America Moves Forward

In the lead-up to the United Nations Environment Assembly’s fifth session (UNEA-5), Greenpeace campaigners and our allies in the growing Break Free From Plastic movement advocated for world governments to begin negotiations on a legally binding agreement to address marine plastic pollution.

The flow of plastics into our environment has reached crisis proportions, and the evidence is most clearly on display in our oceans. It is estimated that up to 12 million metric tons of plastic enter our oceans each year. Our planet can no longer tolerate a culture of throw-away plastics. Single-use plastics are filling up our landfills, choking our rivers, and contaminating our oceans.

Over 90% of plastics are not recycled—recycling alone is simply never going to solve the pollution problem.

A legally binding global plastics treaty should include agreements on environmental monitoring of the presence of plastic pollution, plastic pollution prevention measures, coordination and alignment with existing international conventions and agreements on plastic pollution, and technical and financial support for developing countries that will need assistance to take the actions agreed upon.

A comprehensive study by the UN Environmental Assembly concluded that “[n]o global agreement exists to specifically prevent marine plastic litter and microplastics or provide a comprehensive approach to managing the lifecycle of plastics.” With a strong international agreement we can bridge the gap in existing Conventions addressing different aspects of marine plastic pollution.

Despite decades of deceptive industry marketing, we know we can’t recycle our way out of the plastics pollution crisis. But the companies making and selling plastics—and their trade association surrogate, the American Chemistry Council—aren’t giving up. Instead, they’re doubling down to mislead investors, governments, and the public into believing we can. And they’re using the fantasy of chemical recycling to do it.

A Greenpeace USA report, Deception by the Numbers, examined 52 projects touted by the American Chemistry Council as “chemical” or “advanced” recycling, finding that many are either not viable or misleadingly promoted as recycling when they largely produce fuels and waxes. The report concludes that “chemical recycling” is not a solution to the plastics pollution crisis, but rather a bait-and-switch PR tactic meant to create the illusion of progress by industry.

Chemical and advanced recycling are vague terms that can refer to a number of technologies, many of which remain in the lab or pilot phases. These technologies promise to convert plastic waste into plastic’s chemical building blocks to generate “like-new” material. These technologies encompass two general categories—plastic/waste-to-fuel and plastic-to-plastic. The industry has worked to conflate these terms and group them under the umbrella of recycling.

Greenpeace’s report concludes that one third of the total projects touted by the American Chemistry Council are not likely to be viable and that none of the plastic-to-plastic projects show promise of becoming viable. Despite the fact that these projects have not proven viable, consumer goods companies have promoted them through their corporate responsibility materials and circular economy commitments. Companies like Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Danone, and Procter & Gamble have invested in or agreed to purchase material from these technologies.

The American Chemistry Council, the plastics industry, and the consumer goods sector need to stop hiding behind the fantasy of chemical recycling. Turning plastics into even more unneeded fuel is a bad investment and certainly should not be considered recycling. Many of the projects the industry promotes as chemical recycling are not even viable and are meant to give a false sense of progress on the pollution crisis.

Read Greenpeace’s complete analysis of the chemical and advanced recycling projects.