Such a reductive title/framing. Yes, plastic recycling doesn't work very well. But that doesn't mean that getting rid of trash is simple/there aren't opportunities to reduce waste. Metal recycling, compost, glass bottle reuse, and proper management of landfills are all super important!

Also: > In total, Britain’s Environment Agency calculated that a conventional cotton bag needed to be reused 173 times to beat plastic.

They make it seem like this is a bad thing but surely the average cotton bag gets used more than 173 times. I've probably used some of my oldest reusable bags like ~1k times.

In New York City where disposable bag bans occurred I’m quite certain the average “reusable” bag gets used a single-digit number of times. Grocery stores charge 25c for a “reusable” bag in the case that you forgot to bring your own, and every household has a bag full of bags that never get used. Now they’ve re-allowed disposable paper bags, which seems sensible to me.