<
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/15/1231690415/plastic-recycling-waste-oil-fossil-fuels-climate-change>
'The plastics industry has worked for decades to convince people and
policymakers that recycling would keep waste out of landfills and the
environment. Consumers sort their trash so plastic packaging can be repurposed,
and local governments use taxpayer money to gather and process the material.
Yet from the early days of recycling, plastic makers, including oil and gas
companies, knew that it wasn't a viable solution to deal with increasing
amounts of waste, according to documents uncovered by the Center for Climate
Integrity.
Around the time the plastics industry launched its recycling campaign, the head
of a trade group called the Vinyl Institute acknowledged at a 1989 conference
that "recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste
problem."
One of the biggest challenges is that making new plastic is relatively cheap.
But recycling generally costs as much as or more than the material is worth, a
director of environmental solutions at B.F. Goodrich explained at another
industry meeting in 1992. The "basic issue," he said, "is economics."
But the industry appears to have championed recycling mainly for its public
relations value, rather than as a tool for avoiding environmental damage, the
documents suggest. "We are committed to the activities, but not committed to
the results," a vice president at Exxon Chemical said during a meeting in 1994
with staff for the American Plastics Council, a trade group.'
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
