I don’t understand how people are conflating recycling and climate change. I have seen more and more of this recently. Of course, virgin plastics mean consuming

I don’t understand how people are conflating recycling and climate change. I have seen more and more of this recently. Of course, virgin plastics mean consuming more fossil fuels but beyond that the two are largely separate in my mind. Recycling everything is unlikely to do much to avert climate change, and could even make it worse if recycling is more energy intensive, but almost every day I see a discussion on climate and many “well, I recycle what I can” comments. Is there a common perception that recycling is a solution to the climate crisis or is it just that people feel it’s the only loosely-related option they have? I’m not saying recycling isn’t important — it is — but it’s much less important than our rapidly collapsing climate.