Now, the new budget has Congress making a “request” to EPA to maintain the regulatory status quo, according to a statement from the environmental group Ocean Conservancy.
“This boils down to Congress formally recognizing that harmful chemical recycling technologies are not true recycling and do not move us closer to a circular plastics economy,” said Anja Brandon, the group’s associate director of U.S. plastics policy. “These technologies emit dangerous greenhouse gases and toxic chemicals while enabling industry to continue unfettered plastics production.
“To keep plastics out of our ocean, we need to make less plastic and better recycle what we already have,” she said. “Expanding chemical recycling will kill any chance we have of accomplishing either.”
In a post on Twitter, Brandon thanked Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., for getting the language in the budget bill. Huffman is one of the lead sponsors of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act and the Protecting Communities From Plastics Act.
According to Ocean Conservancy, the budget language specifically directs EPA to “consider the emissions, disproportionate impacts and lack of circularity in its ongoing rulemaking” and noted concerns over the growth of the technologies in handling plastic waste.
“These chemical recycling technologies do not result in the recovery of plastic materials to advance a circular economy and the facilities contribute to climate change and impose disproportionate health burdens on the communities where they are located,” the budget bill said.
The American Chemistry Council declined to comment, but it and other plastics groups have said the technologies can be a key part of efforts to recycle more plastic and noted that EPA has included it within its proposals for a national recycling strategy.
