(TNS) — A new report has published research regarding the efficacy of plastic waste management.
As the report is titled “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling,” you can imagine what it found.
Published by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) — a Washington D.C.-based organization which is on a “mission…to empower communities and elected officials with the knowledge and tools they need to hold oil and gas corporations accountable for decades of lying about climate change” — leveraged previous investigations along with new data that took a look at how “Big Oil and the plastic industry” have promoted recycling as a way to mitigate wasteful plastics.
CCI claims via the report how both oil and plastic corporations have long known that recycling plastic is not only an arduous, expensive process, but that “the majority of plastics cannot be recycled — they never have been and never will be.”
In fact, the process of recycling expends tons of energy, and even creates more pollution through the process of chemical recycling, where the polymers in plastic are broken down in order to make new plastic.
On top of that, says the report, the resulting costs are taken on by both municipal and local state governments. And the companies behind it all, says CCI, get away with it scot-free.
“If not for the Big Oil and plastic industry’s lies and deception, municipalities and states would not have invested in plastic recycling programs and facilities — many of which have been shut down due to foreseeable economic losses,” reads the report.
“The industry not only misled municipal and state agencies to believe that plastic recycling was a viable solution to plastic waste but also discouraged them from pursuing other, more sustainable waste management strategies (e.g., waste reduction, reuse, bands, alternative materials) in favor of plastic recycling.”
This “campaign of fraud and deception,” claims the CCI report, has been carried on by petrochemical companies for years and years.
“The companies lied,” adds Richard Wiles, CCI president, to The Guardian. “It’s time to hold them accountable for the damage they’ve caused.”
