Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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When oil and gas companies first launched their campaign to promote recycling to the American public, they pitched the process as a viable and sustainable solution to the plastic pollution problem. More than three decades later, however, the vast majority of plastic waste still ends up incinerated or dumped, less than one-tenth is recycled, and microplastics have been found virtually everywhere on Earth, including the human bloodstream.
✏️ The myth and propaganda of individual recycling efforts of the past few decades 🔗 View Highlight
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The petrochemical industry is now pivoting to another solution: “advanced” recycling. The term, also known as chemical recycling, is used to describe a variety of approaches that can supposedly turn even the most hard-to-recycle plastics into “sustainable” fuels or oils and chemicals that can be used in new plastic production.
✏️ The new propaganda.. advanced tech and buzz words 🔗 View Highlight
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a new, 159-page report, released today by Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network, or IPEN, casts serious doubt on the technology’s ability to make even a modest dent
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“The science and data currently available do not support this claim and actually point to the conclusion that chemical recycling would support expansion of plastic production, while potentially causing unacceptable levels of environmental and social harm — as well as impacts on human health — through emissions, waste generation, energy consumption, and contaminated outputs,” the report’s authors write.
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collectively, the 11 facilities have the stated ability to process less than 1.3 percent of America’s annual plastic waste. Additionally, it was unclear if many of the facilities were even operating at their maximum stated capacity.
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“There’s no requirement for public disclosure.”
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The lack of transparency surrounding chemical recycling facilities is especially concerning given the fact that five of the 11 plants have received public subsidies in the form of federal grants, state tax abatements, low-interest green bonds, or government loan guarantees. The Brightmark Energy facility in Ashley, Indiana, for example, has received 185 million in tax-free bonds, according to the report’s findings. However, the plant is still operating in a test phase at one-fiftieth of its publicized capacity, four years after breaking ground.
✏️ Public funds with little regulation or monitoring it seems. What’s the point of spending money on these things if it’s not going to be properly tracked and held accountable? 🔗 View Highlight
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When they’re being held to account to actually prove that they’re viable, in this case with Brightmark, it just didn’t work.”
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“I would hope that any public official is doing their due diligence on whether or not they should be using public resources to finance these things. They should actually look into the viability and the pollution before making their choice, and I think the math doesn’t work out.”
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Future projects may benefit from a recent spate of state-level laws that have lessened the regulatory burden on so-called advanced recycling. The bills reclassify chemical recycling as manufacturing, which faces less stringent environmental guidelines. The American Chemistry Council, the country’s largest petrochemical industry group, has supported the bills with a lobbying push, claiming that solid waste facility permits are often inapplicable to chemical recycling and the change would simply regulate the facilities more accurately.
✏️ As I guessed at earlier.. weaker regulations just to cut corners and not be monitored. 🔗 View Highlight
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“There’s an enormous amount of industry-driven hype around chemical recycling and the main reason for that is they don’t want to see legislation at the state or federal level that restricts the production of plastic,”
✏️ The actual science and position of people is that we have to cut production of plastic. The industry knows that, and doesn’t want that.. so it comes up with hype about new recycling methods that don’t work, in order to distract and curb any interest in cutting production/profits. The agenda is what matters. Follow the money as always. 🔗 View Highlight
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At the 2023 Basel Convention, the leading international decision-making body on the movement and disposal of hazardous waste, delegates rejected the inclusion of chemical recycling in global guidance on plastic waste management. “During the extended negotiations on the matter, over 50 countries objected to the inclusion of chemical recycling in the guidelines on the basis that there was no available independent data to demonstrate that chemical recycling constituted environmentally sound management of plastic waste,” states the Beyond Plastics report. “Despite 50 years of operation of these technologies, no empirical data was presented to demonstrate they met criteria for environmentally sound management.”
✏️ 50 countries know this is bullshit and are rejecting it. 🔗 View Highlight
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many chemical recycling facilities are permitted to release hazardous air pollutants and “chemicals known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects like birth defects.”
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The authors conducted a 5-mile analysis around each of the 11 plants using the EPA’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, which found that “eight of the plants are located in areas with lower-than-average levels of income, compared to either state or national averages; and seven have higher-than-average concentrations of people of color than the rest of the state and country.”
✏️ Environmental colonialism in action again. Applying dubious and toxic industries to the poorer areas. 🔗 View Highlight