The thing is, everybody didn't "just believe" them. What I find really weird about this moment in time is how the roles appear to have been flipped. I'm old eno

The thing is, everybody didn't "just believe" them. What I find really weird about this moment in time is how the roles appear to have been flipped. I'm old enough to remember when it was the right wing / business / pro-capitalism side of US politics calling out recycling as big sham (e.g. the Penn and Teller BS episode on recycling was 2004, though how "right wing" you consider that depends on your view of libertarian politics). So it's sort of weird to me to watch the modern story about how recycling was a lie propagated by big business and its supporters on the innocent American people, and the predictable reactionary response from the right wing reflexively defending what they were previously decrying. We finally have something everyone agrees on and yet we're still arguing about it. Probably because like most political topics its a proxy for a different discussion entirely. Just a weird moment in time.