The label that something is ‘recycled’ is a signal that it’s eco-friendly. Sure, it’s good to give things a second life. It’s certainly better than burning more oil from scratch to make a new version. But we can’t just recycle plastic over and over – at least when it comes to mechanical recycling, the type most countries rely on. When people recycle a plastic bottle they imagine it becomes another plastic bottle. It doesn’t. It gets degraded and is used for something lower quality. Most plastics can only be recycled once or twice, then they’re sent to landfill.
