A new report from Greenpeace calls plastic recycling a "failed concept" after 30 years of unsuccessful efforts to recycle plastics that left consumers with the idea they are helping prevent trash when most of their efforts end up in the landfill anyway.

The 40-page report is an update from a 2020 survey. According to Greenpeace, researchers found little change in progress toward recycling plastic waste as the use of plastics continues to grow. Of 51 million tons of plastic waste created in 2021 by U.S. households only 2.4 million tons were recycled, according to their Circular Claims Fall Flat Again report released this week.

"Unlike with paper or metals, there are two insurmountable barriers that prevent plastic recycling from ever working at scale: toxicity and economics," according to the Greenpeace report. "Plastic cannot be safely recycled from post-consumer household waste back into new food-grade plastic products."

Despite efforts by cities and counties to encourage residents to sort their waste and recycling, the amount of plastic recycling declined by about 5-6% last year.

Fast food or take-out food containers which include plasticware, trays, bags, cups and clamshell containers, rarely meet the 60% standard requirement to legally claim an item is recyclable in the U.S. Still, many items have the recycle symbol on them, but only 1% of U.S. residents have access to a facility that would accept plastic film or polyester flexible plastics commonly used in takeout containers.

"Single-use plastics are like trillions of pieces of confetti spewed from retail and fast food stores to over 330 million U.S. residents across more than 3 million square miles each year," Greenpeace USA Senior Plastics Campaigner Lisa Ramsden said. "It’s simply not possible to collect the vast quantity of these small pieces of plastic sold to U.S. consumers annually."

So where do your sorted and cleaned plastic containers end up? According to the report, plastic waste that has no way of being recycled or re-purposed is incinerated, in turn, creating carbon dioxide emissions.

If municipalities have recycling programs, they must then find buyers for plastics.

According to Greenpeace, "the flood of 400 million tons/year of cheap new plastic production kills the business case for large-scale investment in plastic recycling."

Knoxville, Tennessee accepts plastics labeled No. 1 through 7 but disposes of the items between 3 and 7 because the city has not found an "end-market" buyer for the waste. Those items make up less than 2% of Knoxville's recyclables collected, according to the city.

Part of the failure is that there are thousands of types of synthetic plastic materials that are not recyclable and many labeled "recyclable" that fail to meet U.S. or global standards of being recyclable.

Greenpeace argues in its report that more funding for recycling programs at the local and global level is not the issue.

"Spending billions of consumer and taxpayer dollars to increase collection could be a waste of money. Even if it were all collected, mixed plastic waste cannot be recycled together, and it would be functionally impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of consumer plastic waste produced each year into separate types to be reprocessed," according to the report.

The report states that while plastic recycling has "largely failed" the solution is not new recycling methods but reducing plastic production and use overall.

Greenpeace suggests redefining what the U.S. Federal Trade Commission allows to be called "recyclable."

The organization is calling on companies to take action now and be transparent about their single-use plastic footprint.

"Companies in the U.S. and around the world must urgently phase out single-use plastics by replacing their packaging with reuse and refill systems and offering packaging-free products," according to the study authors.

According to Ramsden, without intervention, the problem will get worse as the current industry trajectory triples plastic production by 2050.

(Bloomberg) -- China’s Three Gorges Dam is an awe-inspiring sight, a vast barrier across the Yangtze River that contains enough concrete to fill seven Wembley Stadiums and more steel than eight Empire State Buildings. Its turbines could singlehandedly power the Philippines.Most Read from BloombergAdidas Cuts Ties With Ye, Absorbing €250 Million Profit HitNew Covid Boosters Aren’t Better Than Old Ones, Study FindsRenters Hit Breaking Point in a Sudden Reversal for LandlordsMusk Tells Bankers He P

As the saying goes, “an elephant never forgets,” whether it’s cruelty or compassion.

The cougar traveled through Nebraska and Iowa without any known trouble.

MORGAN HILL, Calif. – The usually serene webcam view of Morgan Hill shook at 11:42 Tuesday morning as the camera filmed the exact moment a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck just 10 miles away.

Stephanie Terrell was excited to join the wave of drivers adopting electric vehicles when she bought a used Nissan Leaf this fall. The 23-year-old nearly ran out of power on the freeway recently because a charging station she was counting on was busy. The transition to electric vehicles is underway for homeowners who can power up in their own garage, but for millions of renters, access to charging remains a significant barrier.

“They heard brush breaking and saw a grizzly bear charging at them,” officials said.

If Colorado River states can't save enough water in 2023, Lake Mead is done. It's time for the feds to say it: Will they step in if we fail?

A Wyoming hunter was recovering Monday after he shot himself as he was trying to fight off an attacking grizzly bear over the weekend, authorities said.

Here are a few close encounters that happened in Manatee County.

Europe has turned a surprising corner in preparation for the continent’s much-discussed impending energy crisis. The European Union now has more liquefied natural gas than it needs, according to reports from Bloomberg and the New York Times.

Nat Drummond was racing off a South Australian beach when he was sent "in the air" by a Great White shark that wrecked his surf ski

Electrify America has launched the first megawatt-level battery energy storage system (BESS) for EV charging stations. Here's what it offers.

Electric vehicles, or EVs, are a trending topic. Governments worldwide, including those in the U.S., Norway and China, have created policies to speed the transition from vehicles that burn fossil...

The head of the U.S. Forest Service has denounced the arrest by an Oregon sheriff of a Forest Service employee after a planned burn in a national forest spread onto private land. The criticism by Forest Service Chief Randy Moore was followed by a statement from Grant County District Attorney Jim Carpenter in which he defended the arrest on Oct. 19 of a U.S. Forest Service “burn boss” on allegations of reckless burning. Sheriff Todd McKinley occasionally briefs Carpenter on an investigation into the case, the prosecutor said, adding that it could last for weeks or even months.

An orbital NASA instrument designed mainly to advance studies of airborne dust and its effects on climate change has proven adept at another key Earth-science function - detecting large, worldwide emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The device, called an imaging spectrometer, has identified more than 50 methane "super-emitters" in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Southwestern United States since it was installed in July aboard the International Space Station, NASA said on Tuesday. The spectrometer was built primarily to identify the mineral composition of dust blown into the atmosphere from Earth's deserts and other arid regions by measuring the wavelengths of light reflected from the surface soil in those areas.

An unbelievable lightning strike was caught on video in the Dallas area while severe storms rolled through Monday night.

(Bloomberg) -- Scientists may have discovered a method for making magnets used in wind turbines and electric cars without the rare-earth metals that are almost exclusively produced in China.Most Read from BloombergRenters Hit Breaking Point in a Sudden Reversal for LandlordsAdidas Ends Ye Partnership After String of ControversiesChina Stocks Slide as Leadership Overhaul Disappoints TradersKorean Air Plane Overruns Runway While Landing in PhilippinesDove, Other Unilever Dry Shampoos Recalled Over

Robert Long spent about 2 hours and 20 minutes inside a small boat while rain, storm surge and rising floodwaters from the Category 4 hurricane surrounded him.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline’s Southgate Extension, a key source for future natural gas supplies in Duke Energy Corp.’s carbon reduction proposals, has withdrawn all of its pending court cases seeking eminent domain to build the project into North Carolina.

Two massive, catastrophic problems are set to become one in the near future: Climate change is likely to worsen the issue of space debris, according to a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters last month.