Plastic bags deposited in recycling centers at Walmart and Target stores are not ending up in recycling facilities, according to a report from ABC News.
ABC News deployed trackers in plastic bags deposited at retailers across 10 states in collaboration with nine ABC owned stations and affiliates as part of the largest investigation of its kind into the effectiveness of America's recycling streams for plastic bags.
The American Chemistry Council, a trade association that represents plastic manufacturers and other companies, has promoted the Wrap Recycling Action Program, or WRAP, to urge the public to recycle plastic bags — one of the top sources of plastic pollution worldwide — at nearly 18,000 drop-off locations nationwide, including many Walmart and Target locations.
Plastic is difficult and expensive to recycle to begin with and bags are even more so because they can get ensnared in equipment at most recycling centers — causing costly delays.
The WRAP Program and store drop-off concept were meant to provide a way to help reduce plastic waste by collecting plastic bags through retail and grocery stores to facilitate their collection for recycling.
Yet of the 46 trackers placed in bundles of plastic bags that ABC News dropped off at stores across the country, the vast majority — after months — had not ended up at locations associated with plastic bag recycling.
Walmart and Target, some of the biggest retail partners WRAP promoted, both declined ABC News' interview requests as well as requests to see what happens at their stores to plastic bags they collect for recycling.
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