This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. It’s Earth Day 1990, and Meryl Streep walks into a bar. She’s distraught about the state of the environment.

The "chasing arrows" logo is universally recognized as a sign to recycle, but the Environmental Protection Agency is now saying it's also universally confusing. It's recommending tossing the symbol ...

In a 2019 survey conducted by the Consumer Brands Association on what they labeled the “broken recycling system in America,” 68 percent of respondents said that they assumed any product with symbols ...

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. The triangular loop of arrows that has been the universal symbol of recycling for the ...

S. are actually recycled, according to recent Greenpeace USA reports. Environmental experts consistently find that most plastic items bearing recycling symbols simply cannot be processed by standard ...

WOODINVILLE, WA. -- The conveyor belts zip along at blinding speed and rows of workers at the Waste Management Recycling Center do their best to keep up. Their job is to pull the un-recyclables from ...

Only 4.7% of plastic produced by U.S. households in 2021 was recycled, according to a Greenpeace USA report. But that's not for lack of consumer participation. Greenpeace said most plastics simply ...

A survey in the United Kingdom found that recycling-related symbols placed on packaging are understood by most household consumers. When uncertain about which bin to use for a particular piece of ...

I used to be that person who obsessively rinsed out jars and separated every tiny piece of paper from plastic. You know the ...