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Dear John, Feeling pressure from sustainability-minded businesses, consumers and governments, the plastics industry is now falsely promoting “chemical recycling” — as a silver bullet to solve the plastics pollution crisis. But so-called chemical recycling, a technology its proponents claim turns mixed plastic waste into virgin plastic feedstocks through pyrolysis and gasification, is an unproven, financially risky, false solution that has less to do with recycling and than it does with incinerating plastic waste. What is hiding behind the labels “chemical recycling” or “advanced recycling” is actually turning plastic back into a fossil fuel to be burned, simply shifting plastic waste and toxic materials from landfills into our air through an extremely carbon intensive process that doesn’t reduce plastic pollution, but does feed the climate crisis.
What goes in must come out: plastic can contain thousands of chemicals, including known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. These toxic substances must go somewhere-- as emissions, waste byproducts, and in the resulting product, be it tar, ash, or sludge. | |
A lack of regulatory oversight means that we have little information about possible impacts. But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now taking public comments on whether to appropriately regulate under the Clean Air Act these pyrolysis and gasification facilities as the incinerators they are. The American Sustainable Business Network is asking you to support EPA Clean Air Act regulation of these facilities, an action the plastics and petro-chemical industries are spending millions to combat. Appropriate regulation is necessary to protect air quality, public health and the environment. But it also assures that polluters don’t continue to pass on the costs of their pollution and wastes to the rest of us, providing polluters with an unfair economic advantage over responsible businesses. | |
