Plastic companies know the gaps in chemical recycling – but always sell it as a solution

For years, the story of the plastic industry on recycling has collapsed. Research And media surveys have revealed that it does not have an economic meaning and that petrochemical societies have used it more as public relations gambit than a serious effort to alleviate the crisis of plastic pollution. Conventional recycling has treated Only 9% of plastic waste worldwideLeaving the rest in discharge, cremated or littered.

Rather than reducing plastic production, which is made from fossil fuels, many companies have started to promote a more effective supposed solution: “advanced recycling”, also known as “chemical recycling”. These terms refer to several different processes that use heat and pressure to break plastic in its chemical construction blocks. These construction blocks can then, in theory, be transformed into new plastic products.

According to plastic and fossil fuel companies, advanced recycling is a new “breakthrough“Innovation that will allow a”circular economy“For plastics by making the material with infinite recyclable. It may assume that mixed post-consumption plastic while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts.” Thanks to advanced recycling technologies, it is possible to recycle more plastic than ever “, as Plastics Industry Association, a commercial group, said.

But the internal communications of these companies, as well as the analyzes and the declarations of experts, certain groups in the plastic industry provided for commercial publications, to paint a less optimistic image: the chemical recycling processes are more expensive and more difficult technologically than the advertisements of the industry make them appear. A new report From the non -profit center for climate integrity highlights the gap between fossil fuel and public and private declarations of plastic companies, suggesting that they have knowingly exceeded the effectiveness of chemical recycling.

“They claim that it is a solution and this is not the case, and they know it,” said Davis Allen, a main investigation researcher at the Center for Climate Integrity and author of the report.

Allen's report follows the research he published last year on the “Recycling of plastics fraudWhich mainly focused on conventional methods known as mechanical recycling. This new report draws documents accessible to the public to refute industry claims on chemical recycling, starting with the idea that it is new. Although companies and industry groups have repeatedly used terms such as “brand new” And “revolutionary“To describe chemical recycling, the technologies it encompasses First patented 70 years ago. In a first wave of excitement, industrial groups in the 1970s favored a technique called pyrolysis as a “more logical approach” to treat plastic waste compared to conventional recycling.

After a brief resurgence at the end of the 1980s and in the early 90s, this enthusiasm died at the end of the century while several chemical recycling companies were abandoned. According to the report, an employee of Exxon Chemical told staff at a 1994 industry conference that pyrolysis was a “fundamentally non -economic process”.

In 2016 about an explosion of public awareness of plastic pollution, industry groups have once again started to express chemical recycling, this time with aggressive targets for specific quantities of plastic that it would be supposed to treat. Chevron Phillips Chemical, for example, announced in 2023 that he would produce 1 billion pounds of polyethylene resin Made with a chemically recycled material each year by 2030.

However, as was the case ago decades ago, the media threshing of companies has obscured internal doubt on the feasibility of improving chemical recycling. The report cites analyzes of consulting firms – some of which are commanded by groups in the plastic industry or presented during industry conferences – concluding that chemical recycling is “Currently not economically possible” And inappropriate for sustainability objectives in 2025. In 2023, Bain & Company warned the industry that it should not rely on chemical recycling to achieve the 2030 sustainability objectives because it “will not be available on a large scale by the end of this decade. “Industry organizations such as the flexible Packaging Association said in 2020 This chemical recycling “will probably not be a major engine for recycling before the 2040 period”.

In a particularly striking expression of the gap between marketing and reality, Exxon Mobil has recognized earlier this year than since the start of operations three years ago, he had only succeeded in treating 70 million pounds of plastic waste In its chemical recycling facilities in Baytown, Texas. This means that over three years, the company has treated only 7% of 1 billion pounds He previously declared that he would be able to manage each year at the end of 2026.

Despite the affirmations that chemical recycling can deal with elements “difficult to recycle and not adapt to mechanical methods”, such as Crusty bags, engine oil bottlesAnd the layers, the initiates have recognized a more complicated situation: mixed plastic Presentation of contaminants which leads to lower yields, lower quality productsAnd additional expenses, according to recent reports from industrial groups, including the sustainable packaging coalition and the alliance to end plastic waste. In 2021, the president of the commercial group The association of plastic recycles Tell Plastics News The fact that plastic that is really transformed in chemical recycling factories “comes mainly from internal and post-industrial scrap, not something that has been in the world of consumers.”

The internal documents of Exxon Mobil, discovered in a revolutionary trial deposited last fall by the California prosecutor's office, show that the company has recognized internally that “all post-use plastics are not suitable for chemical recycling”.

Finally, the contrast report says that chemical recycling is “facilitator“Circularity or that it can”produce fully circular outputs»With the comments of analysts and industrial groups. Only a fraction of the plastic treated via chemical recycling technologies can actually be transformed into plastic – the rest is mainly transformed into fuel, which “does not help close the plastics loop“, As the consulting firm Roland Berger said in a 2022 report. An employee of the Basf chemical company said during a 2022 Interview with DW This chemical recycling would never create a “100% closed loop” because “you will always need to have fossil resources”.

Grist contacted 11 industrial groups and nine petrochemical companies mentioned in the report. The American Chemistry Council and Plastics Industry Association criticized the report as the work of an “activist” group and said it has distorted progress in chemical recycling technologies. The Plastics Industry Association said that the “fiction editors” of the Center for Climate Integrity should examine one of its public relations campaigns showing videos of people working in chemical recycling facilities. American fuel and petrochemical manufacturers have said that chemical recycling is necessary to manage the growing demand for plastic products, but that it should only be part of the strategy, as well as mechanical recycling, improved waste management and collection, and better product design to optimize recyclability and maximize reuse. “Two industrial groups – the association of plastic recyclers and the flexible Packaging Association – refused to comment.

Eastman Chemical did not directly deal with any of the statements made in the report, but said that its chemical recycling installation in Tennessee can treat more than 240 million pounds of polyester per year. The company said it was investing more than a billion dollars to provide chemical recycling in a second installation in Texas “in the coming years”. Exxon Mobil has said that chemical recycling technology “makes sense” and that it invests more than $ 200 million to extend it to the United States and Europe. Six of the other companies did not respond and Lyondellbasell referred to Grist to the American Chemistry Council.

Only the National Recycling Coalition seemed to agree, at least in part, with the report of the Center for Climate Integrity. The executive director of the organization, Charles Kamenides, said that the processes that convert plastics into fuels, gas, oils or waxes do not respond to its definition of recycling. The chemical recycling facilities have engaged in these processes, he said, “do not reduce plastic pollution” and “harm humans”. He declared that his organization “supports a hierarchy of waste management preferences which prioritizes the reduction in production and consumption of plastics”.

Andrew Rollinson, an independent consultant in chemical engineering not affiliated with the Center for Climate Integrity, agrees with the entire report: chemical recycling “is certainly fraud,” he said. “He has not gone nowhere for 50 years, he will not go anywhere in 50 years, and he will not go anywhere in 500 years.” He said that a follow -up report could expand some of the technical reasons for these bad prospects, such as he described as a very high energy consumption of chemical recycling and contamination problems.

Allen said he hoped that the report would become a resource for organizations brought against prosecution against fossil fuels and plastic societies. Many proceedings have already been filed – including the case of California against Exxon Mobil – but so far, most have focused on plastic pollution and the misleading promotion of the mechanical recycling industry.

“The vast majority of information on advanced recycling is produced by the industry itself,” said Allen. “We hope that when we zero in the specific affirmations that are made, it then provides a context to understand if these affirmations are true.”