Is Recycling Even Worth?
Questions I Get Asked: an honest look at the recycling system, and what your yogurt cup actually has to do with it.
At a cookout a while back, a friend watched me rinse out a yogurt cup and asked, genuinely curious: "Does that even matter? I heard most of it just ends up in the landfill anyway."
I teach sustainability, and that's one of the questions I hear most often. It's a fair one. So let's get into it: Is recycling worth doing if most of it never actually gets recycled?
The Numbers Really Are That Low
I won't dance around this. The cynicism makes sense. According to the OECD's Global Plastics Outlook, only about 9 percent of plastic waste worldwide was ultimately recycled in 2019. In the United States, a 2024 study published in One Earth found that less than 7 percent of plastic waste was recycled.
Let that sink in for a second. My friend at the cookout wasn't making it up. And I understand why numbers like that make people wonder whether their effort makes any difference. But here's where I disagree: 9 percent is not zero percent.
Every piece of plastic that does get recycled is material that gets used again instead of thrown away. Recycling can also reduce the demand for virgin materials, including new plastic made from fossil fuels. That matters.
Your Yogurt Cup Has a Long Road Ahead
Does that mean every yogurt cup you rinse will become something new? No. And that distinction is important.
For your cup to actually be recycled, it has to:
be accepted by your local recycling program,
make it through the sorting process, and
be suitable for turning into new material.
Getting it into the bin correctly is just the first step. But a first step isn't a pointless one.
Why Is the Recycling Rate So Low?
Recycling isn't as simple as tossing something in a bin and watching it turn into a park bench. Materials have to be collected, sorted, processed, and turned into something manufacturers can actually use, and things get lost at every stage.
The OECD's numbers show just how leaky that pipeline is: about 15 percent of plastic waste worldwide is collected for recycling, but roughly 40 percent of what's collected ends up discarded as residue during processing. That's how you get from "collected" to "9 percent actually recycled."
Some of the biggest reasons:
Some plastics are hard to recycle. Not every type of plastic can be processed easily or economically.
Some products mix materials. Items made from layers or combinations of materials can be difficult or impractical to separate.
Not every facility accepts everything. What's recyclable in one community may not be accepted in another.
The market for recycled material is weak. Recycled plastic often costs more than new plastic, so there isn't always a buyer for it.
And here's one that surprises a lot of people: a recycling symbol on a product doesn't mean your local facility can recycle it. That little triangle tells you what kind of plastic something is. It doesn't promise that anyone near you will take it.
Notice something about that list? Very little of it comes down to whether you rinsed your yogurt cup. Much of the problem lives in product design, infrastructure, and markets, which is a much bigger issue than what happens at your kitchen sink.
Giving Up Doesn't Fix Anything
If we stop recycling because the system isn't perfect, we aren't fixing the system. We're just abandoning one of the few tools we have for recovering materials. The better response is to use the tool well and push for the bigger changes that would make it work better.
So What Should You Actually Do?
1. Check what your local program accepts. Don't guess. Look up your city or county's recycling guidelines. A container that's recyclable in one town might be trash in the next.
2. Follow your local prep instructions. Empty your containers, remove food residue when your program asks you to, and keep plastic bags out of curbside bins unless your program specifically accepts them. You don't need to scrub everything spotless, but you do want to avoid sending contaminated materials into the system.
3. Remember that recycling isn't the first line of defense. Reducing what we use and reusing what we can are even better places to start. Recycling is for what's left after that, and doing it correctly helps recover valuable materials.
You're Part of the System, Not Outside It
This connects to something I come back to often: systems thinking. You are not personally going to fix the global recycling system. That takes better product design, better infrastructure, and decisions by businesses and governments. But you're not outside that system, either. Your choices are one part of a much bigger picture. The goal isn't to recycle perfectly and pretend the problem is solved. It's to understand how the system works and recognize where bigger changes are needed.
Want to Learn More?
Take a look at some of my other blogs about sustainability!
Sustainability is More Than Renewable Energy
What is Sustainability? A Kid-friendly Guide
Sources
OECD (2022). Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options. https://www.oecd.org/environment/plastics/
Milbrandt, A., et al. (2024). "Paths to circularity for plastics in the United States." One Earth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.02.005
