Plastic Recycling Is ‘A Fraud’

A hard hitting report, The Fraud of Plastic Recycling, from Center For Climate Integrity gives a damning indictment of big oil and the plastics industry and makes a clear case that the idea of ‘plastic recycling’ is a fraud.

The report provides a level of evidence that is seen as ‘deposition ready’ for prosecutors to take industry players to court. The Guardian quotes Brian Frosh, the former attorney general for the state of Maryland, who said “If I were attorney general, based on what I read in CCI’s report, I’d feel comfortable pressing for an investigation and a lawsuit”.

Substantial harm from plastic pollution

The report gives a good summary of why plastic pollution is a problem:

“Plastic pollution is one of the most serious environmental crises facing the world today. Between 1950 and 2015, over 90% of plastics were landfilled, incinerated, or leaked into the environment. Plastic waste is ubiquitous—from our rivers, lakes, and oceans to roadways and coastlines. It is in “the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink.” One study estimates that humans ingest up to five grams or the equivalent of one credit card worth of plastic per week.”

The fraud of plastic recycling

In chapter 2 it lays out the reasons why plastic recycling is not a great idea. It does this much better than we could, so we’ve reproduced its summary argument in its entirety (go to the report itself for supporting links and footnotes):

“THE MAJORITY OF PLASTICS CANNOT BE RECYCLED— THEY NEVER HAVE BEEN AND NEVER WILL BE

Plastics are part of a sector known as “petrochemicals,” or products made from fossil fuels such as oil and gas. More than 99% of plastics are produced from fossil fuels. There are “thousands of different types of plastic, each with its own chemical composition and characteristics.” The vast majority of these plastics cannot be “recycled”—meaning they cannot be collected, processed, and remanufactured into new products. As of 2021, the U.S. recycling rate for plastic is estimated to be only 5-6%. Despite decades of industry promises, plastic recycling has failed to become a reality due to long-known technical and economic limitations.

First, certain types of plastics have no end markets (i.e., businesses that buy and use recyclable materials to make new products), and therefore are impossible to recycle. To date, viable markets only exist for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bottles and jugs. These are known as plastics #1 and #2, respectively, under the industry’s Resin Identification Codes (RICs). After conducting a 10-year review on plastic recycling, in 1991, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that “it appears that at the present only two types could be considered for making into high quality objects, PET and HDPE,” specifically those sourced from bottles. This remains true more than 30 years later. While a minority of municipal recycling programs across the country may collect plastics with RICs #3-7, they do not actually recycle them. Instead, such plastics are incinerated or sent to landfills.

Second, the thousands of different plastics and the variation among them further limit recyclability. When recycling plastic waste, a facility must sort and separate thousands of pieces of plastic by type to maintain a high degree of purity in the recycled material. For this reason, some types of plastic may be technically recyclable but are not recycled in practice. For example, many single-use plastics are made of different types of plastic polymers as well as other materials, such as paper, metals, or adhesives. It is impractical—if not impossible—to separate these different components for recycling.

Even products made of a single type of plastic often cannot be recycled together, because they include different chemical additives or colorants. For example, PET is widely accepted by municipal recycling programs, yet PET bottles cannot be recycled with PET clamshells and other thermoforms, which are made from a PET material with different chemical properties. Similarly, green PET bottles cannot be recycled with clear PET bottles. As with mechanical recycling, plastic-to-plastic “advanced recycling” requires a pure, high-quality feedstock to create valuable output, but the separation required to obtain such purity is technically difficult and economically infeasible.

Third, the quality of plastic degrades as it is recycled, limiting both the use of recycled plastic and its continued recyclability. The fossil fuel-derived chemicals that form the basis of plastic are vulnerable to heat and other processes used in recycling. As the chemicals degrade, they lose their quality and integrity, making recycled resins unsuitable for many manufacturers.

The reality is that plastics can only be recycled—or more accurately “downcycled”—once, rarely twice. For this reason, plastics have a linear rather than circular lifespan—when viable, recycling provides only a brief delay on their inevitable journey to landfills, incinerators, or the environment.

Fourth, the toxicity of plastic and its chemical additives limits the recyclability of plastic. Many plastics commonly contain toxic additives such as stabilizers, plasticizers, coatings, catalysts, and flame retardants. Plastic waste may be further contaminated through curbside collection of containers for pesticides, cleaning solvents, and other household items. As plastics degrade through use and the recycling process, they begin to leach these toxic substances. For this reason, a vast majority of plastic products cannot be recycled into food-grade packaging, food-contact surfaces, or other high-contact products.

Finally, the cost of producing recycled plastic is much higher than producing virgin plastic, and therefore plastic recycling is not economically viable. The recycling process—from collection to sorting to processing to transport—requires more time, labor, and equipment to achieve a lower quality and less efficient output than the process of making virgin resin from fossil fuels. The petrochemical companies’ increased production of virgin resins further ensures that recycled resins cannot compete and that plastic recycling is not economically viable. “Advanced recycling” requires many of these same processes, plus additional treatment, making it even more costly. A 2023 study estimated that resins recovered through plastic-to-plastic “advanced recycling” are 1.6 times more expensive than virgin resins. “Advanced recycling” is also inefficient. Only 1-14% of plastic material that is processed through “advanced recycling” can be used to manufacture a new plastic product. The remaining 86-99% is used to fuel the advanced recycling system or turned into oil or waste products.

For decades, petrochemical companies and the plastics industry have known of the technical and economic limitations that make plastics unrecyclable and have failed to overcome them. Despite this knowledge, the plastics industry has continued to increase plastic production, while carrying out a well-coordinated campaign to deceive consumers, policymakers, and regulators about plastic recycling.”

It makes you wonder why anyone would think plastic recycling is a viable solution.