Challenging Big Oil’s Big Lie About Plastic Recycling
Melissa Valliant Melissa Valliant

Challenging Big Oil’s Big Lie About Plastic Recycling

This is a historic moment in the fight against plastic pollution, a crisis that has been created by companies that have known recycling was not possible for most plastics. While others have filed important suits against consumer brand companies for their pollution, like New York attorney general Letitia James’ lawsuit against PepsiCo, Bonta’s suit is the first to target a company for lying about plastic recycling’s efficacy.

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ExxonMobil Accused of “Deceptively” Promoting Chemical Recycling as a Solution for the Plastics Crisis
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

ExxonMobil Accused of “Deceptively” Promoting Chemical Recycling as a Solution for the Plastics Crisis

In a landmark lawsuit filed this week, the California attorney general accused ExxonMobil of “deceptively” promoting chemical recycling as a solution for the plastics crisis, citing ProPublica’s recent reporting and expanding on our findings. In June, we examined the oil giant’s claim that it had transformed discarded plastic into new fruit cups through an “advanced” chemical recycling technology called pyrolysis.

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Plastics producers are following Big Tobacco’s playbook, and we’re all paying the price 
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Plastics producers are following Big Tobacco’s playbook, and we’re all paying the price 

Let’s not fall for another false solution offered by companies to maintain their profit margins. Let’s not allow chemical recycling to win with the same deceptive playbook used by Big Tobacco. We need real change now — and it can’t begin until companies are required by new laws to break their plastic habit and give consumers safe packaged products that don’t threaten the health of people or the planet.

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After Overshadowing Climate Talks, the Myth of ‘Circularity’ Looms Over the UN Plastics Treaty
Eve Fox Eve Fox

After Overshadowing Climate Talks, the Myth of ‘Circularity’ Looms Over the UN Plastics Treaty

Delegates from 191 countries meet once again this month for the UN plastics treaty talks in Ottawa, and they need to avoid falling into industry traps that will hinder real progress. Dow chair and CEO Jim Fitterling’s recent Commentary in Fortune is a perfect example of how to ensure failure in Ottawa. If delegates commit to the priorities he outlined, they will fail to implement real solutions to the growing problem caused by his company and companies like it.

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A Breakthrough in Plastic Recycling Is Coming Up Short
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

A Breakthrough in Plastic Recycling Is Coming Up Short

To get there, these companies and others are promoting a new generation of recycling plants, called “advanced” or “chemical” recycling, that promise to recycle many more products than can be recycled today. So far, advanced recycling is struggling to deliver on its promise. Nevertheless, the new technology is being hailed by the plastics industry as a solution to an exploding global waste problem.

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Plastics Punch
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Plastics Punch

Beyond Plastics President Judith Enck, who served as an EPA regional administrator during the Obama administration, says the problem is that unlike materials such as paper, glass and aluminum, plastics have never been recycled at a rate higher than 10 percent in the U.S. “They need to change their marketing to say that recycling is real except for plastics,” said Enck, whose organization wants to block new plastic manufacturing and plastic-burning facilities.

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Chemical Recycling “A Dangerous Deception” for Solving Plastic Pollution: Report
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Chemical Recycling “A Dangerous Deception” for Solving Plastic Pollution: Report

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).

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New Report Calls Out Chemical Recycling as a ‘False Solution’ to the Plastics Crisis
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

New Report Calls Out Chemical Recycling as a ‘False Solution’ to the Plastics Crisis

The plastics and petrochemical industries’ latest purported solution to the plastic pollution crisis – chemical or “advanced” recycling – is essentially a public relations and marketing strategy designed to distract from the urgent need to curb plastic production, a new report contends. The report, released today by Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), exposes the failures and perils of chemical recycling as an approach to manage plastic waste.

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Unproven “Advanced Recycling” Facilities Have Received Millions in Public Subsidies
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Unproven “Advanced Recycling” Facilities Have Received Millions in Public Subsidies

A new, 159-page report, released today by Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network, or IPEN, casts serious doubt on the technology’s ability to make even a modest dent on the world’s growing plastic burden. In the most comprehensive report on chemical recycling facilities in the U.S. to date, researchers looked at the operations of 11 companies across the country to examine the plastic industry’s claim that chemical recycling can significantly help reduce global plastic pollution.

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Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

The Risks of 'Chemical Recycling'

So-called ‘chemical recycling’ of plastics is a highly inefficient process that releases large amounts of carbon emissions and hazardous pollutants. James Bruggers reports for Inside Climate News and joined Host Steve Curwood to discuss the health and safety problems he’s been covering at the Brightmark chemical recycling plant in Indiana.

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Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Inside Indiana’s ‘Advanced’ Plastics Recycling Plant: Dangerous Vapors, Oil Spills and Life-Threatening Fires 

The plastics industry champions the process as something that makes plastics sustainable, even green, by turning old plastic containers, packaging and the like into new plastic products without the need to extract more fossil fuels to create new plastic feedstocks. But many scientists and environmentalists say pyrolysis is anything but sustainable, describing it as energy-intensive manufacturing with a large carbon footprint that incinerates much of the plastic waste and mostly just makes new fossil fuels.

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Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Why Big Oil and the Chemical Lobby Are Blasting Us With “Advanced” Recycling Ads

The disturbing reports on plastic pollution just keep coming: toxic plastic waste is filling up our oceans, our landfills, and even our bodies. But if you’ve seen a recent surge of ads from the companies that produce this garbage, you might be forgiven for thinking they’re working on solutions to the problem. “America’s Plastic Makers” is the brand promoting a slew of ads about a new “solution” to plastic pollution that experts and evidence say creates new climate and environmental harms, and doesn’t actually work. It’s called “advanced” or chemical recycling, and refers to various processes for repurposing plastic waste.

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Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Groups Rally Against Chemical Recycling in New Mexico

Over 70 organizations and businesses signed a letter to New Mexico’s governor last week, asking her not to classify chemical recycling as recycling. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a democrat, attended the opening of a PlastikGas demonstration facility in Los Lunas, N.M. last year, which is driving the letter writers’ concerns.

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Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Senators Press Industry on Plastic Waste Impacts

During a two-hour hearing, U.S. senators questioned industry experts about chemicals in plastics, marine plastic pollution and extended producer responsibility. The Dec. 15 hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works’ Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management, Environmental Justice and Regulatory Oversight brought four panelists together to answer questions from legislators.

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