Oct 31, 2023 – Beyond Plastics and IPEN (the International Pollutants Elimination Network) — two leading organizations committed to addressing plastic pollution — released “Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception,” a critical examination of the technology’s long history of failure and the threats it poses to the environment, human health, and environmental justice.Chemical recycling, or what the plastics industry often calls “advanced recycling,” refers to a set of technologies and processes that attempt to melt and boil waste plastics down to gasses, chemicals, oils, tars, and waxes, and inevitably creates toxic substances. It is rarely successful in turning old plastic into new plastic. While industry promotes chemical recycling as the solution to the plastics crisis, the report notes that only 11 chemical recycling facilities are constructed in the U.S., and combined they process just a tiny fraction of the nation’s plastic waste, mostly into fuels. More DETAILS.
