Environmentalists who once helped build and promote our recycling culture are now turning their backs on the process. The new claim? Recycling is not enough to help the environment. Recycling “is a job-creating, business-boosting, tax-saving success story,” said a Sierra Club representative back in 1995. These days? “Stop obsessing about recycling,” demands the Club.

The surprise about-face comes as environmentalists lobby Congress and states to ban the use of common plastic products. Recycling, they assert, cannot solve the problem.