Could it be?
Why are we- residents of the world who like to breathe clean air- still in a defensive position in regards to these companies who are cousins to the big fossil fuel giants that lied for years about climate change?
Sometimes I feel like I see the same magical thinking replaying over and over when it comes to environmental issues. As much as I appreciate magic in sci-fi books and shows, I find it exhausting (& infuriating) when I read about chemical companies acting like it's okay to just come up with a fabulous-sounding story no matter how much it diverges from reality. Such is the case with articles I've come across on 'chemical recycling' (sometimes called advanced recycling), which a number of chemical and plastics companies have been pushing as a new solution for the many plastics that are not candidates for the regular plastic recycling process where items are mechanically shredded- and which doesn't work for lots of plastic materials.
If you do a Google search on the phrase 'chemical recycling', some of the links that come up seem to be suggesting that a new day has dawned: one industry site confidently has "Making Plastics Circular" on their front page. If that was really the case, I'd love that phrase to be on all front pages everywhere- & the U.S. would certainly be rolling in circles since it is the world leader in plastic waste production! Yet the high-heat pyrolysis burning process they use for their advanced recycling results in only about 20% of the material being re-created as a feedstock that could be the basis of new plastics (and this was in their own research). I don't see a 'circular' system with a closed loop of production when some portion of burned materials, along with any chemicals like dioxin mixed in, would be released into the air.
Why are we- residents of the world who like to breathe clean air- still in a defensive position in regards to these companies who are cousins to the big fossil fuel giants that lied for years about climate change? I know 'money' is obviously a leading reason, with hundreds of millions being spent to create and defend this new industry. But still- when will there be a cultural shift away from this kind of greenwashing? When will the companies handling the plastic products created by fossil fuels stop pretending they've created a magical process that's ready-to-go in serving humanity?