A new report from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) pushes back on growing discussions around “chemical recycling” or processing strategies supported by the plastics industry. Entitled “All Talk and No Recycling: An Investigation of the U.S. ‘Chemical Recycling’ Industry,” the report states the U.S. chemical recycling sector largely consists of plastic-to-fuel (PTF) operations rather than plastic-to-plastic (PTP) efforts.
Some recycling stakeholders — including plastics groups — have cited chemical recycling as a key effort meant to operate in tandem with traditional mechanical recycling. Environmental groups and some nonprofit recyclers, however, said the practice harms human health and the environment. The facilities have also been slow to come to fruition and fulfill their promises, according to critics. In the report, GAIA found 37 chemical recycling facilities have been proposed since the early 2000s, according to publicly available information. Twelve of the proposed projects aim to break down or purify plastic feedstock using solvent or catalysts, but they largely remain in the early development stage (either announcement or pilot), according to GAIA.
Of the remaining facilities, GAIA said only three are operational and all are focused on pyrolysis and gasification PTF processes. Two are explicitly PTF operations — Brightmark’s facility in Ashley, Indiana, and New Hope Energy’s facility in Tyler, Texas. Agilyx’s facility in Tigard, Oregon, is the third; that operation has been cited as a PTP facility, but GAIA’s case study states the majority of its output is sent for combustion in cement kilns, including over 49,000 tons of styrene material in 2018.
Source: Waste Dive
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