The Illusion of Plastic Recycling

Ever felt the warm fuzzies when you tossed your plastic water bottle into the recycling? Dreamt a dream where that lowly bottle was reborn, phoenix-like, into something new and useful? Well...turns out things aren’t quite so rosy in Recycle-land.

Spinning Their Cycle

A recent report says the industry has been hyping up "advanced recycling" — where plastics are broken down into their building blocks — as the solution for our plastic waste crisis. Now, these processes may seem great on paper, but they’ve been wrapping us around their little polystyrene fingers. The report uncovers that industry bigwigs knew about the hurdles and limitations of these technologies all along. It appears that budgets, staffing, and basic science have conspired against their big recycling promise.

Companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron Phillips have hovered over the industry like benevolent doting parents, championing this recycling approach as groundbreaking and innovative. But here’s the twist: despite the whiff of innovation, preliminary research suggests these chemical recycling methods have actually been kicking around since the 1950s (before the Beatles were a thing).

The Rubber Hits The (Plastic) Road

However, getting these recycling dreams off the paper and into reality has posed a significant challenge: they’re darn expensive. Between the need for energy, fuel, and labor, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for these schemes. Industry experts have tagged the situation as undemonstrated and fundamentally uneconomical. Bonus fun fact: these technologies pollute. 

To add to this predicament, many of these processes don't even turn plastic into plastic. They mainly produce fuel. This is akin to promising your kids a trip to Disneyland and taking them to the dentist instead. Not to mention, these processes have a challenging time dealing with heterogeneous, post-consumer waste, hence, they often just process cleaner, single-color industrial waste.

Final Wrap on Plastic Wrap

To sum it all up: the plastic industry’s well-spun story of turning plastic back into plastic, ad infinitum, is on rather shaky ground. Let's hope that the revelation of these issues will lead to more honesty and action from the plastic industry to truly tackle the plastic waste crisis.

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