In reality, it the resin code was a deliberate attempt to confuse consumers by the plastics industry to prevent consumers from making an informed decision to move away from plastic packaging on the grounds of it's bad for the environment.

Similar to how the junk food industry is all about telling people to "balance what you eat and what you do", and shrinking portion sizes while also selling "shareable" packs. They are trying to avoid customer ire and/or regulations against them.

This is a cynical opinion that isn't based on any facts.

unless you have evidence of this "great resin code conspiracy"?

The charitable interpretation is that their original intent of using the well-known recycling symbol around the resin code was to provide consumers with information to help them recycle more effectively.

However the fact that recycling programs (at least in my state) advise consumers to ignore the number and focus on the shape of the plastic means that (at least in my state) these symbols are not serving their intended purpose.

For example, many forms of polyethylene terephthalate are not recyclable even if the product is labeled with a RIC1/PETE symbol. In fact, the only time the RIC number is helpful to me is when confirming that a product is most definitely not recyclable. Of course, in those cases the use of the three-arrow recycling symbol to indicate a product's non-recycleability seems liable to confuse consumers.

> The charitable interpretation is that their original intent of using the well-known recycling symbol around the resin code was to provide consumers with information to help them recycle more effectively.

This isn't the "charitable interpretation" - this was the stated and official purpose of the symbols with the numbers.

The "charitable interpretation" is that the people involved in the decision truly believed their stated rationale. In that case the fact that the symbol has actually confused consumers in practice and has caused unrecycleable plastics to contaminate plastic recycling streams is simply an honest mistake.

The "uncharitable interpretation" is that it was a dishonest way for plastic manufacturers to label unrecycleable plastics with recycling symbols to confuse consumers into thinking a greater number of single-use plastics were recyclable than actually were recyclable with no consideration given to the difficulties this would cause for the organizations actually responsible for recycling the plastic.

Because I was not there I do not know whether the people involved were misguided or unethical or somewhere in between.