ACC backs bipartisan plastic recycling bill

The Washington-based American Chemistry Council (ACC) describes a bill introduced in Congress as “ground-breaking, solutions-oriented legislation" aimed at increasing plastics recycling and preventing plastic from ending up in the environment.

The Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act of 2024 has been co-sponsored in the House of Representatives by Rep. Larry Bucshon, a Republican from Indiana, and Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat from North Carolina.

The ACC calls the proposed legislation the first comprehensive bipartisan effort by Congress in years to tackle plastics pollution in the United States.

"The bill would modernize the nation’s outdated recycling infrastructure and increase the use of recycled material in new products," the group says.

The trade association and its Plastics Division say the bill can support the plastic recycling sector in at least four ways, including by requiring a minimum recycled content mandate for plastic packaging of 30 percent by 2030.

That standard, the ACC says, will drive increased private investment in plastics recycling and incentivize the use of packaging designed for recycling. The U.S. recycling rate for plastic packaging is around 13 percent, and the ACC adds that the bill would more than double it by 2030.

“This bill would bring about transformational change to how we recycle plastics in this country while creating regulatory certainty for businesses to tackle these important challenges," ACC President and CEO Chris Jahn says. "Reps. Bucshon and Davis have introduced the first bipartisan recycling bill that supports American workers and is good for the environment. Both outcomes are possible, and I thank them both for their leadership.”

“America’s plastic makers are investing in solutions to recapture and reuse significantly more of our plastic resources, and this bill will help accelerate our progress,” adds Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, a division of ACC. “The Bucshon-Davis bill offers a pathway for the drastic change needed to modernize America’s recycling infrastructure.”

The proposed legislation also would assign the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a life-cycle study comparing the carbon impact and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of plastic and competing materials in the packaging and product manufacturing sectors.

Regarding municipal and residential recycling efforts, the ACC applauds the bill’s approach to task the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish national plastic recycling standards across the U.S. to increase the national recycling rate.

“Currently, there are more than 9,000 recycling jurisdictions in the U.S. with differing recycling practices," the ACC says.

Finally, and relevant to chemical recycling approaches that have been backed by the ACC, the Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act of 2024 calls for establishing a legal framework for new recycling technologies to support continued investment and innovation.

The bill uses the term “advanced recycling” to refer to chemical recycling processes including pyrolysis, gasification, depolymerization, catalytic cracking, solvolysis, chemolysis and other similar technologies.

The “advanced recycling” term is not necessarily favored by backers and practitioners of sometimes highly automated mechanical sorting, recycling and reprocessing techniques, which also can involve significant investments and steady advances in optical and sensor sorting.

Text of the Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act of 2024 can be found on the website of the U.S. Congress.