The plastics industry is pushing to burn, pollute and waste more

The plastic pollution crisis is almost too massive to imagine. Between the moment you wake up today and the time you go to bed, Americans will throw away enough plastic to fill the Dallas Cowboys stadium — the country’s largest football stadium — to the brim.

Less than 10% of the plastic produced worldwide is ever recycled. About half of all plastic is used just once and then thrown away. It’s clear that we need to stop using so much plastic, and find better ways to dispose of the plastic we do use. 

We have made some progress to confront the crisis. Today, 1 in 3 Americans live in a state that has adopted policies to ban or drastically reduce one or more of the worst types of single use plastics. But we still have a long way to go.

A new bill, the “Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act,” claims it will revolutionize recycling and prevent waste. But the truth is that this bill is anything but circular—it takes us backwards on fixing our plastic waste problems.

If passed, this bill will only lead to more plastic getting incinerated and more pollution. It won’t get us any closer to a healthier, more sustainable future – and we need to stop it.

This bill will promote new, uncontrolled plastic waste burning all over the country

This sleight of hand is a particular favorite of the plastics industry. They will burn waste plastic, releasing harmful pollutants into the atmosphere, and call it a form of “recycling.”

But burning plastic simply isn’t recycling, and it’s not good for us or the environment. Only 1% to 14% of the plastic material sent to “chemical recycling” or “advanced recycling” plants is actually recycled into new products. Instead, plastic sent to these facilities is almost always being burned up for energy and fuel. 

“Advanced recycling” – burning plastic for fuel or to reclaim its tiny component parts – is not only less efficient and less effective than traditional recycling. It can also be up to 100 times worse for the environment than the manufacturing of brand-new virgin plastic.

No matter what you call it, burning plastic releases harmful substances into the air we breathe. Burning plastic can release nearly 100 different types of dangerous air pollutants, as well as hazardous solid and toxic waste, including carcinogens.

How will the “Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act” lead to more burning plastic and more pollution?

The bill will carve out dangerous exceptions to existing law so that plastics incinerators can operate without meeting the environmental and health protection standards set by the Clean Air Act and other protective laws.

The text of this bill legislates that “advanced recycling” – which includes burning plastics – “shall not be considered incineration of plastics or municipal waste combustion.”

But just calling it something else doesn’t change the fact that burning plastic releases pollution.

Companies will be allowed to claim their packaging contains recycled plastic when it really doesn’t

Another trick this bill pulls is to redefine how companies are allowed to define “recycled content” in their products.

Many of us look for products made with recycled materials at the store out of a desire to use less virgin plastic and be more sustainable. But this legislation will allow companies to claim their packaging contains recycled plastic content when in reality it may have little or no such recycled content.

It’s called “mass balance certification.” Essentially, this is an accounting gimmick. It is a system that will allow the plastic fed into an “advanced recycling” system to be attributed to several products of that system further down the line.

The result will be that products that don’t actually contain any appreciable amount of reused plastic can be legally labeled as “recycled.”

When a piece of plastic is burned in the “advanced recycling” process, it’s broken down into several different types of molecules and chemicals. These different types of outputs are used to create different types of things: some flexible plastic, some sturdy plastic, and some products (like paint or fuel) that aren’t plastic at all.

Under “mass balancing,” the “recycled” content from the originally burned plastic can be shuffled from one output product to the other, as long as no individual unit of recycled material gets counted twice. Say the flexible plastic, the sturdy plastic, and the fuel are all made from just 10% recycled material. The sturdy plastic could be labeled “30% recycled,” as long as the flexible plastic and the fuel don’t get a “recycled” label at all – despite the fact that the physical makeup of the products has not changed. 

This bill will prevent cities and states from protecting their residents from plastic pollution

National action is important to the fight against plastic pollution, but individual states and cities are also vital.

States are making real progress toward building a plastic-free future: One-third of the U.S. population now lives in a state that has bans on one or more types of the worst single-use plastics. But if this bill passes, this invaluable avenue for progress will be cut off.

The “Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act” prevents cities and states from protecting their residents from plastic incinerator pollution. The Clean Air Act is a vital environmental law that has helped clean up our skies and make our air safe to breathe for decades, but the bill exempts pyrolysis and gasification facilities from the Clean Air Act.

The bill also overturns existing state and local laws addressing the plastic crisis, including restrictions on single use plastics, polystyrene and other packaging. Plus, this bill will prevent any new state and local laws addressing the plastic crisis from going into place.

Cities and states need the power to restrict dangerous plastic pollution to protect their residents. We can’t allow this bill to take that power away.

Take action to stop this bad bill and promote real solutions to our plastic pollution crisis

In the end, this bill is simply bad news. It will make it the law of the land that incinerators are not incinerators, that the waste plastic they burn is not waste, and that the toxic pollution released during plastic waste incineration are exempt from incinerator standards.

But together, we can stop it from becoming law.

Ask your U.S. House representative to oppose the Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act of 2024.