Can Plastic Recycling Ever Really Work?
Susan Shain | September 1, 2023 | The New York Times
Jan Dell is a collector. But instead of art or action figures, she collects what she calls “bad plastic containers.” She is a connoisseur and a completist: Her specimens include lids from oatmeal canisters, cups from fast-food joints, cleaners wrapped in shrink sleeves, and many, many Amazon mailers. Each carries the familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol; none, she believes, will ever be recycled.
Since 2018, when she gave up her career as a chemical engineer, Ms. Dell has run a one-woman nonprofit, the Last Beach Cleanup, from her home in the hills of Orange County. Her obsessive efforts to end what she calls “the recycling myth” have led to a legal settlement forcing Coca-Cola, Clorox and other companies to modify some of their recycling labels.
Ms. Dell also headed an advisory committee that pushed for a landmark truth-in-labeling law in California. Starting in the fall of 2025, that law will prohibit companies from placing recycling symbols on products that are not widely recycled in the state. Yogurt tubs could be among them. So could baby food pouches. And takeout containers. And coffee cup lids.
In many parts of the country, only plastic bottles and jugs stamped with a 1 or 2 — like those used for soda, milk and detergent —are reliably recycled. Much of the rest ends up in landfills or polluting the world’s waters and shores. The United Nations estimates that humans produce 400 million tons of plastic waste every year.
While accurate labeling may seem a paltry response to this onslaught, Ms. Dell argues that it is one of the most effective ways to curtail waste. More than a third of the world’s plastic is used for packaging. And many of the largest makers of consumer goods have promised their packaging will be 100 percent recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. Ms. Dell’s hope is that if companies have to acknowledge that they aren’t meeting those criteria, they will switch to more sustainable materials. “When they fully admit, oh, we’re selling plastic trash,” she said, “then that will motivate them to make changes.”
Many manufacturers, reluctant to give up the cheap, long-lasting and versatile material, see it differently. They argue that the focus should not be on what currently isn’t recycled, but instead on what could be recycled, if only enough money were devoted to educating consumers and expanding infrastructure.
So California’s labeling law is also shining a light on a bigger question: When it comes to sustainable packaging, what does progress look like — investing in making more plastic recyclable? Or investing in alternatives to plastic?
The great label debate
The now-familiar chasing arrows symbol proliferated in the late 1980s and early ’90s, when the plastics industry successfully lobbied nearly 40 states to require it on most plastic products. According to an investigation by NPR and “Frontline,” the industry knew most plastic would not be recycled. The industry says the numbers were solely meant to help recyclers sort different types of plastics, but the chasing arrows surrounding them became a de facto, if fallible, marker of recyclability to consumers.
In recent years, industry-funded initiatives have developed new kinds of labeling. How2Recycle, which is funded by membership fees from manufacturing giants like Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Target and Amazon, generates labels used by more than a third of the consumer packaged-goods industry. Those labels offer guidance on whether packaging is recyclable — and if it is, instructions on how to prepare it, like “rinse and replace lid.”
How2Recycle claims it is helping consumers recycle more effectively. But Ms. Dell and others suggest that some of the organization’s labels encourage people to believe certain plastics can be reprocessed when they can’t.
No material sets off this argument more than polypropylene, the plastic marked with a 5 and commonly used for yogurt tubs and margarine containers. Three years ago, How2Recycle downgraded its polypropylene label, telling consumers it wasn’t recycled in all communities. Then, last summer, it changed the label back to “widely recyclable.”
The decision to revert the designation came after the Recycling Partnership, another industry-funded group, gave $6.7 million to recycling facilities to expand their acceptance and sorting of polypropylene.The group now estimates that more than half of recycling facilities in the United States accept and sort the material.
Paul Nowak, the executive director of How2Recycle’s parent organization, sees this as a success story. “It shows the program is working because we downgraded it and then the industry got busy and started doing grants and building back up their system,” he said.
But Ms. Dell says that even if more facilities accept polypropylene, that doesn’t mean they are selling it for reprocessing and reuse; it is more likely going into a landfill or overseas. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that just 2.7 percent of polypropylene containers and packaging was reprocessed in 2018. The Recycling Partnership says its investment, which has now grown to $10.3 million, could eventually increase that amount by 42 million pounds per year, but that is still only about 1 percent of the polypropylene produced for containers and packaging in the United States.
While Keefe Harrison, chief executive of the Recycling Partnership, acknowledges that little polypropylene is being turned into new material right now, she argues that more investment in sorting and reprocessing facilities would improve the chances. Polypropylene recycling is at a “tipping point,” she said, noting that Oregon is considering including polypropylene on a forthcoming list of recyclable materials that municipalities are required to collect, sort and sell.
This more expansive, “if only” definition of recyclability is a common industry refrain. “Why say, because it can’t be recycled today, we should stop claiming it to be recyclable,” said Matt Seaholm, president and chief executive of the Plastics Industry Association, “when we actually can invest and improve the infrastructure to get to where it needs to be?”
Part of the debate is what it means to recycle. In a recent memo, the E.P.A. recommended that a material be marketed as recyclable only if it has a “strong end market,” meaning it’s sold at a price that’s higher than what it would cost to simply throw it away. The chasing arrows symbol, the agency said, “does not accurately represent recyclability, as many plastics (especially 3-7) do not have end markets and are not financially viable to recycle.” The agency did note, however, that a growing number of recycling facilities are accepting polypropylene.
Judith Enck, a former E.P.A. official and the founder of Beyond Plastics, notes that while recycling centers can accept all kinds of plastic, sorting the myriad types and then cleaning and refashioning each into new materials is a different matter. Contrary to the plastics industry’s claims, she argues that no amount of money could meaningfully expand plastic recycling beyond No. 1 and No. 2 bottles and jugs. “Plastic recycling only exists in the minds of public relations agencies that are promoting plastics,” she said.
