Imagine truckload upon truckload of plastic waste being shoveled into a fire, burned because we have nowhere else to put it. Acrid smoke rises from the scorched trash, releasing a host of nasty chemicals.    “Chemical recycling” is just burning plastic. Would you call that recycling? Because the petrochemical and plastics industries would. Industry players want to label the process of incinerating plastic as […]

Fossil fuel companies are touting a new solution to the plastic waste crisis: so-called “chemical recycling.”1     The term “chemical recycling” is highly misleading. Chemical recycling doesn’t turn used plastic into new products, but instead turns plastic waste into oil and gas to be burned. In the process, greenhouse gases and toxic pollution are released into the atmosphere.2 Solutions to plastic pollution shouldn’t create […]