{"id":48788,"date":"2025-08-06T21:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/48788\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T21:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:34:13","slug":"maddening-proof-plastics-industry-knew-recycling-was-false-solution-in-1974-new-document-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/48788\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Maddening\u2019 Proof Plastics Industry Knew Recycling Was False Solution in 1974, New Document Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

This work was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism<\/a><\/p>\n

With international treaty negotiations aimed at addressing the plastic pollution crisis<\/a>\u00a0resuming in Switzerland this week, a new document reveals that one of the world\u2019s largest plastic producers, DuPont, acknowledged as early as 1974 that recycling its plastic products was not possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This new discovery also comes against the backdrop of two pending lawsuits alleging that U.S. plastic producers have deceived the public about the feasibility of recycling since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

For decades, the plastics industry has publicly advocated recycling as a strategy for managing plastic waste. But the document, a letter<\/a>\u00a0written in May\u00a01974 by Charles Brelsford McCoy, a president and board chairman of DuPont, represents the earliest evidence to date of a top-level industry insider admitting that\u00a0many commonly used plastic products cannot be recycled due to their complex chemical structures.<\/p>\n

The letter contains DuPont\u2019s response to an invitation asking the company to join a pilot recycling scheme in honor of the U.S.\u2019s 1976 bicentennial celebrations.\u00a0DuPont refused. The reason: recycling DuPont\u2019s plastic products was simply \u201cnot feasible<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts<\/p>\n

Found by DeSmog, the correspondence proves that by the early 1970s the plastic industry\u2019s knowledge regarding the limitations of recycling existed at the highest level, not only in the lab but also the C-suite.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The discovery also casts new light on\u00a0the plastic industry\u2019s decades-long promotion of recycling as a viable solution to the global plastic waste crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Upcoming Plastic Pollution Treaty<\/p>\n

On December 1, 2024, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution held what was supposed to be the final negotiating session for a global treaty against plastic pollution in Busan, South Korea. But a coalition of fossil fuel\u2013producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia, blocked progress, arguing for solutions based on recycling and waste management.<\/p>\n

Now, an additional negotiating session will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, from August 5 to 14.<\/p>\n

Despite these fossil-fuel producing nations offering recycling as a solution, the process is neither technically nor economically viable for many types of plastic.\u00a0To date, research<\/a> shows that only a small fraction\u00a0\u2014\u00a0under 10 percent<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 of all the plastic ever produced has actually been recycled and only 1 percent<\/a> has been recycled twice.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some are calling next week\u2019s Geneva session a \u201clast chance\u201d<\/a>\u00a0meeting as plastic pollution is considered a major threat to human and planetary health.\u00a0Made predominantly from fossil fuels, plastic harms the Earth\u2019s climate, biodiversity, and ocean ecosystems, and is also toxic to human health. Plastic microparticles and chemicals have been found all over the globe, from the\u00a0Mariana Trench<\/a> to Mount Everest<\/a>, as well as in human bodies<\/a>, from the brain to breast milk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese industries are intimately linked,\u201d Patrick Boyle, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), told DeSmog.\u201cPlastics are oil and gas. The fundamental building blocks of plastics as are sourced from oil, gas and coal. They are petrochemicals . . . and fossil fuels are at their core.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. and European petrochemical companies,\u00a0represented by the International Council of Chemical Associations<\/a> (ICCA),\u00a0joined the push to exclude legally binding restrictions on plastic production from the treaty\u2019s final text,\u00a0also\u00a0advocating for recycling<\/a> as a solution to the crisis and lobbying against legally enforceable limits.<\/p>\n

\"\"Research shows that under 10 percent of all the plastic ever produced has actually been recycled and only 1 percent has been recycled twice. Credit: Picryl<\/a><\/p>\n

DuPont, BP, Chevron, Dow, ExxonMobil, Phillips, Shell, and TotalEnergies, which collectively make billions of dollars<\/a> a year from selling and processing the fossil fuel by-products used to manufacture new plastics, are members of multiple lobby groups that pushed against restrictions on plastics production.These lobby groups include the American Chemistry Council<\/a> and the European Chemistry Industry Council<\/a>, which\u00a0in turn form ICCA<\/a> along with 65 other chemical industry associations from around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a better way to end pollution\u201d said\u00a0ICCA\u2019s secretary<\/a>, Chris Jahn, in the aftermath of the talks\u2019 collapse last December. Jahn, who is also the president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council<\/a>, issued a statement on behalf of the industry-backed Global Partners for Plastics Circularity<\/a>,\u00a0renouncing the imposition of restrictions on plastic supplies and advocating for\u00a0more ambitious national \u201crecycling<\/a>\u201d plans instead of legally\u00a0binding limits on production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite internal industry awareness of the technical and economic obstacles facing recycling at scale, Big Oil and the plastics industry have deceptively promoted recycling<\/a> as a solution to plastic pollution for nearly four decades to avoid legal limits on production or outright bans, according to recent reports by CIEL<\/a>, NPR\/PBS Frontline<\/a> and the Center for Climate Integrity<\/a>\u00a0(CCI).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Davis Allen, lead author of CCI\u2019s report, The Fraud of Plastic Recycling<\/a>, published in February 2024, told DeSmog that the newly found DuPont letter is \u201cfurther proof that the plastics industry has been actively deceiving the public for decades about the recyclability of plastics\u201d despite its knowledge of the inherent limitations of recycling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0document is striking,\u201d said Allen, \u201cbecause of its straightforward assessment of the unique challenge of recycling plastics, and because of how little has actually changed over the last 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

CIEL\u2019s Boyle agrees. \u201cIt\u2019s affirming\u201d but also \u201cmaddening\u201d to see someone \u201cthat high in the company say something that we\u2019ve been saying for years \u2013 that plastic recycling doesn\u2019t work,\u201d he told DeSmog.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not Feasible\u2019: A Look Inside the Letter<\/p>\n

In April 1974, Charles Brelsford McCoy, then chairman of DuPont\u2019s powerful Finance Committee, received a letter from the Great America Foundation proposing that DuPont take part in a fledgling recycling event\u00a0as part of the foundation\u2018s upcoming \u201cLet\u2019s Make America Beautiful for our Great American Bicentennial\u201d celebrations, DeSmog found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur program is not designed to clean up the roadsides of public areas,\u201d wrote the Great America Foundation\u2019s vice president. \u201cIt is designed to prevent beverage and other food containers<\/a>\u00a0from getting there in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the iron, steel, and aluminum industries were taking part, McCoy declined the invitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDu Pont supplies coatings, liners, and raw materials to container manufacturers,\u201d he explained. \u201cBy the time a container reaches the market, the components which we supply have been blended with others so as to preclude the possibility<\/a>\u00a0of our recycling them. Thus we feel that Du Pont participation in your program is not feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Charles Brelsford McCoy, chairman of DuPont\u2019s Finance Committee, stated that recycling \u201cis not feasible\u201d in this 1974 letter to the. Great America Foundation. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library<\/a><\/p>\n

The correspondence, contained within the DuPont archives at the Hagley Library in Wilmington, Delaware, once the site of the company\u2019s\u00a019th\u00a0century gunpowder mills, adds to previous evidence revealing the plastic industry\u2019s early knowledge that the blending of synthetic polymers and additives involved in\u00a0plastic production meant that recycling was virtually impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fossil fuels are used to produce 98 percent of the world\u2019s plastics,<\/a> each variety\u00a0with its own chemical composition that prevents different types of plastics from being recycled together. Possible markets exist only for a small number of recycled plastics such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. The cost of sorting and separating plastics, the addition of chemical additives and colorants, and contamination during the recycling process further limits recyclability. Plastic also degrades with the recycling process, leaching toxic substances that make it unsuitable for many reuses, such as food packaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cBest case you\u2019re talking about is one or two cycles of recycling before that original plastic cannot be recycled again into a viable product,\u201d said Boyle. \u201cThat\u2019s not recycling in a long-term way, that\u2019s not a circular economy. That\u2019s a cul-de-sac on the way to waste.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked to comment on McCoy\u2019s letter, DuPont spokesperson Dan Turner\u00a0confirmed that McCoy was an executive with E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Company<\/a>. He said,\u201cthere is a clear difference between DuPont de Nemours and legacy E.I. du Pont de Nemours, and as such, we cannot\u00a0comment on what was purportedly said by Mr. McCoy in his capacity with E.I. DuPont de Nemours over 50 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner did not specify what the differences are between the legacy and modern DuPont firms. However, after merging with Dow in 2015, DuPont relinquished control over the companies\u2019 combined plastics division<\/a> to Dow when the businesses split in 2019. Then, in 2022, DuPont sold its engineering plastics business<\/a>. It still owns plastics producers,<\/a> like Donatelle Plastics Inc., a medical device maker that DuPont acquired in 2024.<\/p>\n

Historically, DuPont has been one of the world\u2019s largest plastics producers and a 2023 Market Analysis Report described the company as one of \u201cthe leading companies in the plastic market<\/a>\u201d based on data gathered between 2018 and 2023.<\/p>\n

Plastic Has \u2018Disposal\u2019 Problems<\/p>\n

In 1969, at the first U.S. National Conference on Packaging Wastes, a representative from the Dow Chemical Company declared it \u201cironic\u201d that the molecular structure that made plastic lightweight, durable and popular also created its \u201cdisposal problems<\/a>.\u201d Other participants told the conference, attended by representatives from DuPont, Mobil, Chevron, and Amoco (now BP), that \u201c[t]he very success of package makers in marrying dissimilar materials has made packaging materials virtually unrecoverable<\/a> after use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of these challenges inherent within the recycling process, making new plastic from freshly extracted crude oil, natural gas, or coal is much cheaper than paying for recycled plastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best case you\u2019re talking about is one or two cycles of recycling before that original plastic cannot be recycled again into a viable product \u2026 that\u2019s not a circular economy. That\u2019s a cul-de-sac on the way to waste.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patrick Boyle, senior attorney, Center for International Environmental Law <\/p>\n

When DuPont and other plastics producers eventually shifted to promoting plastic recycling in the 1980s, \u201cit wasn\u2019t because of some technical breakthrough that got around the problem\u201d\u00a0Allen explains. \u201cIt had just become increasingly clear that certain plastic products were likely to get banned if the plastics industry couldn\u2019t make recycling seem like a viable solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

A ban on plastics would seriously limit the profit margins of fossil fuel companies and the plastic producers.<\/p>\n

Responding to a growing public backlash against plastic waste and facing punitive legislation, the U.S.\u00a0plastics industry began aggressively promoting recycling as a solution, even though it was unproven\u00a0at scale. According to CCI\u2019s report<\/a>, the largest producers, including DuPont, ExxonMobil, and Dow, spent millions of dollars on public relations efforts selling the \u201cmyth of plastic recycling\u201d despite their knowledge of its practical limitations.<\/p>\n

In 1988, Wayne Pearson, long-time marketing director for DuPont and executive director of the Plastics Recycling Foundation (an industry group whose members included DuPont and ExxonChemical), told the New York Times<\/a>, \u201cNo doubt about it, legislation is the single most important reason why we are looking at recycling.\u201d<\/p>\n

That same year, as part of a campaign to make consumers believe in the effectiveness of plastic recycling, the industry introduced a labelling system, grouping plastics by resin type and stamping them with a number surrounded by a triangle of \u201cchasing arrows.\u201d It did this despite internal warnings that these efforts would be \u201cof limited practicality<\/a>,\u201d according to The Fraud of Plastic Recycling report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRecycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem,\u201d Roy Gottesman, the founder of the plastics industry group Vinyl Institute, acknowledged in 1989.<\/p>\n

New Lawsuits Against Major Plastic-makers<\/p>\n

Evidence of the plastic industry\u2019s deception over recycling has prompted two recent lawsuits against plastic producers. In September 2024, the state of California filed a lawsuit <\/a>against ExxonMobil for the company\u2019s alleged \u201cdecades-long campaign of fraud and deception about the recyclability of plastics\u201d; and in December 2024, a Missouri-based class action lawsuit<\/a>, filed against DuPont, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Dow Chemical,\u00a0and the American Chemistry Council, is seeking an injunction prohibiting these companies from advertising their products as recyclable, court filings state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFossil fuel and petrochemical companies want us to believe recycling is the solution,\u201d said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who filed the\u00a0California suit. Addressing a New York University symposium on Plastics and Human Health<\/a> in September last year, Bonta spoke of the \u201cmyth\u201d of recycling. \u201cIt\u2019s a farce, it\u2019s a lie, it\u2019s a deceit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no plastic recycling at scale though they want you to believe different. Only five percent of U.S. plastic waste is actually recycled. Ninety-five percent goes into our environment, our treasured ocean and beloved streams, to landfill or is incinerated. It\u2019s not recycled,\u201d Bonta added.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

California Attorney General Rob Bonta says recycling is \u201ca farce, it\u2019s a lie, it\u2019s a deceit.\u201d Credit:
University of California-Irvine<\/p>\n

The Missouri case,\u00a0Rodriguez et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al., is still pending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On January 6, ExxonMobil filed a defamation lawsuit<\/a> against Bonta and several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club<\/a>, for statements regarding ExxonMobil\u2019s recycling capabilities.<\/p>\n

ExxonMobil<\/a> is the world\u2019s largest producer of plastic polymers used to manufacture single-use plastics.<\/p>\n

ExxonMobil has also been one of the best-represented fossil fuel companies over the course of the international plastics treaty negotiations, sending 14 delegates, according to analysis by the CIEL<\/a> and Greenpeace<\/a>. The same analysis reveals that the American Chemistry Council<\/a>, supported by DuPont and Dow, sent 22 delegates to the negotiations. In total, a record 220 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists attended the last round of talks in Busan, which failed to achieve a deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe danger here is delay,\u201d Rachel Radvany, CIEL\u2019s Environmental Health Campaigner who will attend the negotiations in Geneva, told DeSmog. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen more and more plastics lobbyists show up at each round of negotiations. Their ultimate goal is to not allow true solutions to happen because it goes against their profit margins.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Radvany, each delay in the negotiations is hurting people. \u201cAll the stages of the plastics lifecycle have really serious harms for human health, the environment, climate, biodiversity,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery chance the lobby gets, they delay things, and every delay means more people are impacted and hurt by plastics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Overall, the seven largest plastic-producing firms in the world are\u00a0fossil-fuel companies<\/a>, which increasingly see plastic production as a highly\u00a0profitable revenue stream<\/a> at a time when the energy and transportation sectors are beginning to turn away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

Recent oil and industry expenditures on plants capable of manufacturing new plastic materials is estimated to have been around $400 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But producing plastic is also a major contributor to climate change. According to the World Economic Forum<\/a>, the production of four plastic bottles alone releases the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving one mile in car.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for DuPont told DeSmog that the company does \u201cnot comment on pending litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICCA, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Dow, and the American Chemistry Council did not respond to requests for comment by DeSmog.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s needed to solve the plastics crisis is to take a step back and focus on protecting human health and the environment, and use that as a guiding frame for those solutions,\u201d Radvany said. \u201cSo when you focus on recycling without addressing both the upstream toxic impacts, and also climate impacts, you\u2019re never going to get to a true solution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This work was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism With international treaty negotiations aimed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-48788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}