The plastics industry has long touted the concept of plastic recycling, but according to a new report from The Atlantic, the process is inefficient and may never work as intended.
The report starts by revealing how the United States currently only has a recycling rate of around 5% for post-consumer plastic waste, a significant drop from the 9.5% rate seen in 2014.
One of the main challenges of plastic recycling is the fact that there are thousands of different types of plastic, each with its own unique composition and characteristics. “They all include different chemical additives and colorants that cannot be recycled together, making it impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of plastics into separate types for processing,” according to the report. This means that plastic must be separated into specific types for recycling, a process that can be time-consuming and costly.
“For example, polyethylene terephthalate (PET#1) bottles cannot be recycled with PET#1 clamshells, which are a different PET#1 material, and green PET#1 bottles cannot be recycled with clear PET#1 bottles (which is why South Korea has outlawed colored PET#1 bottles),” the report states. “High-density polyethylene (HDPE#2), polyvinyl chloride (PVC#3), low-density polyethylene (LDPE#4), polypropylene (PP#5), and polystyrene (PS#6) all must be separated for recycling.”
In addition to the difficulties of sorting plastic, the reprocessing of plastic waste is often wasteful and can even be harmful to the environment. Plastic is flammable and the risk of fires at plastic recycling facilities can pose a danger to neighboring communities, many of which are low-income or predominantly made up of people of color. The Canadian government has also published a report stating that the toxicity risks in recycled plastic prohibit “the vast majority of plastic products and packaging produced” from being recycled into food-grade packaging.
Furthermore, plastic recycling is not a financially viable option. The cost of collecting, sorting, transporting, and reprocessing plastic waste is high, and recycled plastic often costs more than new plastic. According to the report, this is partly due to the rapid expansion of the petrochemical industry, which drives down the price of new plastic.
Despite these challenges, the plastics industry has continued to promote the myth that plastic is recyclable. In 2018, Dow Chemical claimed that its Renewlogy chemical-recycling plant in Salt Lake City was able to turn mixed plastic waste from Boise, Idaho households into diesel fuel through the “Hefty EnergyBag” program. However, a Reuters investigation later revealed that the different types of plastic waste had contaminated the pyrolysis process, and Boise ended up burning its mixed plastic waste in cement kilns, the Atlantic points out.
