OP ED // Shattered Glass

Shattered Glass


Recycling is still working, despite changes in markets. But creatives and entrepreneurs should do more to create a culture of reuse and upcycling 

by Sam Wittchen

EXCERPT //

Recycling has a bad rap these days. I’m not certain when the conventional wisdom that recycling doesn’t work started, but I suspect it was around 2018 when China stopped accepting dirty recyclables from the U.S. That’s when the steady stream of reports began about recycling markets crashing and recyclables being warehoused or landfilled. 

The pandemic arrived, and in Philly, recyclables were thrown in trash trucks for months, leaving residents feeling betrayed and hopeless. This still happens in 2025, although not as routinely. Then came the sensational news reports of recycling’s death. This has come as a shock to folks in the $91 billion U.S. recycling industry, who are, in fact, recycling things like cardboard, paper, metal and—yes—even plastic. 

So while it’s cool to hate on recycling, the real problem is that it was never meant to be the star of the show. It was meant to be a supporting actor in a system that prioritized its cousins: reduction and reuse. Instead, for decades, the plastics, oil, and gas industries marketed recycling as a panacea to the problem they were creating, and the other two Rs were forgotten. //

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