Recycling

Advanced recycling, also known as chemical recycling, refers to a variety of processes used to break plastics into their constituent molecules. The industry has increasingly promoted these technologies, as public concern about the environmental and health effects of plastic pollution has grown. Yet the rollout of these technologies has been plagued by problems, according to this new analysis from the fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group CCI. 

This report critically examines the European Commission’s JRC study on plastic recycling technologies, exposing major methodological flaws that favour chemical recycling. It challenges the credibility of industry-backed data and highlights the true environmental costs of solvent- and pyrolysis-based methods. It also provides clear recommendations for policymakers.

The report looks into the sachet economy in the Philippines that continues to add to and worsen the growing plastics pollution problem, showing how the big businesses corrupted Filipino’s tingi culture. It explores the public attitude towards plastic pollution and presents new findings and recommendations for companies and policymakers.

In response to the plastic crisis, consumer goods companies and the petrochemical industry have supported and promoted countless miraculous-sounding technologies, pushing back on their bad reputations as major plastic polluters. CreaSolv3, Unilever Indonesia's hailed flagship project on this front, spectacularly failed and was secretly shuttered two years later.

The absence of a consistent legal framework on end-of-waste for certain waste streams creates uncertainty for waste operators and for entities trading and using secondary raw materials. The implementation of EU-wide end-of-waste criteria can address these disparities in the value chain, ultimately increasing the uptake of high-quality secondary raw materials in manufacturing processes.

Are plastic credits a solution to the global plastic pollution crisis? The report provides a critical and impartial examination of the most prominent credit-issuing schemes and examines current practices with regard to governance structures, financial flows and what happens to the plastic waste collected in return for credits, and analyses environmental and social concerns.

With the final round of negotiations of the Global Plastics Treaty approaching, this industry landscape overview analyses the dynamic around chemical recycling/recovery over recent years in Europe. Among the overview takeaways is the industry’s acknowledgement that pyrolysis is not ready to help tackle plastic waste and the climate crisis.

Building on research published by SourceMaterial and Bloomberg with original research by Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), this report uncovers serious flaws in plastic offsets, credits and plastic neutrality.