Recycling's next big thing — or big bluff?

An advanced recycling process claims it can handle hard-to-recycle plastics, like packaging. But critics say it's not worth the effort.

In a brightly-lit room in Houston, Texas, environmental activist Malachi Key is searching through a pile of trash. He picks up a used chicken salad box, which like the other waste in the heap is being sent off for recycling, and slips a tracking device inside.

In 2022, the city introduced a program that promised to give up to 90% all plastics, even those that are hard to recycle — a new lease on life. It's a significant claim, given that the US average is less than 10%. 

But Key said the scheme, which is a partnership with plastic industry leaders like ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell and Cyclyx International, is "too good to be true." Hence the tracking.

This is not the first time he and his fellow activists with environment nonprofit Air Alliance Houston have played sleuth. In the past year and a half, they've counted 14 times when their plastic trash was in fact moved to a third-party storage site and simply left there.

"The accumulated plastic was not actually being recycled," said Jen Hadayia, executive director of Air Alliance Houston. "Not in any way, shape or form in the way that the City of Houston had been saying." 

Plastic production to double by 2050

The city's promised new program is an advanced process that can tackle unrecyclable single-use plastics, such as bread wrappers, juice pouches or yoghurt pots. Attracting millions of investment dollars from across the US and Europe, the emerging industry says by using heat, enzymes or solvents, it can break stubborn plastics into smaller chemical compounds. 

These are then turned back into their original chemical building blocks for use in making recycled plastics said to be indistinguishable from the virgin stuff — effectively meaning the material could be remade over and over again. Such is its apparent promise that the American Chemistry Council has heralded advanced recycling as "a breakthrough for reclaiming used plastics" which can "help lead to a circular economy."

Environmental, health risks with chemical recycling 

Despite the advertised circularity, critics say the technology is not all it's cracked up to be.

Lee Bell, a technical adviser to the global nonprofit International Pollutants Elimination Network, points to the "something like 14,000 chemicals that are used as additives in plastics." He said more than a quarter are so hazardous they have to be stripped out and treated as waste, which is a flaw in the circular system. 

"If they do manage to strip the polymers and monomers of these chemical additives and other contaminants, they generate enormous hazardous waste streams," he said.

That isn't the only issue. Veena Singla, a public health scientist affiliated with the University of California San Francisco, said the recycling facilities themselves can pose environmental and health risks.

"In the US, just three chemical recycling facilities generated more than 900 metric tons of hazardous waste in about three years," she said, adding that they are allowed to emit health-harming air pollutants linked to respiratory illness, cancer and disorders of the nervous system.

And despite the claim that the recycling industry is only creating new plastic for reuse, Singla said the plants are also making fuel to be burned. Which leaves less recycled material and a greater need to produce more virgin plastic.

Globally, we produce more than 400 million tons of new plastic every year, and that figure is expected to double or even triple by 2050. Ultimately, Lee said he thinks chemical recycling is largely "a propaganda exercise designed to divert attention away from increasing plastic production and plastic pollution that's occurring in the environment." 

Chemical recycling struggles to get off the ground

The American Chemistry Council has said it believes the US could support 150 plants, which could result in $12.9 billion (€11.2 billion) of annual economic output. 

But progress is slow. Bell said there were 11 operational facilities across America in 2023. Since then, four have shut down, either due to bankruptcy or the fact that they were not able to produce sufficient material to remain financially viable.

Of those currently still operating, just one is in the greater Houston area, which as a plastics production hub is home to hundreds of petrochemical companies. The facility is owned and operated by energy giant Exxon Mobil, which says it has already processed more than 68,000 metric tons of plastic waste into new products and fuels. 

Still, Hadayia, of Air Alliance Houston, called it's a "false solution" for Houstians, who like the idea of companies coming up with a way to address some of their plastic waste. 

But Exxon Mobil said activists clinging to a "narrow definition" of recycling is "propaganda" which "hurts the planet."

Plastic strategy a 'false solution,' say activists

It's still early days for the industry, but Bell sees a fundamental problem with the business model: it costs more to create new plastics from old, than to start fresh with raw materials — sourced from fossil fuels. 

"You have to compete against virgin petrochemicals, plastics and when the price of oil is low, they cannot compete. It's simply not possible," he said. 

Back in Houston, after a two-month wait, the activists could tell that the salad box containing the hidden tracker still hadn't been picked up. So it was no closer to being recycled. 

The City of Houston declined to comment, saying it only collects from designated points across the city. At current count, there are just nine of them in a city of almost 2.5 million.

While private companies involved in the recycling collaboration have previously said they are building a joint sorting center, for Hadayia, there is another solution.

"We didn't always rely on single-use plastic in the way we do now. We didn't always walk into a grocery store and all of our fruit was cut up for us and packaged in single use plastics," she said. "Bottom line, the true upstream solution to plastic waste is to reduce single-use plastic."

This article was based on an episode of Living Planet reported by investigative journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor.

This investigation was supported by a grant from the Investigative Journalism for Europe fund (IJ4EU). It was coordinated by Ludovica Jona, with reporting by Staffan Dahllof, Yann Philippin, Begona Ramirez, Lorenzo Sangermano and Stefano Valentino. Sound design was by Jarek Zaba.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker