FIRST THINGS FIRST — What's unrecyclable? It's a seemingly simple question with no easy answer, but the Biden administration is going to try. To reduce plastic pollution, regulators need to discourage production of plastics that don't get recycled. Makes sense. But drawing that line is fraught, as Ellie Borst reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Should a plastic be considered unrecyclable if there's no existing demand for its recycled form? What if the end market is there, but it's something undesirable? There's also a basic tension between encouraging the development of end markets for recycled plastic and discouraging its production altogether. Environmentalists are aiming for the latter, while producers are, naturally, trying to preserve demand. “[P]rescribing alternative materials, capping plastic production or limiting innovative recycling technologies could work against its climate objectives as plastic almost always has a lower lifecycle [greenhouse gas] footprint compared to paper and metal," Joshua Baca, the now-former head of the American Chemistry Council's plastics division, told Ellie. One venue for the discussion is EPA's draft national strategy to prevent plastic pollution, published in April, which includes plans to solve recyclability confusion by creating a list of “single-use, unrecyclable, difficult to recycle, or frequently littered plastic products.” That includes creating a definition for unrecyclable, EPA spokesperson Tim Carroll said in an email. Another arena is the Federal Trade Commission's update of its “Green Guides” for environmental marketing claims. EPA's filed comments saying that plastic products should only be marked as recyclable if they have strong end markets already in existence. That triggers another debate about recyclability versus environmental impacts. Plastics producers are pouring money into high-temperature processes that can break down hard-to-recycle plastics into their base components, including fuels. Environmental groups have expressed concern about the associated pollution, asserted that energy production isn't a good use of recycled plastic, and contended that it will just prolong dependence on plastics. Long term, “it’s clear that we need to stop producing so much wasteful plastic in the first place,” said Celeste Meiffren-Swango, the Zero Waste program director with Environment America. Some cards are already in play. EPA's draft national strategy has come out against "advanced recycling" being considered recycling, at least in cases where it's used to produce fuel. Contrast that with the EU's recent warning against discouraging the technology. On the congressional side, lawmakers are considering a bipartisan recycling bill, S. 1194, that would codify the definition for “recyclable material” to include materials “for which a circular market currently exists or is being developed.” The bill passed the Senate unanimously last session but stalled in the House. Oregon, which has a packaging-reduction target, has a list of what's considered recyclable. And in California, regulators are working on figuring out which materials are undeserving of the "chasing arrows" symbol.
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