Good morning.
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” is an environmentalist mantra that everyone has been able to get behind because, in the age of overconsumption, humans are producing more waste than ever before. Every year we dump 2bn tonnes of municipal solid waste on to the planet and – according to the World Bank – that number is expected to rise by 70% to 3.4bn tonnes by 2050. For years, campaigners and scientists have said that this level of waste generation is unsustainable and is detrimental to the natural environment, wildlife and humans.
To ensure that less of our stuff ends up in landfills, more and more people are advocating for a circular economy. No one wants to be seen to be destroying the planet, so corporate actors are also getting on board, with many big retailers pledging to reduce single-use plastics in their products, as well as opting to use recycled materials.
For most of us, the process of recycling ends when we throw the coffee cup or plastic packaging into the relevant bin. Someone comes to collect it and off it goes, leaving our conscience clear. The story does not end there, however: plastic recycling increasingly looks like a futile endeavour. Much of it still ends up in landfill, or in poorer countries where it is melted down into pellets, dumped, or burned.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Guardian environment correspondent Damien Gayle about the secretive recycling industry and whether it actually makes a difference. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
Politics | Leaked documents show that more than 3,000 asylum seekers could be detained and deported from the UK every month to enforce Suella Braverman’s flagship asylum bill. The news comes after figures revealed that net migration hit a record high last year at 606,000, a 24% increase on the previous year’s high of 488,000.
Education | One in 10 childcare providers in England is facing closure and more than half are struggling to cover their costs, according to the government’s own research into the impact of the cost of living crisis on the sector.
UK news | An 11-year-old boy was hit by a police van in Lancaster as he crossed the road, leaving him in critical condition. Lancashire police said they were attending an emergency call on Thursday night when the collision occurred with the boy. The police have voluntarily referred themselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct to review the incident.
Transport | At least 50 British Airways flights were cancelled on Thursday afternoon because of a “technical issue”, with many passengers facing the possibility of further delayed or cancelled flights at Heathrow heading into the bank holiday weekend.
UK news | Armed officers arrested a man on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving after a car was driven into the gates outside Downing Street. Police are not treating the incident as terrorism-related.
In depth: ‘Each time we recycle plastics they become more dangerous to us and the planet’
“Waste and recycling are the dirty secrets of our consumer society,” Damien Gayle says. “The fact is everything that we consume has waste attached. We throw it in the bin or the recycling and we like to just forget about it.” But we shouldn’t, Damien says. Because, as uncomfortable as it is to think about where our used tissues and empty crisp packets go, the pile of rubbish will just continue to grow and pollute, infecting the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe.
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What happens to most plastic?
Last year, world leaders, environment ministers and other representatives from 173 countries endorsed a historic UN resolution that seeks to end plastic pollution and create a legally binding global treaty by the end of 2024. At the moment, only 9% of plastics are recycled globally. In the United States that number is even lower, at just 5%.
In the run up to the latest round of negotiations in this agreement, Greenpeace warned that ultimately we cannot safely recycle plastic. “What [the studies they reference] have found is that the toxic chemicals that are found in virgin plastic become more concentrated when they’re repurposed into recycled plastics for further use,” Damien explains. “Greenpeace are basically saying plastics cannot ever be regarded as compatible with a circular economy, because each time we recycle them they become more dangerous to our health and the health of the planet.” The campaign group are part of a larger chorus of voices who doubt the effectiveness of recycling as a way to deal with plastic pollution.
And then there is the small issue of microplastics. One recent study found that the process of recycling plastic could be releasing huge quantities of microplastics – which can be toxic to humans and to animals – into the environment. They’re already everywhere: microplastics have been found deep in the lungs of living people, in freshly fallen snow in Antarctica and in the depths of the ocean. As one writer put it, microplastics have “moved into virtually every crevice on Earth”. Researchers say that they do not know what the long-term health implications are, but early studies are already indicating that microplastics are harmful to human bodies as many of the chemicals they contain are carcinogenic.
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Exporting the problem
For years, many rich countries outsourced their recycling, shipping it overseas to be sorted out by other people. Until 2017, China was the world’s biggest importer of such material, but decided to close its borders to almost all types of waste because of concerns about contamination and pollution, effectively killing an industry worth $24bn a year. In the years that followed, poorer countries like Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand have picked up the slack, as well as Poland, India, and Turkey. For Damien, this shift represents “neo-colonialism – offloading our toxic waste on to the people who can least deal with it”.
After receiving waste that was not sufficiently recyclable or which caused significant pollution, many of these countries have followed China and are drastically limiting the amount of waste they import or banning it outright.
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Is there any point to recycling?
Before you put your recycling bin in, er, the recycling bin, the general consensus is that the solution is not to stop recycling altogether. While imperfect, it is the best option we have – the alternative is creating more landfill sites or incinerating more waste, which produces more carbon emissions than natural gas.
Ultimately, the only real way to tackle plastic pollution – and to curb the growth of already gigantic levels of waste – is to produce less stuff. Recycle is the last R — the first two, reduce and reuse, are perhaps the key to stop humanity drowning in its own castoffs.
“Greenpeace are calling for a pathway to the total elimination of the production of virgin plastic,” Damien explains. However, high profit margins mean that there is little will to create a plastic-free future. “It’s everywhere because it’s cheaper. The petrochemical sector is one of the biggest industries on the planet and it’s cheaper for them to produce virgin plastic than almost any other equivalent,” Damien says. Alternatives are more expensive for the consumer too, he adds. In a world that is moving – albeit slowly – away from fossil fuels, plastic is a key way that these companies are planning to keep the lights on for the next few decades.
Producers of plastic have pushed recycling as a viable way to deal with waste – but it seems the solution may be closer to home. Says Damien on eliminating virgin plastic: “I think that’s the only logical and realistic path that we can have for us as a species to survive”.
For more Guardian reporting on the environment and climate crisis, sign up here to receive Down to Earth every Thursday
What else we’ve been reading
Tina Turner wasn’t just a musical genius, she was an iconic screen presence, too. Here director George Miller remembers her work in the third Mad Max film: “She was a person of real substance. It wasn’t just the surface. I think that rises out of someone who endures so much in early life and uses it to become incredibly wise.” Toby Moses, head of newsletters
Gloria Oladipo caught up with the people badly injured by the heavy-handed police response during the 2020 protests over George Floyd’s murder. “There is no [appropriate] amount [of money]. Because you know what I want? I want my left eye back,” journalist Linda Tirado says. Nimo
Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign launch was an indisputable failure, from his weirdly stilted delivery to the meltdown of Elon Musk’s new far-right friendly Twitter. Dan Milmo offers a breakdown of the night’s entertainment. Toby
If you are a true Succession acolyte with a few minutes to kill then I would highly recommend taking the ultimate Succession quiz. (I shall not reveal how well or badly I did but I did get this withering result: “Like Roman Roy, you’re dumb, but you’re smart.”) Nimo
Sam Wollaston explores the “friendship recession” for middle-aged men, and the ways in which our readers have gone about reversing that trend, whether it be through exercise, Dungeons & Dragons, or … swinging. Toby
Sport
Football | Arne Slot will be staying on as manager of Feyenoord, after Tottenham were unable to agree a compensation package with the Dutch club. Slot was interested in the chance to move to Spurs but the fact his contract contained no release clause this summer meant that negotiations between the clubs were always likely to be difficult.
Darts | Michael van Gerwen created Premier League history by winning his seventh title overtaking the great Phil Taylor, after a masterful performance. The Dutchman beat Gerwyn Price 11-5 in the final at the O2 Arena.
Football | Manchester United hammered Chelsea during last night’s Premier League match. The club’s 4-1 win at the Old Trafford secured their place in next season’s Champions League.
The front pages
“Revealed: Braverman plan to deport 3,000 asylum seekers each month” is the lead in our Guardian print edition this Friday. “Rishi: I get it! You want migration down” – the Daily Express says this is the PM’s “unequivocal message” to its readers. “Unis told: get out of migration business” – that’s the Metro, on a theme that is really being hammered today: “UK population set to overtake France for first time on record” says the i. The Daily Mirror’s tack is to remind us who’s been in charge of such things for a good while now: “No control, no compassion – ‘incompetent’ Tories fail over immigration as record numbers come to UK”. Other lead stories are available: “Mortgage rates shoot up amid bond chaos” – that’s the Daily Telegraph while the Daily Mail pleads “Will ANYONE stop these eco-clowns?” under pictures of Just Stop Oil and Animal Rising activists doing their thing. The splash in the Times is “Bonus for GPs if patients take part in clinical trials”, and the Financial Times goes with “Ministers look at reshaping pensions lifeboat fund to give boost to business”.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now
TV
Platonic (Apple TV+)
Platonic does a lot of lovely and rarely seen things. It gives an equally meaty, equally comic – but emotionally resonant – part to its male and female stars, Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne (both of whom are brilliant in their solo scenes, and whose chemistry is a joy to watch). It says that friendship is vitally important – and that it needn’t be complicated or ruined by the intrusion of sex.
Lucy Mangan
Music
Water From Your Eyes – Everything’s Crushed
Rachel Brown and Nate Amos started out as nothing special. Their 2017 debut, Long Days No Dreams, covered so many modish US indie bases – bedroom synth-pop, offbeat post-punk and distorted digital noise, shoegazey textures, introverted acoustic balladry and what Americans persist in calling tweepop. An experimental, idiosyncratic sound coalesced on 2021’s Structure, but it’s on Everyone’s Crushed that it pulls into focus, if that’s the right metaphor for a cut-up, sample-heavy sound that feels wilfully chaotic and scattered. Alexis Petridis
Film
The Little Mermaid
Halle Bailey – with her huge eyes, soaring singing voice and palpable purity of spirit – is about as naturally Disneyfied as real human beings get. So it’s ironic that her casting as the titular Ariel was ever thought controversial. Bailey is both the finished film’s only unmitigated triumph and the best argument for this whole live action remake enterprise in one shimmering mermaidcore package. Ellen E Jones
Podcast
We Can Be Weirdos
No Such Thing As a Fish alumnus Dan Schreiber celebrates brilliant people’s “weird” beliefs, ideas and theories in this new series. He asks each guest questions from a “little bit of batshit” list to learn their quirks – starting with neurosurgeon Harith Akram, who found the cure for chronic pain and has a great story about a man who couldn’t stop making puns during brain surgery. Hollie Richardson
Today in Focus
Conspiracy theories and chaos: a week watching GB News
GB News launched in 2021 with a mission to disrupt the relatively safe and sedate world of rolling TV news. Heather Stewart spent a week watching the channel to see what it has become today
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The war in Ukraine has destroyed lives across the country, resulted in thousands fleeing their homes, and plunged many across Europe into fuel poverty. But the International Energy Agency has identified the shock in the market caused by Russia’s invasion as a potential inflection point for investment in green energy. A report from the IEA has found that clean energy investment is significantly outpacing spending on fossil fuels, and is on track to reach $1.7tn (£1.4tn) this year, as investors turn to renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage and other low-carbon technologies. At the same time, investment in coal, gas and oil will rise to just over $1tn, the IEA said.
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, said: “This is a dramatic shift which will have consequences for the energy markets and climate change. In my view, it’s very exciting … It may be symbolic but it is very important because it shows the tide turning.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until Monday.
