> Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking

People putting their rubbish in the bin rather than throwing it in the nearest gutter / river / garden would get us 90% of the way there.

I agree with your sentiment, but I also feel like this is hyperbolic.

I spend a lot of time on trails and in parks in the US. Perhaps it is different elsewhere, but we typically do not see much trash in those areas, in most cases the trash we do see being a shopping bag or candy wrapper that has blown in from elsewhere or accidentally dropped. Yes, we see some intentional, careless stuff which is upsetting (and we clean it up if we can) but I will never act liike everyone is just throwing their trash wherever. Most people throw their trash away in appropriate spots, leaving a tiny percentage that is being malicious about it. I'd say that's pretty good.

One thing we do have a problem with is overflowing trash bins. This is two-fold. The bins in parks and trails do get changed on a regular schedule, but it seems that these days it is not often enough. The second problem is packaging. So many foods and products come in ridiculous amounts of packaging that the bins get full quickly because said packaging is bulky and difficult to break down.

For the most part, I think people here are doing a good job of trying to keep the trash where it belongs, giving what I consider a reasonable effort. But we're up against companies like the ones listed in the article and their practices that are producing tons of unnecessary plastics. Knowing that, I will never put the onus entirely on the consumer. Until these companies take some responsibility (and stop pushing the idea that this is somehow our fault) in an effective way, not just lip service and hand waving as they have done, the problem will continue regardless of how hard the consumer upholds their end of the bargain.

This isn't as big of an issue in developed countries, especially not if / when in addition to proper waste infrastructure there's people doing actual cleanup. There's systems to capture anything that does end up in the water stream anyway.

Most trash isn't "thrown" anywhere with a direct path to the ocean anyway.

Using glass containers would get us 100% there regardless.

Yes, but much of the ocean plastic is fishing nets and such.

All of that gets solved by adding a deposit fee to packaging, that you get back when you return the packaging. This works in Europe.

People who downvoted this should consider what happens in other countries. See eg:

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=41165fec71bc817d&sxsrf...

Part of the issue is that rubbish in our bin (in the West) sometime ends up shipped across the world, in theory for 'recycling', but instead ends up dumped in another river...

Of course sometime I see littering in streets and parks, sometime literal feet away from bins and yeah, that's infuriating.

It most certainly would not; what a ridiculous concept. Plastic that is "properly" disposed of ends up in landfills or incinerated, only a minority is recycled. And the vast majority of plastic that is "improperly" disposed of is done so by companies, not individual people with their rubbish.