It wasn't a secret. Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit on it in 2004 which itself was based on an older study showing that recycling almost everthing is

It wasn't a secret. Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit on it in 2004 which itself was based on an older study showing that recycling almost everthing is bad for the environment. It's been public knowledge for just as long that most of it was going on a boat to China.