SEATTLE (Recycling Monster): The latest research study by Greenpeace suggests that only 5% of the total plastic waste were recycled in the U.S. during 2021. The Americans discarded 51 million tons of plastic waste, mainly in the form of wrappers, bottles and bags, last year, out of which nearly 95% ended up in landfills, oceans and atmosphere.

The official recycling rate has dipped significantly from 9.5% in 2014 and 8.7% in 2018. The high recycling rates then were mainly due to exports of plastic waste by the U.S. to countries such as China, which were also counted as recycled, although majority of them were not responsibly recycled in destination countries.

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The report alleged that no plastic packaging in the U.S. were found to meet the definition of recyclable used by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new plastic economy initiative. Even plastic bottles and jugs failed to achieve 30% recycling rate. The reprocessing rate for the rest of the commonly used plastic items were much less, Greenpeace report said.

Lisa Ramsden, Greenpeace USA senior plastics campaigner noted that plastic recycling efforts by major companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle and Unilever in partnership with the industry have not yielded positive results. Instead, Ramsden suggested switch to systems of reuse and refill.