Greenpeace Study Calls Plastics Recycling “Fiction”

Greenpeace published a report on Monday, October 24^th that had some harsh words for the plastics industry, as well as aspects of the recycling industry.

The study was an update to an earlier report in 2020 and investigated recycling rates finding that only 5% of plastic is actually recycled and that the trend was worsened by China’s National Sword policy that banned imports of waste.

The report points to the fact that virgin plastic creation far outpaces the world’s ability to recycle it, and that manufacturers don’t take responsibility for the end use of the products they create with plastic. The study called the “premise” of the circular economy “contrived,” and called hope that plastic recycling will someday work “fiction.”

Greenpeace described how only two types of plastic products can realistically be recycled on a large scale and that the other types of plastic are very difficult to recycle and thus are often not recycled, despite labels on products that imply they are.

Greenpeace laid out five reasons why plastics recycling “fails,” which will not be news to anyone working in the waste industry. These include the difficulty of collecting the trillions of pieces of plastic waste, the obstacle of sorting those pieces, and the lack of a viable market for recycled products that can compete with cheaper virgin plastic products.

A Greenpeace representative pointed to reuse and refill strategies as one potential solution, noting the concept is not new, and was often commonplace for beverage companies such as Coca-Cola.

The full report can be found here.

   Photo 39404674 © Dave Nelson | Dreamstime.com