Humans suffer many addictions - but possibly the least known and worst for the environment is our current penchant for plastic.
Like all addicts, we justify our addiction with reason: it's more hygienic, it's lightweight for shipping, it's recyclable, etc etc.
Aside from the huge amounts of energy required to recycle, when it comes to plastic we cannot even process it in NZ. The millions of plastic bottles we consume are compacted, wrapped in plastic and then shipped to Asia by diesel-hungry boats to places that you definitely won't find in a Lonely Planet guidebook.
Although recycling is certainly a better option than landfill- most people don't understand that you cannot make another plastic bottle from the material that we diligently put into our recycling bins. Instead, it becomes downgraded and deemed not worthy for those that study our consumption habits with a fine-toothed comb so as to feed the addiction which lines their pockets.
Plastics New Zealand widely promotes the volumes we recycle as if the fact that we consume so much is positive. Looking deeper, we find we only recycle 24% of the plastic packaging we consume. Everything else we throw "away" goes into giant pestilent holes in the ground, or carelessly spills out into our marine ecosystem.
In fact, New Zealanders throw over 252,000 tonnes of plastic into landfills each year - a figure that continues to rise disproportionately to our increase in population.
In only two years, our organisation has removed more than 1,000,000 pieces of rubbish from coasts which have 'please recycle' imprinted on them. As a society we are addicted to plastic, and our consumption and disposal habits are as equally disgraceful as the marketing that gets us hooked and keeps us dependent.
Recycling is not an excuse to consume.