The analysis adds to the ongoing controversy and skepticism surrounding chemical recycling.
Huanjia Zhang for EHN
Chemical recycling — an umbrella term used to describe processes that break plastic waste down into molecular building blocks with high heat or chemicals and convert them into new products — will not help reduce plastic pollution, but rather exacerbate environmental problems, according to a new report by nonprofit environmental advocacy groups Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN).
The report comes just weeks before the United Nations Environment Programme meeting slated
to take place in Nairobi in mid-November, where officials from countries
worldwide will convene for a third round of negotiations to develop an
international legally binding treaty to curb plastic pollution.
Less than 10% of the seven billion tons of plastic waste
humans have generated has been recycled, according to the UN Environment Programme.
That echoes U.S. trends: available Environmental Protection Agency data
showed that while the country generated 35.7 million tons of plastics in 2018,
just three million tons, or 8.7%, were recycled. Some other accounts, such as a
2022 report from Beyond Plastics,
found the U.S. plastic recycling rate is even lower — between 5% to 6%.
“This is the perfect report for delegates to read on the plane,” Judith Enck, president of the anti-plastics advocacy group Beyond Plastics that co-developed the report, told Environmental Health News (EHN). “Currently, the draft of the treaty does not allow for chemical recycling, but we know that the plastics and chemical industry is working hard to change that.”
“A dangerous deception”
To investigate the impacts of chemical recycling, the
IPEN and Beyond Plastics report analyzed peer-reviewed literature as well as
publicly available data on the 11 existing chemical recycling plants in the
U.S., Lee Bell, mercury and persistent organic pollutants policy advisor at
IPEN who is also the author of the new report, told EHN.
The analysis concluded that chemical recycling is “a dangerous deception” to solving the plastic waste problem as it is “inefficient, energy-intensive and contributes to climate change.”
Even at full
capacity, the report noted, the 11 chemical recycling facilities in the U.S.
would handle less than 1.3% of the plastic waste generated annually within the
country.
The report also claimed chemical recycling to be “dangerous and dirty,” emitting toxic waste back into the environment along the process.
According to the analysis, typical emissions from pyrolysis, one of the most prevalent methods used in chemical recycling that involves breaking plastics down with high heat, include carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, chlorinated and brominated dioxins, furans and acid gasses.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances , also known as PFAS,
“may also be a contaminant of concern in chemical recycling output, but little
information is available on the subject,” the report pointed out.
Furthermore, as part of the report, Beyond Plastics said it analyzed the 5-mile radius around each of the 11 chemical recycling plants using the EPA’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool.
The results showed that eight of the plants are located in areas with
lower-income communities while “seven have higher-than-average concentrations
of people of color than the rest of the state and country,” the report noted.
“Researchers worldwide have all agreed that the amount of
data released by the chemical recycling industry is insufficient to determine
its full impacts,” Bell said.” But what we have been able to deduce from the
information that is available is that there are some very, very hazardous
impacts associated with the processes.”
Controversies of chemical recycling
For many years, chemical recycling, also dubbed advanced
recycling, has often been touted by proponents as a potential saving grace for
the plastic pollution problem by creating “a new life cycle” for
used plastic products.
However, some opponents contend that chemical recycling
is nothing more than an industry ploy to support the ongoing expansion of
plastic production and a tactic to deflect environmental responsibilities.
“It has been sold and hyped as a solution to the plastic
pollution problem,” said Bell. “Unfortunately, chemical recycling does not play
any significant role in addressing the plastic pollution issue.”
The results from the new report mirror the eyebrows raised by some researchers
and lawmakers on the benefits and impacts of chemical recycling.
A September report published by the Nordic Council
of Ministers, the official body for intergovernmental cooperation in
the Nordic region, for instance, asserted that chemical recycling presents
“drawbacks such as higher energy consumption, lower material-to-material
yields, increased greenhouse gas emissions and greater investment requirements
that could create ‘lock-in’ effects, disincentivizing better solutions in the
future.”
Downgraded regulatory controls
Meanwhile, within the U.S., there has been “a significant
push politically” from the petrochemical industry to promote and deregulate
chemical recycling on the state level, Bell said.
As of now, 24 states in the country have passed
legislation to regulate chemical recycling as manufacturing instead of waste
disposal or incineration, garnering applause from
industry lobby groups.
By doing so, Bell argued that the state lawmakers are
effectively downgrading the regulatory controls on the chemical recycling
industry, particularly on the level of scrutiny for hazardous emissions and
waste.
Recognizing the potential pitfalls of chemical recycling,
in a report released
in July, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee “encourages” the EPA to
maintain regulating chemical recycling technologies as municipal waste
combustion units under the Clean Air Act.
“We want state lawmakers to recognize the shortcomings
with [chemical recycling] and not to deregulate these facilities,” Beyond
Plastics’ Enck said, adding that the report, drawing from its conclusions,
outlined several additional call-for-actions for stakeholders.
These proposals include declaring a national moratorium
on new chemical recycling plants, ending incentives for establishing chemical
recycling plants, as well as implementing extensive analyses and testing of
existing chemical recycling plants’ environmental and performance metrics.
In addition, since most U.S. chemical recycling
facilities are purportedly not converting plastic waste to new plastic input
materials but instead fossil fuels, Bell said the report also urged
policymakers to consider banning the plastic-to-fuel projects altogether, given
their environmental and health risks are “really too significant to allow them
to continue.”
“You are using fossil fuel energy to heat and melt these
plastics and depolymerize them and then you are creating a petrochemical-based
fuel at the end of the process which is going to burn,” Bell said. “It is an
incredibly inefficient and polluting process and it becomes a petrochemical
Merry-Go-Round.”
Huanjia Zhang is a Science and Healthcare
Reporter at GenomeWeb. He holds an M.A. in Science,
Health, and Environmental Reporting from NYU.