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> The charitable interpretation is that their original intent of using the well-known recycling symbol around the resin code was to provide consumers with infor

• asoneth 5y ago
  The "charitable interpretation" is that the people involved in the decision truly believed their stated rationale. In that case the fact that the symbol has actually confused consumers in practice and has caused unrecycleable plastics to contaminate plastic recycling streams is simply an honest mistake. The "uncharitable interpretation" is that it was a dishonest way for plastic manufacturers to label unrecycleable plastics with recycling symbols to confuse consumers into thinking a greater number of single-use plastics were recyclable than actually were recyclable with no consideration given to the difficulties this would cause for the organizations actually responsible for recycling the plastic. Because I was not there I do not know whether the people involved were misguided or unethical or somewhere in between.