Dear Congress, Please Reject Burning Plastic

This week Maryland PIRG joined 200 groups who signed a letter co-written by the NRDC, Earthjustice, and Moms Clean Air force asking Congress to reject legislation supported by the American Chemistry Council that would classify plastic incinerators as “Advanced Recycling.”

The chemical industry’s slickly branded “advanced recycling” or “chemical recycling” is pretty simple: stripping plastic back to it’s petrochemical base and then burning it like any fossil fuel. It’s bad for the environment and public health and antithetical to our goals of stopping global warming and moving towards zero-waste. In 2021 Maryland became the first state in the country to propose a stop this technology from coming to our state.