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This brief is co-created by leaders in HHN to provide background on the issue and strategic insight into the interventions available. You are welcome to use the information and resources provided here however they are useful for your work!
See the Taking Action section for important campaign resources, including a leader directory with contact information for key folks.
This is a work in progress and a growing resource- please contribute your comments, ideas and additional resources to the Toxic Plastic Breakdown Discussion Forum.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/info-alternate_pink.svg" alt="/icons/info-alternate_pink.svg" width="40px" /> Overview of toxic plastic breakdown AKA “chemical recycling”
So-called “chemical recycling”, also known as “advanced recycling,” “molecular recycling” and other similar phrases, are misleading umbrella terms coined by the plastics industry to promote facilities that are claiming to solve the plastic pollution crisis— but in reality they are greenwashing to allow the continued production of plastic.
What is really happening at “chemical recycling” facilities is toxic plastic breakdown of various kinds, using heat, pressure and/ or chemicals. Most of these toxic plastic breakdown facilities are producing dirty fuels, not recycling any plastic and creating additional air, water and land pollution.
Toxic plastic breakdown processes release hazardous pollutants, produce large quantities of hazardous waste, and the facilities are generally sited in communities that are disproportionately low-income, people of color, or both.
Toxic plastic breakdown processes have different names like pyrolysis, gasification, depolymerization, or other technical words, but what they all have in common is that they are fraught with technical challenges, health, environmental justice, ecological and economic concerns. Because of these uncertainties and the unproven nature of these technologies, scientists estimate that “chemical recycling” may be able to, at best, address approximately 3% of global plastic waste generated in 2040— making it far from the magic solution to plastic waste industry is trying to sell.
The information on this page applies to fossil-fuel based plastics, which is the vast majority (99%) of all plastics.
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This section has information about plastic that is important for understanding the rest of the sections on toxic plastic breakdown (”chemical recycling”).
99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels. The fossil fuel, chemical and plastics industries are closely linked. These industries are sometimes collectively referred to as the “petrochemical industry.”
As shown in the image below, plastics are made from fossil fuels. Individual chemical units called monomers are chemically linked together to form chemical chains, called polymers or plastic polymers. Some monomers are themselves toxic chemicals. Chemical additives, many of which are toxic chemicals, are mixed in with the polymer to give the plastic different properties like color and flexibility.