Plastics Companies Still Pimping "Advanced Recycling" Though It Has Never Scaled Or Made Economic Sense

[hatrack]

Plastic producers have pushed “advanced recycling” as a salve to the plastic waste crisis despite knowing for years that it is not a technically or economically feasible solution, a new report argues. Advanced recycling, also known as chemical recycling, refers to a variety of processes used to break plastics into their constituent molecules. The industry has increasingly promoted these technologies, as public concern about the environmental and health effects of plastic pollution has grown. Yet the rollout of these technologies has been plagued by problems, according to a new analysis from the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group.

“The companies make it sound like it’s pretty great, like it’s something we should pursue,” said Davis Allen, investigative researcher at the CCI and author of the report. “But they know the problems, the limitations.” The new analysis follows a 2024 CCI report which alleged that plastic producers concealed the problems with traditional recycling, and argued that they could face legal ramifications for doing so. That earlier research was cited in a September lawsuit filed by California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, against ExxonMobil for its role in the plastic pollution crisis. “The new report focuses on this modern deception with advanced recycling, which has become a real focus for the industry in recent years,” said Davis.

Companies have depicted advanced recycling as groundbreaking and new. A 2020 video from Chevron Phillips, a joint venture between Chevron and Phillips 66, calls it a “revolutionary innovation that can turn a piece of plastic into a new material again and again and again”. Three years later, ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, called the technology “brand new” in an interview, the report notes.

The air of newness has been echoed by publications and politicians. However, though there have been some new technological innovations, chemical recycling processes were patented as early as the 1950s, and have been touted as a solution to plastic waste by trade groups since the 1970s. Back in 1977, for instance, a brochure from the Society of the Plastics Industry trade group claimed that the most common form of advanced recycling, pyrolysis, would allow plastic waste to be “recycled into feedstocks that can be used again to make new plastics”, the report notes.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/06/plastic-advanced-recycling-report

[NNadir]

1. We have the "air of newness" about many things.

There is of course the tiresome hydrogen bullshit advertised here with stupid "firsts" and of course the reactionary well funded but useless dependence of energy from the sun, dependence for energy on the weather.

Steam reforming of carbonaceous matter has been known for well over a century. No, it's not "new." The economics and environmental impact depend on the cleanliness and cost of energy. I happen to think it's an avenue worthy of pursuing in order to construct a closed carbon cycle.

It's certainly not ready for prime time, but I am often impressed by papers I read on the subject, and try to find time to discuss them with my son, who is on the frontiers of clean energy engineering.