A better solution for our plastics problem: Use less of it
The world is faced with evergrowing volumes of plastics that litter our streets, parks and oceans. But building new industrial plants in efforts to “chemically recycle” such plastics is not the answer.
According to the international nonprofit Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the worldwide production of plastics has doubled over the past two decades — and roughly 40 percent of these plastics are packaging and other single-use items. Plastic waste is everywhere — on our streets, in our parks, in our waterways, and around the globe. Microplastic particles are found in human blood and organs, in the air, in fish and in other marine species.
We’ve got to stop this plastic onslaught.
Traditional, or mechanical, recycling is part of the answer. As is currently practiced around the nation, plastics like soda bottles or detergent containers are sent to recycling centers, sorted by type, cleaned, shredded and processed into plastic pellets used to generate new products.
On the other hand, “advanced recycling,” also called “chemical recycling,” is a euphemism coined by the plastics industry to describe two processes that are different from traditional recycling — processes of converting plastics to fuel or to chemical components. Both are fraught with health, environmental,
social and economic concerns, as is documented in NRDC’S recent report.
Commercial-scale industrial facilities that would be needed in New York to successfully implement “advanced recycling” don’t even exist here.
As a recent National Academies of Sciences report found:
“Chemical recycling processes that strive toward material circularity … are in early research and development stages. Such processes remain unproven to handle the current plastics waste stream and existing high-production plastics.”
A July 2021 Reuters investigation of “advanced recycling” uncovered similar concerns.
Another concern is: If new chemical recycling facilities were ultimately constructed throughout New York to somehow handle millions of tons of plastic detritus, where would they be sited?
History tells us that they would be placed in Black and brown neighborhoods, adding to pollution burdens in communities that already suffer from more than their fair share of environmentally undesirable facilities.
Plastics are manufactured from fossil fuels. And the use of fossil fuels to power motor vehicles is expected to plummet over the next 15 years, as cars, trucks and buses shift to electric propulsion.
As a result, the oil and gas industry is viewing plastics production as the next big thing and an increasingly important profit center. Industry experts are forecasting that plastics production will double again over the next two decades.
Rather than pass legislation to facilitate advanced recycling, as Assemblywoman Alicia Hyndman proposes, the best approach to New York’s plastics waste crisis is to produce less of it in the first place. This has been state policy going back to the 1988 Solid Waste Management Act. In that statute, the Legislature set forth its governing solid waste hierarchy, prioritizing waste prevention and reuse over recycling, incineration and landfilling.
If we want to combat the climate crisis, we’re going to have to curb the continued extraction and production of fossil fuels. That means cutting back on the amount of plastic packaging and other throw-away products we produce and discard.
To do so will require Albany to stand up to the American Chemistry Council and its industry allies. They’re spending big money on high-priced lobbyists and campaign contributions to persuade state legislatures around the country to embrace their self-serving interests.
Here’s hoping that New York’s elected officials won’t want to advance policies that give the oil and gas industry a helping hand to continue their climate-destroying extraction of fossil fuels.