The Great Recycling Scam: How Big Plastic Fooled America | Julia Cohen
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Did plastic manufacturers plan for plastic to be thrown away rather than recycled?
Did plastic manufacturers know decades ago most plastic was never realistically going to be recycled?
It was never designed to be recycled. Why were consumers being told that recycling was the answer? Don't even know how many millions of dollars has been spent on the Keep America Beautiful campaign. The fake crying Indian by the side of the road as someone throws something out of their car window.
That's a sham.
It was entirely a marketing strategy.
Out of nowhere, conservatives are like, let's talk about plastics and fast fashion. Because I feel like we've made fun of people that cared about this issue.
They affect everybody. If one in two people in this country is going to have some form of cancer, this has nothing to do with where you stand politically. It has everything to do with how we solve it.
When you're walking down the street, walking through an airport, or even at school, you are inundated with signs that are telling you to recycle. We see those little triangles on the bottom of bottled water or soda bottles, and we think this can be recycled. But what if everything that we've been told about plastic and even recycling is one big sham. My guest is Julia Cohen, co-founder and executive director of Plastic Pollution Coalition. And this episode is mind blowing. I have been wanting to do this episode for years and Julia really was the perfect guest to wait for. Watch this on the Real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Apothecary on Spotify. We need your five-star reviews. If you're a new listener or you've been listening for a while, make sure you take two seconds to click five stars and then leave a sentence on which episode officially made you a fan.
Maybe it's this one. Please welcome Julia Cohen from the Plastic Pollution Coalition to Culture Apothecary. I am absolutely jumping out of my skin for this interview, Julia. I cannot express to you for years I've wanted to do this topic. And I've talked about plastic on the show a little bit, but I haven't talked about recycling at all, which I know we're going to get into today. And the reason is because politically I differ from a lot of people doing the work that you do. And I think I differ from you yourself probably on most political issues. But on this topic, we really agree. And so it's been hard to find somebody that's been willing to come on the show to talk about this, unfortunately. And so when you said yes, I was just so thankful and excited because it just shows that it doesn't really matter whether you're coming from the left or the right.
This is a massive public health issue that everybody should be concerned about. And so I just I just wanted to thank you for coming on.
Thank you for having us and totally agree. 100 percent nonpartisan. And this is something that is affecting the future of humanity.
Has it been so weird for you that out of nowhere conservatives are like, wait, let's talk about plastics and fast fashion and all these health issues? Because I feel like for a while we we kind of like made fun of people that cared about this issue.
I'm not surprised. I've worked in in politics for decades from a perspective of public health, women's health, reproductive health, environmental health. And all of those things are nonpartisan inherently. They affect everybody. If one in two people in this country is going to have some form of cancer, this has nothing to do with where you stand politically. It has everything to do with how we solve it. But that's a different discussion.
So we found out that trans fats weren't safe, that cigarettes weren't safe, that paint made from lead wasn't safe. Go figure. You know, Teflon, BPAs. Is plastic the next chapter in that story? You know, a product that we were told was perfectly safe but actually isn't.
Plastics have been around since World War II. A lot of the problems that you just mentioned are also things that grew out of the chemical development for war efforts. And it's only been a matter of time that I think we've caught up to recognize how significant an impact it's having globally as well.
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