Take Heart, Clay Recyclers, Environmental Group Says Most Plastics Never Reused
Download Report 'Fraud of Plastic Recycling 2024'
If you are among the estimated 30 percent of the Clay County households experiencing angst at the phase-out of recycling, you should take some comfort in a just released report that says—as far as plastics are concerned—recycling has been nonsense all along.
The Center for Climate Integrity this month issued a 68-page white paper, which concludes, “The majority of plastics cannot be recycled—they never have been and never will be."
The fact that the group is a left-of-center organization might surprise, as it is widely considered that recycling was a hippie-dippy initiative that survived and grew after the 1960’s and ’70s because it not only “saved the planet” but somehow made economic sense, too.
The Center for Climate Integrity alleges that the viability of plastics recycling was a fraud perpertrated by the petro-chemical industry back in the 1980s, when plastics producers were facing a real possibility that government might severely restrict disposable plastic products.
In fact the report anticipated Clay County’s decision to abandon curbside collection as part as a nationwide trend:
If not for the Big Oil and the plastic industry’s lies and deception, municipalities and states would not have invested in plastic recycling programs and facilities—many of which have been shut down due to foreseeable economic losses.
Here are five main points in the report, titled “Fraud of Plastic Recycling 2024,” which can be downloaded below:
Certain types of plastics have no end markets.
The thousands of different plastics and the variation among them further limit recyclability.
The quality of plastic degrades as it is recycled, limiting both the use of recycled plastic and its continued recyclability.
The toxicity of plastic and its chemical additives limits the recyclability of plastic.
The cost of producing recycled plastic is much higher than producing virgin plastic, and therefore plastic recycling is not economically viable. The recycling process—from collection to sorting to processing to transport—requires more time, labor and equipment to achieve a lower quality and less efficient output than the process of making virgin resin from fossil fuels.
The American Chemical Council, representing the industry under attack, issued a rebuttal, characterizing the report as flawed:
Unfortunately, this flawed report cites outdated, decades-old technologies, and works against our goals to be more sustainable by mischaracterizing the industry and the state of today's recycling technologies. This undermines the essential benefits of plastics and the important work underway to improve the way plastics are used and reused to meet society's needs.
