Plastic recycling “will always fail” claims Greenpeace USA report demanding shift to refill and reuse

24 Oct 2022 --- A new Greenpeace USA report finds that most plastic cannot be recycled. While US households generated an estimated 51 million metric tons of plastic waste in 2021, only 2.4 million metric tons were recycled.

The report also finds that no type of plastic packaging in the US meets the definition of recyclable used by either the Federal Trade Commission or the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastic Economy Initiative. 

PackagingInsights speaks with Lisa Ramsden, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace USA, about the reasons for low plastic recycling rates and poor recyclability, the challenges for increasing these numbers and the investment shifts needed to improve the situation. 

“Some of the obstacles [to recycling] could possibly be removed, but some of them, like the toxicity risks, cannot. Recycling is not the problem here, as it does work for other materials like glass and paper – plastics are the problem,” she asserts.

“One of the things this report makes clear is that just because a recycling plant accepts a piece of plastic doesn’t mean that it is being recycled. There are bales of plastic waste sitting in plants around the country – and most of it will end up in landfills or incinerators.”

Lisa Ramsden, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace USA (Image credit: Greenpeace USA).“Plastic waste is extremely difficult to collect, virtually impossible to sort for recycling, environmentally harmful to reprocess, often made of and contaminated by toxic materials, and not economical to recycle. New plastic is often cheaper than recycled plastics, so many companies will continue to buy new plastic instead,” Ramsden continues. 

Recycling decrease 
Furthermore, plastic recycling was estimated to have declined to about 5–6% in 2021, down from a high of 9.5% in 2014 and 8.7% in 2018. At that time, the US exported millions of metric tons of plastic waste to China and counted it as recycled even though much was incinerated or landfilled. 

Ramsden says there are several reasons for the drop in recycling rates.

“A big one is that plastic recycling is not economical. It is very expensive to sort, truck, and safely reprocess plastic waste, making new plastic cheaper to produce than recycled plastic. Since 2020, an even greater barrier to plastic recycling has come into focus through scientific research and testing: the toxicity of recycled plastic.”  

While PET and high-density PE (HDPE) were previously thought of as recyclable, this report finds that being accepted by a recycling processing plant does not necessarily result in them being recycled.

It’s not recycling, it’s plastic 
The report shows that mechanical and chemical recycling of plastic waste has largely failed and “will always fail” because plastic waste is extremely difficult to collect, virtually impossible to sort for recycling, environmentally harmful to reprocess, often made of and contaminated by toxic materials and not economical to recycle. 

Meanwhile, “paper, cardboard, metal, and glass do not have these problems, which is why they are recycled at much higher rates,” claims the report. Ramsden explains it is not recycling that does not work but it’s plastic that is too difficult and expensive to recycle. 

The high recycling rates of post-consumer paper, cardboard and metals in the US prove that recycling can be an effective way to reclaim valuable natural material resources. Plastic recycling, in particular, has failed because the thousands of types of synthetic plastic materials produced are fundamentally not recyclable.

“We cannot recycle our way out of the plastic waste crisis. Rather than focusing on recycling as the solution, corporations need to prioritize phasing down the production of single-use plastics and to switch to systems of refill and reuse, as well as package-free solutions,” highlights Ramsden.

All the wrong investments?
Ramsden explains that many corporations in the US are so focused on recycling as a solution to the plastic waste crisis that they have not yet put in the money nor effort needed to move toward systems of refill and reuse. Additionally, the US government has failed to advance a shift toward these systems. 

“Corporations need to urgently phase down their use of single-use plastics and move toward systems of reuse. They also must commit to collaborating with other companies to standardize reusable packaging and build shared reuse infrastructure.”

“The government can help by passing legislation that forces companies to implement systems of reuse and refill and by supporting an ambitious Global Plastics Treaty,” concludes Ramsden. 

By Natalie Schwertheim