If you recycle, you care about nature. If you don’t recycle, you don’t care.

The problem with this argument is that it assumes that recycling is universally good for our environment. We’ve been led to believe that recycling is always good all the time. In fact, implying that recycling has its drawbacks would probably make some environmentally-minded groups upset.

But there’s a bigger perspective. 

Recycling is not removing plastic from our eco-system. It’s repurposing it.

Recycling makes use of the plastic that’s already there in practical, usable ways. The process finds ways to convert otherwise useless waste into something worthwhile. When it comes to plastic, the process takes large, manageable waste and converts it to microscopic, unmanageable—almost undetectable— micro particles. Whereas water bottles can be picked up and thrown into a garbage bin, micro-plastics often find ways through water treatment processes and back into nature with minimal interference. They pollute our drain fields, our streams and rivers, our lakes and oceans, and our food.

Recycling is turning a big plastic problem into an even bigger, microscopic plastic problem.

Obviously the problem isn’t actually with recycling, but with plastic. And plastic isn’t going away. The recycling solutions that have been created to deal with plastic are simply making the best of the problem. And the problems that recycling is creating aren’t going away either. 

Just like plastic, the problems must be addressed if we’re going to protect our water, our food, our families, and our eco-system.

Click here to see how Filtrol is stopping microfiber pollution at its source.