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Plastic Wars (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

3 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this documentary1 month2020–2023 score 1.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN recommends it as an eye-opener on how recycling was promoted by the plastics industry despite not working.

A FRONTLINE documentary on whether efforts to fix plastic pollution made it worse. It looks at the battle over plastics and recycling and how little plastic is actually recycled.

“If you want to have your eyes opened about just how little of the material you probably think you are recycling actually gets recycled” (HN, 2020)

1 strong recommendations · 2 citations · Documentaries

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@kbos87 Sep 2020 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'
Read more
If you want to have your eyes opened about just how little of the material you probably think you are recycling actually gets recycled, watch the recent Frontline episode called “Plastic Wars”. The sad truth is that while recycling is worthwhile, it’s also a woefully insufficient solution that has been held up by the petroleum industry as a cure all to prevent a backlash against plastic. Even products that are labeled recyclable often aren’t once they are processed. One thing that sticks with me (and this is just one representative example) is that almost none of those plastic salad containers that have overtaken supermarkets are ever recycled. [this video]
Shows how little plastic is actually recycled.

Citations, criticism and jokes

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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