The Plastics Industry's Cynical Creation of the Resin Coding System

The resin identification code (RIC) system represents one of the plastics industry's most successful deceptions in modern corporate history (NPR, 2020; Center for Climate Integrity, 2024). Developed in 1988 by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI), the coding system was deliberately designed to mislead the American public into believing that plastics were recyclable, even though industry executives had known for more than a decade that recycling most plastics was neither technically nor economically viable (NPR, 2020; Center for Climate Integrity, 2024).

Internal industry documents reveal that as early as 1973, plastics manufacturers understood that recycling plastic was "costly" and that sorting different types was "infeasible" (NPR, 2020). A report from April 1973 sent to top industry executives stated bluntly that "there is no recovery from obsolete products" and noted that plastic degrades with each attempt at reuse (NPR, 2020). By 1974, another industry analysis concluded there was "serious doubt" that widespread plastic recycling could "ever be made viable on an economic basis" (NPR, 2020; DeSmog, 2025).

A 1974 letter from DuPont's then-chairman Charles Brelsford McCoy made the industry's position explicit, rejecting participation in a recycling pilot program because "by the time a container reaches the market, the components which we supply have been blended with others so as to preclude the possibility of our recycling them" (Environmental Health News, 2025). Despite this clear understanding, the industry would spend the next half-century promoting recycling as a solution to plastic waste.

The Strategic Response to Environmental Backlash

By the late 1980s, the plastics industry faced an existential threat. Public opinion polls showed an increasing percentage of Americans believed plastics were harmful to public health and the environment (Trellis, 2021; California Attorney General, 2024). Images of overflowing landfills and widespread plastic litter had sparked a backlash that threatened the industry's future (Center for Climate Integrity, 2024). State legislatures and local governments across the nation began considering bills to restrict or ban plastic products (California Attorney General, 2024; Public Integrity, 2022).

Facing what industry insiders called the potential to "recycle or be banned," plastics manufacturers adopted a deliberate strategy of deception (Grist, 2024). Rather than reduce plastic production or develop genuinely recyclable alternatives, the industry chose to promote recycling as a false solution while working to prevent regulation (Center for Climate Integrity, 2024; NPR, 2020).

The industry created special organizations to execute this strategy, including the Council for Solid Waste Solutions, formed in 1988 by major petrochemical companies including Exxon, Mobil, Dow, DuPont, Chevron, and Phillips 66 (California Attorney General, 2024; Bioplastics News, 2020). These groups spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising campaigns promoting plastic recycling, including a 12-page advertorial in the July 1989 edition of Time magazine titled "The URGENT NEED TO RECYCLE" (California Attorney General, 2024). Former industry officials later admitted that these campaigns were designed to convince the public that recycling was "the answer" to plastic waste, even though they had "serious doubt" it would work at scale (NPR, 2020; CBC, 2020).

The Deceptive Design of the Chasing Arrows Symbol

The resin identification code system was central to this deception. While the industry publicly claimed the codes were created to "facilitate recycling" and help recyclers sort plastics, the true purpose was fundamentally different (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 2022). The system was designed not to make recycling viable, but to make the public believe it was viable (Just Zero, 2024; California Attorney General, 2024).

The most cynical aspect of the RIC system was the deliberate placement of the resin numbers inside the "chasing arrows" symbol—a triangle of three arrows universally recognized as the recycling symbol (E&E News, 2023; Just Zero, 2024). This was no accident. The plastics industry actively lobbied state legislatures across the country to mandate that the chasing arrows symbol with resin numbers appear on all plastic products (Just Zero, 2024; Trellis, 2021). By 1988, the industry had successfully convinced lawmakers in state after state to pass legislation requiring the symbols, claiming they would facilitate recycling programs (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 2021).

As of 2021, 36 states required the resin identification code with chasing arrows on plastic bottles and rigid plastic containers (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 2021). These laws were championed by the Society of the Plastics Industry beginning around 1988, as states were considering more stringent restrictions on plastic products (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 2021). The industry successfully promoted these coding requirements to state governments as an alternative to plastic bans, deposit laws, and mandatory recycling standards—even though, as internal documents show, they knew "there was no way to economically recycle the products" (California Attorney General, 2024).

The Public's Predictable Misunderstanding

The industry's strategy depended on consumer confusion, and it worked exactly as intended. By placing resin numbers inside the chasing arrows symbol, manufacturers ensured that the average person would interpret the marking as an indication that the product was recyclable and would be recycled (E&E News, 2023). This interpretation was precisely what the industry wanted, even though the codes were never intended to indicate recyclability (Trellis, 2021).

The deception was so effective that decades later, the EPA would describe it as "confusing" and note that "consumers generally understand the chasing arrows triangle to represent a universal recycling symbol and interpret it to mean that the product is recyclable" (E&E News, 2023). Industry documents confirm that manufacturers understood this would happen. As former industry insiders later revealed, "If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they're not going to be as concerned about the environment" (CBC, 2020).

The reality was starkly different from the perception the symbols created. Most plastics marked with resin codes 3 through 7 were rarely if ever recycled, as they had no viable markets and were not economically recyclable (Wikipedia, 2025; NPR, 2020). Even plastics marked with codes 1 and 2—the most commonly recycled types—had recycling rates well below what consumers believed. Former recycling industry official Coy Smith described the disconnect: "Our own customers ... they would flat out say, 'It says it's recyclable right on it,' and I'd be like, 'I can tell you, I can't give this away. There's no one that would even take it if I paid them to take it'" (CBC, 2020).

Knowledge of Economic Unfeasibility

The economic obstacles to plastic recycling were well understood within the industry from the beginning. Internal documents reveal that industry experts consistently acknowledged that recycling plastic was far more expensive than producing new plastic from oil and gas (NPR, 2020; Atlantic, 2022). One industry analysis concluded that because the cost of using oil to make plastic is so low, recycling plastic waste "can't yet be justified economically" (NPR, 2020).

A 1986 Vinyl Institute document stated plainly that "recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution, as it merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of" (Center for Climate Integrity, 2024). An Eastman Chemical Company employee admitted in 1992 that "it is more likely that we will wake up and realize that we are not going to recycle our way out of the solid waste issue" (Center for Climate Integrity, 2024). Perhaps most revealing, an Exxon employee told colleagues in 1994: "we are committed to the activities, but not committed to the results" (PBS NewsHour, 2024; Center for Climate Integrity, 2024).

Industry insiders understood that the thousands of different types of plastics, each with unique chemical additives and colorants, made sorting and recycling on a large scale effectively impossible (Atlantic, 2022; Just Zero, 2024). The technical challenges were compounded by economic realities: collecting, sorting, transporting, and reprocessing plastic waste cost significantly more than manufacturing new plastic from cheap fossil fuels (Atlantic, 2022; NPR, 2020). Recycled plastic was both lower quality and more expensive than virgin plastic, eliminating any market incentive for recycling (Atlantic, 2022; Center for Climate Integrity, 2024).

Preventing Regulation Through Deception

The evidence indicates that the primary purpose of promoting recycling—and creating the resin coding system as part of that promotion—was to prevent government regulation that would reduce plastic sales (NPR, 2020; California Attorney General, 2024; Center for Climate Integrity, 2024). Former industry officials have stated explicitly that this was the strategy. Lewis Freeman, a former vice-president with the Society of the Plastics Industry, explained: "There was never an enthusiastic belief that recycling was ultimately going to work in a significant way" (CBC, 2020).

Ronald Liesemer, an industry veteran who oversaw recycling initiatives, confirmed that "making recycling work was a way to keep their products in the marketplace" (CBC, 2020). Larry Thomas, another top industry official, was even more direct: "If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they're not going to be as concerned about the environment" (CBC, 2020).

The industry's strategy worked. By promoting recycling and implementing the resin coding system, plastics manufacturers successfully deflected calls for bans and restrictions during the critical period of the late 1980s and early 1990s (NPR, 2020; California Attorney General, 2024; Public Integrity, 2022). State legislatures that had been considering plastic bans instead passed laws requiring the industry's own coding system (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 2021). The public, reassured by the chasing arrows symbols on their plastic products, continued to consume plastic at ever-increasing rates, believing their waste would be recycled (California Attorney General, 2024).

The Scale of the Deception

The consequences of this deception have been catastrophic. Despite decades of recycling programs and billions of dollars spent on recycling infrastructure, the United States recycling rate for plastics has never exceeded 10 percent and currently sits at approximately 5 to 6 percent (California Attorney General, 2024). Globally, only about 9 percent of all plastic ever produced has been recycled even once (OECD, 2022; California Attorney General, 2024).

The vast majority of plastic marked with resin codes and chasing arrows symbols—symbols that consumers were intentionally led to believe indicated recyclability—ends up in landfills, incinerators, or polluting the environment (Atlantic, 2022; OECD, 2022). Of the plastic placed in recycling bins, much is never actually recycled due to contamination, lack of markets, or the simple economic unfeasibility that industry executives knew about from the beginning (New York Times, 2019; NPR, 2020).

In September 2024, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a landmark lawsuit against ExxonMobil alleging that the company "has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn't possible" (California Attorney General, 2024). The lawsuit, which cites evidence from the Center for Climate Integrity's investigation into industry deception, seeks to hold the company accountable for "decades of deception" and the resulting environmental damage (California Attorney General, 2024).

In 2023, the EPA recommended that the Federal Trade Commission eliminate the use of chasing arrows symbols with resin codes, calling them "deceptive" and "misleading" (E&E News, 2023). The agency noted that "the issue is not the resin codes themselves, but the implication that all of them can be recycled. This implication is made when the numbers are combined with the chasing arrows symbol, which is why the combination becomes deceptive or misleading" (E&E News, 2023).

The plastics industry's creation of the resin coding system stands as a textbook case of corporate deception designed to protect profits at the expense of public understanding and environmental protection. By deliberately misleading consumers about recyclability, lobbying for state mandates requiring deceptive symbols, and promoting recycling as a solution while knowing it would never work at scale, the industry successfully prevented meaningful regulation for decades while plastic production—and plastic pollution—soared to crisis levels.

References

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