PLASTICS:  Taking a page from George Orwell, the U.S. EPA is actually encouraging big companies to turn waste plastics into fossil fuels to be burned through it's Renewable Fuel Standard program. But there's absolutely nothing "renewable" about using plastics as fuel.

Please click here now to add your name to Beyond Plastics' petition calling on the EPA to stop supporting "chemical recycling" and other false solutions to our plastic pollution crisis.

 

 "Chemical recycling" is a polluting false solution to our plastic pollution crisis that's being aggressively promoted by Big Plastic to enable the industry to continue to produce massive amounts of plastics (and profits).

"Chemical recycling" (also called “advanced recycling”, "molecular recycling", "waste to fuel", gasification, or pyrolysis) refers to a suite of processes that use high heat, chemicals or pressure to turn plastic waste into fossil fuels and other feedstocks that are most often burned.

It's got a lot of names but no matter what you call it, making fuel from plastic is worse in many ways for the climate, our environment, and human health than simply burning fossil fuels.

If you'd like to learn more about this troubling trend at the EPA, I highly recommend reading this eye-opening ProPublica expose on the health and environmental hazards of so-called "chemical recycling". 

So-called "chemical recycling" is highly problematic because it creates toxic emissions and end products, typically uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases than conventional recycling or even virgin plastic production, it requires huge investments of money and has not yet been proven viable at scale, and it relies on non-existent clean streams of used plastic to work even though the lack of clean used plastics is already a major stumbling block to conventional plastics recycling.

In addition to all of these critical issues, "chemical recycling" does nothing to turn off the plastic tap and would not reduce the demand for virgin plastics. We can't afford to waste time and money investing in this false solution at the expense of enacting effective, true solutions to the plastic pollution crisis.

I hope you will join us in urging the EPA to stop supporting "chemical recycling" projects through its Renewable Fuel Standard Program and urge the agency to support solutions to our plastic pollution crisis that actually work and are readily available right now, such as eliminating plastic packaging and advancing reuse and refill systems.

Please add your name here then forward this email to your family and friends and urge them to join you in calling on the EPA to change course.

Thank you so much for your help.

Cheers,

Judith Enck
President, Beyond Plastics
Former U.S. EPA Regional Administrator