BO's statement isn't necessarily false.
https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2018/10/4/us-plastic-recycling-rate-projected-to-drop-to-44-in-2018
It’s been frequently said: A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. We’ve seen promises, goals, ambitions, and aims from companies for nearly 30 years to increase recycled content and reduce the number of plastic bags they hand out. During that time, plastic use and pollution has increased as well-documented by Jenna Jambeck, Roland Geyer, and other researchers. The United States ranks 20th on the list of countries contributing to plastic pollution in the ocean with an estimated 88 to 242 million pounds/year of plastic marine debris. The annual International Coastal Cleanup confirmed the evidence of plastic pollution on U.S. coasts in 2017 when more than 3.7 million pounds of trash, the majority of it plastic, was collected by 209,643 people on a single day.