There seems to be a point, something cynical or at least skeptical, but hard to pin down. “Recycling is just a fake anyway”?
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Well, not all recycling is a shuck, but some is. So I would tend to think your interpretation is correct.
Possibly a reference to the recently filed lawsuit against Exxon by the state of California, reported at https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/california-sues-exxon-for-plastics-deception/ar-AA1r84nA. The suit argues that the plastics recycle symbol, as shown in the cartoon, is fraudulent. In fact, almost all plastic is thrown away, not recycled, because recycled plastic is more expensive than new plastic. This has no application to other materials, such as paper and aluminum, which generally are recycled.
This comic is short circuiting a typical path:
Plastic put into recycling bin.
Truck picks up recycling bins, takes to sorting center.
Sorting center sorts plastic.
Truck takes plastic from sorting center to railyard.
Train takes plastic to ocean port.
Ship takes plastic across the ocean, perhaps to Indonesia, to plastic recycler.
Plastic recycler recycles the plastic that has a market and is easiest to sort out.
Remaining plastic gets put on the beaches, to either be burned by the natives for fuel (remember how nasty plastic fires are?) or at high tide floats into the ocean.
Plastic recycling is, and always was, largely a joke.
If the US wanted to get serious about the plastics issue, the way is to outlaw single-use plastic containers. Get back to refillable where possible, and other containers from aluminum, steel, or glass. But no one really wants to get serious, because that would be inconvenient and cost money, so we pretend to do things. I make an effort, but I still buy milk in plastic jugs, and use plastic wrap and bags. I need to get better.
Plastic milk jugs and soda bottles are some of the items that actually do get recycled at relatively high rates. They also save a lot of fuel used to transport them because of their much lower weight. And don’t break before or after you buy them.
It would be possible to regulate recycling in all kinds of ways but that would be….regulation.
It has been known for years that only certain kinds of plastics can easily be recycled, but in practice people lump everything together as “plastic” and will become annoyed when it’s pointed out to them that it’s not all the same. I work at a store that has a bin for plastic bags next to a bottle return machine. People routinely confuse bottle/can deposit returns with household recycling. Where the plastic bags to for possible recycling, I don’t know. They could be blowing around the same beach with the bottles in the comic.
It was fascinating to hear news discussions regarding recycling during the pandemic, when China declined to accept American recycling materials as too dirty.
On the other hand, at least one company is making building materials from recycled plastics mixed with reclaimed wood (sawdust).
So, yes, the comic portrays the plastics recycling program as a charade, a facade, a scam.
And then there’s microplastics, which is a whole other scary proposition.
@ Grawlix (6) – “…only certain kinds of plastics can easily be recycled…”
A similar issue applies to aluminum. Recycling it is extremely productive and saves an enormous amount of energy, but it only works correctly when the material to be recycled is all the same alloy. That is true when the feed is limited to soda cans, but it is extremely difficult with a combination of dissimilar aluminum parts.
Kilby, does that mean I’m wasting my ti;me recycling aluminum foil?
@ Chak (8) – Recycling foil is almost certainly still a good idea. Even though it does not have a lot of mass, there’s a lot of it out there, and it’s all the same type of aluminum (probably nearly pure, too). The problem is more with “parts”, like bicycle frames, frying pans, and other stuff. Additives that are good for one purpose are a problem for other applications, and mixing two completely different alloys results in a third mixture with unknowable properties.
I learned about this from a report about a possible solution: somebody was developing a spectrographic method that might make it possible to identify the composition of each piece, allowing them to be sorted by type of alloy before they get melted down.
Ah, okay, that makes sense. Continue to recycle aluminum foil I shall.
The problem with recycling is the material should be clean, leaving me to wonder just how much water do I want to invest in cleaning my used food containers and bottles.
Our county garbage pickup only allows #1 and #2 plastics in recycling plus washed can and glass bottles.
I finally got around last month to call them and ask about recycling the plastic bags which our newspaper is delivered (tossed) in. Robert has not been happy with the boxes and bags of such I had in the side entry porch as I was not sure what to do them as they say to recycle on them. So last month we had more garbage than usual one week as they all went to same.
As to the items we can recycle with them, I tend to put them out once a month as we have so few of them and I hate to put the recycling can out if it will rain or snow and I will have to go out in same to get it back. We used to have a much smaller box (than the plastic can) to use to put our recycling out but the garbage men would drop it in the (4 lane main road) street and the last one we had was maybe our third one. I used it as long as was it usable instead of the can that the town garbage department had switched to, but finally it met one too many vehicles – it was not recyclable and, oddly to me, had to go with the garbage – and now we use the can. The can easily holds a month and a half of our recycling.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Well, not all recycling is a shuck, but some is. So I would tend to think your interpretation is correct.
Possibly a reference to the recently filed lawsuit against Exxon by the state of California, reported at https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/california-sues-exxon-for-plastics-deception/ar-AA1r84nA. The suit argues that the plastics recycle symbol, as shown in the cartoon, is fraudulent. In fact, almost all plastic is thrown away, not recycled, because recycled plastic is more expensive than new plastic. This has no application to other materials, such as paper and aluminum, which generally are recycled.
This comic is short circuiting a typical path:
Plastic put into recycling bin.
Truck picks up recycling bins, takes to sorting center.
Sorting center sorts plastic.
Truck takes plastic from sorting center to railyard.
Train takes plastic to ocean port.
Ship takes plastic across the ocean, perhaps to Indonesia, to plastic recycler.
Plastic recycler recycles the plastic that has a market and is easiest to sort out.
Remaining plastic gets put on the beaches, to either be burned by the natives for fuel (remember how nasty plastic fires are?) or at high tide floats into the ocean.
Plastic recycling is, and always was, largely a joke.
If the US wanted to get serious about the plastics issue, the way is to outlaw single-use plastic containers. Get back to refillable where possible, and other containers from aluminum, steel, or glass. But no one really wants to get serious, because that would be inconvenient and cost money, so we pretend to do things. I make an effort, but I still buy milk in plastic jugs, and use plastic wrap and bags. I need to get better.
Plastic milk jugs and soda bottles are some of the items that actually do get recycled at relatively high rates. They also save a lot of fuel used to transport them because of their much lower weight. And don’t break before or after you buy them.
It would be possible to regulate recycling in all kinds of ways but that would be….regulation.
It has been known for years that only certain kinds of plastics can easily be recycled, but in practice people lump everything together as “plastic” and will become annoyed when it’s pointed out to them that it’s not all the same. I work at a store that has a bin for plastic bags next to a bottle return machine. People routinely confuse bottle/can deposit returns with household recycling. Where the plastic bags to for possible recycling, I don’t know. They could be blowing around the same beach with the bottles in the comic.
It was fascinating to hear news discussions regarding recycling during the pandemic, when China declined to accept American recycling materials as too dirty.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/#:~:text=Why%20recycling%20isn't%20working,be%20processed%20in%20certain%20facilities.
On the other hand, at least one company is making building materials from recycled plastics mixed with reclaimed wood (sawdust).
So, yes, the comic portrays the plastics recycling program as a charade, a facade, a scam.
And then there’s microplastics, which is a whole other scary proposition.
@ Grawlix (6) – “…only certain kinds of plastics can easily be recycled…”
A similar issue applies to aluminum. Recycling it is extremely productive and saves an enormous amount of energy, but it only works correctly when the material to be recycled is all the same alloy. That is true when the feed is limited to soda cans, but it is extremely difficult with a combination of dissimilar aluminum parts.
Kilby, does that mean I’m wasting my ti;me recycling aluminum foil?
@ Chak (8) – Recycling foil is almost certainly still a good idea. Even though it does not have a lot of mass, there’s a lot of it out there, and it’s all the same type of aluminum (probably nearly pure, too). The problem is more with “parts”, like bicycle frames, frying pans, and other stuff. Additives that are good for one purpose are a problem for other applications, and mixing two completely different alloys results in a third mixture with unknowable properties.
I learned about this from a report about a possible solution: somebody was developing a spectrographic method that might make it possible to identify the composition of each piece, allowing them to be sorted by type of alloy before they get melted down.
Ah, okay, that makes sense. Continue to recycle aluminum foil I shall.
The problem with recycling is the material should be clean, leaving me to wonder just how much water do I want to invest in cleaning my used food containers and bottles.
Our county garbage pickup only allows #1 and #2 plastics in recycling plus washed can and glass bottles.
I finally got around last month to call them and ask about recycling the plastic bags which our newspaper is delivered (tossed) in. Robert has not been happy with the boxes and bags of such I had in the side entry porch as I was not sure what to do them as they say to recycle on them. So last month we had more garbage than usual one week as they all went to same.
As to the items we can recycle with them, I tend to put them out once a month as we have so few of them and I hate to put the recycling can out if it will rain or snow and I will have to go out in same to get it back. We used to have a much smaller box (than the plastic can) to use to put our recycling out but the garbage men would drop it in the (4 lane main road) street and the last one we had was maybe our third one. I used it as long as was it usable instead of the can that the town garbage department had switched to, but finally it met one too many vehicles – it was not recyclable and, oddly to me, had to go with the garbage – and now we use the can. The can easily holds a month and a half of our recycling.