Report reveals how plastics manufacturers have misled us about the real possibilities of recycling

Plastics manufacturers have known for more than 30 years that recycling is not an economically or technically viable solution to managing their waste, but according to recent research from the NGO Center for Climate Integrity, that knowledge has kept them from practicing it for decades. Has not stopped from promoting. CCI).

“The companies have lied; “It’s time to hold them accountable for the harm they’ve caused,” said Richard Wills, president of an NGO aimed at holding fossil fuel companies accountable.

Plastic is made from oil and gas and is very difficult to recycle. To achieve this, careful classification is necessary as the thousands of varieties that exist, due to their chemical composition, cannot be recycled together, making an already expensive process even more expensive. Another problem is degradation of the material after each use, something that generally limits re-use to once or twice.

According to the report, the industry has been aware of these serious problems for decades, which it has systematically hidden in its marketing campaigns. The investigation builds on previous investigations as well as recently released internal documents that demonstrate the scope of the decades-long campaign.

According to the report, industry experts have long been saying that plastic recycling is “uneconomic”, “should not be considered as a permanent solution to solid waste” and “cannot continue indefinitely.” According to the authors of the investigation, the evidence found could serve to convict oil and petrochemical companies, as well as their trade associations, of misleading marketing and violating laws protecting against pollution.

single-use plastic

In the 1950s, plastics manufacturers came up with an idea that would ensure an ever-growing market for their products: make them disposable. According to Davis Allen, CCI researcher and lead author of the report, “They knew that if they focused on single-use (plastics), people would buy and buy and buy.”

At an industry conference in 1956, the Plastics Industry Society asked manufacturers to focus on “low cost, high volume” and “dispensability”. Their goal should be to deliver products “to the trash can.”

Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, responded by email, “As always, instead of working together to find real solutions to plastic waste, groups like CCI prefer to launch political attacks instead of creative solutions. ” ), the new name of the Plastics Industry Society.

For decades, the industry pushed the message home that plastics could simply be thrown into landfills or burned in incinerators. That was until the 1980s, when city councils began proposing bans on shopping bags, among other plastic products, and the industry looked for a new solution: recycling.

recycling campaign

According to research, the industry has long known that recycling plastics is not practical or economically viable. A 1986 internal report by the Vinyl Institute trade association stated, “Recycling cannot be considered a permanent solution to solid waste (plastics), because it increases the time it takes to dispose of a product.”

The founding director of the Vinyl Institute told attendees at an industry conference in 1989, “Recycling cannot be continued indefinitely and does not solve the solid waste problem.” Despite this knowledge, the Plastics Industry Society created the Plastics Recycling Foundation in 1984. , uniting bottlers and petrochemical companies in a campaign focused on the sector’s commitment to recycling.

The business association created the widely recognized symbol of three chasing arrows for recyclable plastics in 1988 and began using it on packaging. After experts long said it was a highly misleading symbol, US regulators recently reiterated their concerns.

In 1985, a year after state lawmakers passed mandatory recycling legislation, the Society of the Plastics Industry also established a plastics recycling research center at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

In 1988, after the city council approved a ban on Styrofoam plastics, the Council for Solid Waste Solutions business association started a recycling pilot project in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In the early 90s, another professional association placed advertisements in the magazine Ladies Home Journal Which said: “A bottle can become a bottle again and again, again and again.”

Meanwhile, industry leaders argue behind closed doors that recycling is not a real solution. “Although one day this may be reality, the most likely thing is that we will wake up and realize that we are not going to solve the solid waste problem by recycling,” a representative of the chemical company Eastman Chemical said at an event in 1994. Said during. Region’s conference on adequate infrastructure for plastics recycling.

An Exxon employee also told employees of the American Plastics Council trade association in 1994, “We are committed to the (plastic recycling) activities, but not to the results.”

According to Wills, “It’s clear they are committing fraud.” Although the CCI report does not allege that the companies violated specific laws, lawyer and co-author of the investigation Alyssa Johal suspects that they failed to comply with laws on public safety, organized criminal activities and consumer fraud. Can happen.

According to the report, the bad behavior of the sector continues even today. In recent years, lobby groups have promoted so-called chemical recycling, a process that breaks down polymers into smaller molecules to create new plastics, synthetic fuels and other items, at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional recycling techniques. Pollution consumes more energy.

According to the CCI report, the plastics industry has long known that even chemical recycling is not the right solution to plastic waste. At an industry meeting in 1994, Exxon Chemical vice president Erwin Levowitz said that the heavily used chemical recycling technique was a “fundamentally uneconomic process”.

In 2003 an experienced business consultant criticized the industry for promoting chemical recycling. “This is another example of how anti-science sentiment takes hold in the minds of industry and environmental activists,” he said. For CCI’s Davis Allen, “This is nothing more than another example, a new version, of the deception we have seen before.”

According to Seeholm, director of the Plastics Industry Association, the CCI report “was created by an activist, anti-recycling organization that ignores the sensational investments our industry has made in recycling technology.” “Unfortunately, they use outdated information and false claims to mislead the public about recycling,” he said, without specifying what those outdated or false claims were.

legal consequences

The report coincides with increasing scrutiny of the plastics and recycling industry. The Attorney General of California (USA), Rob Bonta, two years ago publicly launched an investigation against petrochemical and fuel producers “for their responsibility in creating and exacerbating the global plastic pollution crisis.”

In February 2023, a toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio inspired a movement to ban the carcinogen vinyl chloride used in plastics manufacturing. Last month, the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) announced it would re-conduct a health analysis of the chemical, a first step toward a possible ban.

In 2023, the state of New York filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo, alleging that its single-use plastics violate public safety laws and that the company misled consumers about the effectiveness of recycling.

Public opinion is becoming increasingly aware of the climate impact of the production and disposal of plastics: they represent 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, more than twenty cities and states have sued the oil industry for hiding the dangers of the climate crisis.

Wills believes that taking the oil and petrochemical industries to court for “deliberately misleading” the public could also force them to change their business model. “I think the first step to solving the problem is to hold companies accountable,” he said. According to Judith Enck, former EPA regional administrator and founder of the NGO Beyond Plastics, the CCI report is “very strong”. “Every attorney general across the country and the Federal Trade Commission should read the report,” he said.

Former Maryland state Attorney General Brian Frosh said the CCI report included the kind of evidence he typically does not expect until a case goes through the pre-trial process. “Based on what I have read in the CCI report, if I were the Attorney General, I would feel comfortable initiating an investigation and asking for a case to be filed,” he said.

Translation by Francisco de Zarate.