All our gravestones will be made of plastic

PLASTIC recycling is not actually possible in the sense that most people understand it now, and pursuing it is a complete waste of time that will do nothing to lessen or eliminate the plastic pollution crisis. That news should not really come as a surprise, but it is still unnerving to see it spelled out as it is in a new report released just last week by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI).

The findings were naturally derided by the plastics industry, with Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, telling The Guardian in an interview, “As is typical, instead of working together towards actual solutions to address plastic waste, groups like CCI choose to level political attacks instead of constructive solutions.” Seaholm added that the report “was created by an activist, anti-recycling organization and disregards the incredible investments in recycling technologies made by our industry.”

Well, Mr. Seaholm, we’re all very sorry about your feelings, but here’s the thing about CCI’s report: it’s damning not because of what they said but because of what you said. Or rather, what the petrochemical and plastics industry has said and even had the poor judgment to put in writing over the years. Just as with recent exposés of the oil industry’s excellent research into climate change and then decades-long, organized conspiracy to keep that research away from the public, the CCI report relies mainly on the plastic industry’s own internal documents to draw its conclusions.

The bottom line is that the plastics industry knew from the very beginning that plastic was not recyclable, would probably never be recyclable, and that pitching recycling as a solution was utter greenwashing. Here are a few examples, in the industry’s own words, that are included in the report:

– At a 1956 industry conference, the Society of the Plastics Industry (forerunner of the Plastics Industry Association) told manufacturers that in order to make their businesses sustainable, they should focus on “low cost, big volume” products and “expendability,” aiming for materials “to end up in the garbage wagon.”

– After the Society of the Plastics Industry formed the Plastics Recycling Foundation in 1984, in response to growing public concern over plastic waste, an internal report of the Vinyl Institute (another trade association) dated 1986 observed that “recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution, as it merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of.”

– In 1989, shortly after the Plastics Recycling Foundation introduced the now-familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol stamped on all manner of plastic products, the director of the Vinyl Institute reminded a trade conference of what the group had said five years earlier: “Recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem.”

– In 1994, at another industry conference, a representative of Eastman Chemical offered a dim outlook on the need for and feasibility of building a proper plastic recycling infrastructure. “While someday this may be a reality,” he said, “it is more likely that we will wake up and realize that we are not going to recycle our way out of the solid waste issue.” At a meeting of the American Plastics Council that same year, an Exxon employee told staffers bluntly: “We are committed to the activities [of plastics recycling], but not committed to the results.”

Of course, all these were said decades ago; surely, recycling technology has improved over the years. For example, in recent years the plastics industry and even a few environmental advocates have promoted chemical recycling, breaking down plastic into its constituent molecules to make new plastics, synthetic fuels, and other chemicals.

Even though the technology obviously needs a great deal of refinement, on its face it seems like it eventually could become the elusive practical recycling solution everyone has spent decades looking for. But the industry has known this has not been the case for at least 30 years. In a 1994 trade meeting, Exxon Chemical’s then-vice president Irwin Levowitz dismissed chemical recycling as a “fundamentally uneconomical process.” In 2003, a consultant hired to look into chemical recycling instead criticized the industry for promoting it, saying in his report that it was “another example of how non-science got into the minds of industry and environmental activists alike.”

I expect that some would still argue that plastic recycling is not comprehensively a dead-end idea. For example, a recent article posted on the Asian Development Bank’s Southeast Asia Development Solutions (Seads) blog highlighted a couple of local startups that have developed building materials from recycled plastic intended for use in low-cost housing. However, when one takes a more critical look at what efforts like these are actually accomplishing, it becomes clear that they cannot possibly be scaled. Recycled plastic boards and bricks and paving tiles are expensive and process-intensive compared to their more mundane counterparts. Trafficking in them as a social enterprise allows some flexibility to ignore the unfavorable economics, but only on a small scale; if the initiative gets too large, the economics can’t be ignored.

All of this leaves us with the solution that is the only one that will work but is utterly impossible, which is to eliminate plastics entirely. The plastics industry seems to know this better than anyone else, which is why they have, like the oil industry, conspired to keep everyone else from figuring that out. If you, out of the unshakable faith we modern humans have that every problem must have a solution, are looking for some sign of hope, a conclusion that may point to some future answer, I don’t have one for you. This, unfortunately, is just another nail in humanity’s coffin.

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