Just as a company promising to use solar energy and not doing so doesn't discredit solar energy.
And as you can see by the reactions around you, no one is angry that the recycling isn't being done. They're angry at the recycling. A process that directly completes with big oil's product. That's the scam.
At scale if every (or even 90% of them) solar company were pretending to get solar energy, I would absolutely consider it a scam
Also, for the most part, my understanding of plastics recycling is that it doesn't really exist in practice. Glass Recycling, and Paper Recycling are actually able to reclaim most of the product, but plastic recycling is actually only downcycling where it can be used for a different purpose.
The objectively correct answer is yes. Some entities running a recycling scam does not mean that all recycling is a scam. Doesn't even mean all plastic recycling is a scam. But all the same, a scam is being run to charge people for a service that isn't being performed as advertised, knowingly and intentionally and in a significant way.
> Just as a company promising to use solar energy and not doing so doesn't discredit solar energy.
Just because someone successfully dupes people with a scam doesn't suddenly make it not a scam, just as people acquiescing to the hypernormalization of enshittification in the real for lack of a sense of agency in the face of megacorps with megabucks and congress in their back pocket does not mean that what people are apathetic towards isn't a problem or that there aren't people justifiably upset about it.
There are second order discussion points on this topic that you're trying to dig at that are worth discussing, but it's hard to engage in those in good faith when your answer to the fundamental question "Do you think this scam that is objectively a scam, is a scam?" is "No."