The Trump administration recently removed a major roadblock for chemical recycling, an unproven set of technologies that the oil and plastic industries are pitching as a panacea to the world’s plastic pollution crisis. Now, amid an unprecedented lobbying push and with corporate allies ensconced in key regulatory agencies, the industries are clamoring for a nationwide buildout of chemical recycling facilities that experts say are highly polluting, disastrous for climate change, and almost entirely ineffective.
In promotional videos and policy fact sheets, often accompanied by professed commitments to a “circular economy” for plastic waste, these industries claim that sustainable recycling technologies — not limits on production — will solve the world’s plastic pollution crisis.
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