vast majority of the plastic we use won’t be. Over the last seven decades, less than 10 per cent of plastic waste has been recycled.

That’s because, says David Allaway, from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the conversation has been almost exclusively about recycling and not reducing and reusing.

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