Arctic Circle Cartoon - What Plastic Recycling Numbers Mean (Mostly That You Can't Recycle)

Plastic recycling is complicated. Much of it isn’t recycled locally and has to be shipped overseas to process it. Even when it is processed, it has to be clean for it to be recycled.

All of which means that a tiny percentage of plastic is recycled and the rest is landfilled, or littered, or drifting around in our waterways.