It's the latest chapter in the unravelling of the American recycling system, which started when China stopped accepting U.S. recycling in 2018.
"This survey confirms what many news reports have indicated since China restricted plastic waste imports two years ago — that recycling facilities across the country are not able to sort, sell, and reprocess much of the plastic that companies produce," Jan Dell, independent engineer and founder of The Last Beach Cleanup, who led the survey of plastics acceptance policies told Greenpeace in a news release on the subject.