Lochtree

For decades, recycling has been framed as the hero of the environmental movement. The message was simple: toss your plastic containers into the blue bin, and they’ll magically be turned into something new and useful. It’s a comforting story — one that lets us feel like we’re doing our part without changing much about our daily habits.

We don’t usually think twice about what’s in our cleaning products—after all, they’re designed to remove messes, not create them. But under the sink of many homes lies a small chemical cocktail of harsh ingredients: bleach, ammonia, synthetic fragrances, and mysterious preservatives that sound like science experiments. While these products may deliver a sparkling countertop, they often come with hidden costs—to our health, our air quality, and our waterways.

Plastic packaging is everywhere—protecting our groceries, padding our online orders, and sealing our skincare. Yet single-use plastics account for roughly 40 percent of all plastic produced and are a leading driver of marine litter, microplastic pollution, and greenhouse-gas emissions from production and incineration.