Most people toss their empty laundry detergent container into the recycling bin without thinking twice. It’s plastic, it has a recycling symbol on it, so it should get recycled. Right? Not necessarily. Being accepted for plastic recycling doesn’t mean a container actually gets turned into something new. According to the EPA’s most recent national waste data, only 13.6 percent of plastic containers and packaging were recycled. Another 16.9 percent were burned for energy recovery. More than 69% ended up in landfills. Those numbers raise an uncomfortable question: if most plastic packaging isn’t getting recycled anyway, does it matter how…
