Ken LaCorte

Researchers placed Bluetooth trackers inside dozens of Starbucks cups and dropped them into recycling bins at stores across the country.

After tracking them for months, they say not a single cup ended up in an actual recycling facility.

Our guest today recently investigated what exactly happens to plastic after it leaves your curbside bin.

The deeper you look, the more you found that the story Americans have been told about recycling may be missing some important details.

Thanks for having me.

Well, it's not terribly surprising because so much about the environment and environmentalism today, you know, it's really about performative values.

It's really about feeling good rather than doing good.

I've researched deeply into the recycling of plastics, and the reality is...

some things you can recycle great in the world, the plastics, turns out to be a nightmare.

It'd be better if we all threw them away.

But even after I finished doing that research and producing a video on it, I still feel bad about throwing plastic away.

You just, you feel guilty on it.

So, look...

Conservatives especially, they need to balance two competing notions in their head.

One is we want the environment to be clean.

I want clean air for my kids and clean water and streets and all of that.

On the other hand, so much of environmentalism is complete and utter nonsense that you find yourself rolling your eyes at people who are ostensibly trying to reach the same goal that I'm trying to reach in life and that I think everybody is trying to reach in our society.

So, yeah, it's just not surprising at all.

Look, we've grown up being told that throwing things away is bad.

And, you know, to an extent, when you throw something that has not lost its full value, it's not only resources to the planet, but it's primarily resources to humans.