“A broken record”: Beyond Plastics disputes PLASTICS’ campaign to promote recycling

19 Sep 2023 --- The Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) has launched an advocacy campaign called “Recycling Is Real,” defending plastics recycling. But, Beyond Plastics has countered this campaign, saying that plastic recycling is a system that has “failed for 50 years.”

A study from Beyond Plastics documents a 5-6% recycling rate for post-consumer plastic waste in the US in 2021. It also reveals that plastic recycling is declining, and the per capita generation of plastic waste has increased by 263% since 1980. 

Beyond Plastics says that 94% of plastic not recycled is disposed of in landfills, burned in incinerators, or pollutes oceans, waterways and landscapes after a single use.

“The main reason recycling rates are so low (not just in the US, but worldwide) is because most of the plastic we use is not recyclable. No amount of public relations campaigns is going to change that,” Melissa Valliant, communications director at Beyond Plastics, tells Packaging Insights.

PLASTICS attributes its motivation behind the campaign to “put an end to false narratives claiming that recycling doesn’t happen or is a ‘myth.’”

We contacted PLASTICS for comment but have yet to receive a response.

Appealing to policymakers
The recycling rate for other materials is higher. Paper is recycled at 66%, according to a 2020 figure from the American Forest and Products Association. Beyond Plastics asserts that high recycling rates of post-consumer paper, cardboard and metals prove that recycling works to reclaim valuable natural material resources.

PLASTICS’ Recycling Is Real hopes to give information on plastic recycling to policymakersJudith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and former regional administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, explains: “Year after year, plastics recycling has been an abysmal failure, clocking in at well under 10% recycling rate. I strongly support recycling, but plastic, as a material, is mostly not recyclable.”

“Unlike materials like paper and metal and glass, there are many different types of plastic resins, thousands of different chemical additives, and many different colorants, making it very hard to recycle. The plastics industry knows that most plastics are not recyclable, and unfortunately, it continues to peddle the big lie.”

Meanwhile, the trade association says its campaign will provide content to help elected officials and policymakers understand that recycling is a vital link of the circularity chain, enabling them to make more well-informed decisions about recycling resources for their constituents.

Beyond Plastics argues the trade association’s campaign “is the same campaign that the industry has fed to the public for decades despite the fact that the plastics industry was aware that plastics recycling would never work back in the 1970s.”

To recycle or not to recycle
PLASTICS asserts “on behalf of the entire plastics industry supply chain” that it is “committed to environmental sustainability and ensuring plastic material remains in our circular economy and out of the environment.”Beyond Plastics says plastic recycling is a fallacy promoted by the plastic industry.

“Recycling is integral to achieving the goal of a circular economy – and the industry knows America needs to recycle more. Recently, recycling has come under attack from those who wish to reduce or eliminate the production of plastic altogether,” explains the trade association.

PLASTICS’ president and CEO Matt Seaholm asserts: “Plastic recycling is very real and happens daily across America. The Recycling is Real campaign allows the public and lawmakers to see for themselves the extraordinary role recycling plays in the circular economy, making it undeniable that recycling is an effective, feasible and economical way to achieve our shared [environmental] sustainability goals.”

Beyond Plastics counteracts this argument, believing the campaign “is not based on facts or what is happening in the real world.”

Valliant adds: “We’re hearing a broken record from the petrochemical and plastics industries, which are intent on hailing recycling as a panacea to the plastic pollution crisis even though only 9% of the plastic ever generated has been recycled.”

“Big oil and big plastic know perfectly well that recycling has failed for half a century and nonetheless will continue to promote this failed system – they just don’t have another leg to stand on as the public slowly realizes the truth, so they’re reiterating the same false narrative over and over again in the hope that policymakers and consumers soak it up and ignore the one true solution to the environmental and human health crisis posed by plastic: We need to stop producing so much of it.”

By Sabine Waldeck