Three ways to solve the plastics pollution crisis

Two decades ago, Germany set up a simple scheme to reduce plastic waste. When people buy drinks in a disposable plastic bottle, they pay a small extra fee and get that back by depositing the used bottle at a return centre. Many other countries have similar incentives.But has the intervention actually cut Germany’s use of single-use plastics? There’s little evidence for that, says Antaya March, a researcher at the Global Plastics Policy Centre, which was set up in 2022 at the University of Portsmouth, UK, to conduct independent assessments of plastic-waste management around the world. The scheme did entice people to return their plastic bottles, thus reducing littering. But it was also followed by an unintended increase in single-use bottles, March says — perhaps because people felt reassured that it was fine to buy drinks in plastic bottles that would be recycled.Whether policies such as these help to cut down on plastic use is a crucial question, as the world grapples with growing concerns about the fate of plastics.Of the 8.7 billion tonnes of plastic waste produced between 1950 and 2021, only 11% has ever gone through recycling, according to unpublished estimates by Roland Geyer, an industrial ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (see ‘A tide of plastic waste’).

Source: Ref. 1 and unpublished work by R. Geyer

In 2019, the most recent year for which a breakdown is available, more than two-thirds of the 353 million tonnes (Mt) of plastic waste produced was sent to landfill or incinerated, and 22% (79 Mt) was mismanaged — meaning that it was left as uncollected litter, dumped in unregulated sites on land or in water, or burnt in the open — according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris1. It projects that, by 2060, rising plastic production will lead to a tripling of annual waste to more than one billion tonnes, and that annual plastic pollution (the mismanaged portion) could double, if no new policies are implemented to stem the tide (see ‘Where plastic waste goes’).

Source: Ref. 1

But change could be ahead. Last March, the United Nations Environment Assembly approved a historic agreement to forge a global plastics treaty by the end of 2024. That process will involve hammering out policies and ways to enforce them. Seeing countries agree to seek a treaty covering the whole life cycle of plastics was a very positive sign, says Kara Lavender Law, an oceanographer at the Sea Education Association in Falmouth, Massachusetts. “I have to say, I’m the most optimistic I’ve been since working in this area for probably 15 years,” she says.Researchers around the world are now working to help cut plastic pollution. The Portsmouth team, Law and many others represent one approach: to investigate the best policies to reduce the production, use and disposal of plastics. Other researchers focus on using technology to improve recycling — or to create new kinds of plastic altogether.All three broad categories of solutions will be needed, says Steve Fletcher, director of the Portsmouth policy centre. “It’s about having a system that works across the entire plastics life cycle,” he says.Assessing the best policiesThe world doesn’t lack well-meaning efforts to cut down on plastic waste. There are bans or taxes on certain types of plastic, such as single-use bags and takeaway containers. There are regulations around how plastic waste can move across international borders, and extended producer responsibility schemes, in which manufacturers are required either to collect and recycle (or responsibly dispose of) their plastics-containing products after use, or to fund those efforts.So far, the Portsmouth team has reviewed more than 130 policies of various types worldwide, on the basis of evidence such as scientific papers, industry reports, news articles and expert opinion.

Antaya March (left) and Steve Fletcher of the Global Plastics Policy Centre at Portsmouth, UK.Credit: University of Portsmouth

Their key finding: in most cases, there was “virtually zero monitoring of policies”, says Fletcher. “That’s quite worrying, because how are we expected to put together a global treaty on combating plastic pollution if there isn’t much evidence around about what works and what doesn’t?” he says.Germany does compile some figures, which show a two-decade rise in the use of plastic bottles. After the deposit system was introduced in 2003, the share of single-use bottles returned under the scheme also rose, while the share of reusable bottles declined. (With rising attention to plastic waste, these trends might have started to reverse, according to a 2022 report in German (see go.nature.com/3macuj5).) A spokesperson for the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection told Nature that 96.3% of returned bottles are recycled, and that the deposit scheme probably stabilized what would have been a sharper fall in the use of reusable bottles.An example of a policy that has been effective, says March, was a 2016 ban on selling or using plastic shopping bags (with some exemptions) in Antigua and Barbuda. Full data on the effect of this policy weren’t available, but what evidence there is indicates that it led to a 15% decrease in the amount of plastic discarded in landfill in its first year. Several factors contributed to this success, March says, including a clear implementation plan, public support, early stakeholder engagement and enforcement: in this case, a fine of US$1,100 and up to 6 months in prison.March, Fletcher and their colleagues are sharing their work with some of the countries in the UN Environment Programme to inform the plastics-treaty negotiations. “It’s hard to see what shape a treaty could have without any form of monitoring,” Fletcher says.

A waste picker delivers a bag of plastic to a recycling centre in Kenya.Credit: James Wakibia

Well-implemented interventions could have a substantial effect, according to a 2020 analysis by Winnie Lau, director of the Preventing Ocean Plastics project at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington DC, and her colleagues2. By consulting experts and available data, they tried to assess the potential of eight interventions that exploit current knowledge and technologies, including producing fewer plastics, clamping down on the international export of plastic waste, replacing plastics with alternative materials such as paper, and scaling up the capacity of various recycling methods.They found that if no actions were taken, by 2040 approximately 240 Mt of mismanaged plastic waste would be produced each year (a rise from 91 Mt in 2016; Lau’s team gives higher figures than does the OECD). But if all eight interventions were implemented to their maximum potential, as the team assessed it, mismanaged plastic waste would fall to 44 Mt per year by 2040 — a decrease of around 80% compared with the no-action scenario.The take-home message was that the knowledge and technology needed to solve a sizeable chunk of the plastic-pollution problem already exist. “That was a pretty big surprise to us,” Lau says. “We weren’t sure if we could have such a huge impact without thinking about developing new materials or entirely new systems.” But logistics and costs, among other challenges, stand in the way of bringing in these measures to their maximum capacity, she adds.One of the biggest difficulties in implementing policies to cut down on plastics entering the environment is a lack of data on where plastics are produced, used and end up (see also Nature 611, 650–653; 2022). Last September, Lau and her colleagues at Pew, along with several other organizations, launched an effort to build a global plastics disclosure system, which they will encourage firms that want to reduce their plastic consumption and waste to adopt; the system is somewhat analogous to carbon disclosure systems that enable companies to report their carbon footprint.Closing the loop At a facility in Clermont-Ferrand, France, a company called Carbios is testing a technology that it says will form the basis for the world’s first enzymatic recycling plant, which it aims to start building this year and to open in 2025. The plant will use genetically modified enzymes to break down a common plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET).The Carbios team hopes that enzymes can overcome some of the shortcomings of mechanical recycling, the most popular method today for repurposing used plastics. This involves first sorting and separating plastics, which are a mixture of different kinds of polymers (long molecular chains); then washing them, and finally grinding or melting them down to produce new plastics. In addition to PET, which is used in fabrics and packaging, some of the other commonly used plastics that can be recycled in this way include polypropylene (PP), used in packaging and construction, and polyethylene (PE) — a polymer that can be manufactured at varying densities and so is found in a wide range of products, from shopping bags and folding chairs to surgical implants (see ‘Types of plastic’).

Source: Ref 1.

Mechanical recycling is sensitive to contaminants such as food and additives, and the process can reduce the length of the polymers, affecting the plastic’s properties (such as toughness or hardness) and its ability to be processed into new materials. This degradation, also known as downcycling, can eventually render plastics unrecyclable.

Mechanical recycling: a worker feeds plastic waste into a crushing machine at a recycling facility in Medellin, Colombia.Credit: Edinson Ivan Arroyo Mora/Bloomberg/Getty

Breaking down plastics with enzymes is one alternative. This can split polymers into their building blocks, or monomers, which can then be used to build plastics with the same properties as the starting material. This makes it possible to indefinitely recycle the plastic, a process often referred to as closed-loop recycling. (Some researchers define ‘closed-loop’ as simply being able to reprocess plastics into other comparable plastic products — even when this cycle cannot be continued indefinitely.)The first reports of enzymes that could degrade plastics date back at least three decades. But the concept received a big boost in 2016, when researchers in Japan reported the discovery of a naturally occurring bacterium that consumes plastics as its sole source of food. This microbe, Ideonella sakaiensis, contains two enzymes that work together to break down PET3.
Plastics tsunami: Can a landmark treaty stop waste from choking the oceans?
The study prompted other researchers to explore plastic-guzzling enzymes. Min Jiang, a biochemical engineer at Nanjing Tech University in China, says his team had focused on finding enzymes that could degrade pesticides, but then added plastics-eaters to their repertoire. Jiang and his team have scoured landfills, forests and oceans to find microorganisms that can break down plastics.One key focus of Jiang’s group has been on developing ways to enzymatically recycle polyurethanes, plastics used in insulation, furniture, shoe soles and other everyday products. So far, the team has identified more than 20 microbes that can degrade polyurethanes—and is studying those organisms’ enzymes in the laboratory, he says.Jiang’s team is also a member of MIX-UP, a consortium of 14 institutions in Europe and China aiming to use microbes both to depolymerize plastics into their constituent monomers (or oligomers — chains of a few building blocks) and to build new plastics. The goal is to use protein engineering to make natural plastic guzzlers faster and more robust, says MIX-UP member Uwe Bornscheuer, a biochemist at the University of Greifswald in Germany, who is also on Carbios’s advisory board. Naturally occurring bacterial enzymes are typically slow, but scientists can modify them to act faster. According to Alain Marty, chief scientific officer of Carbios, a 20-cubic-metre bioreactor can, using the company’s enzymes, degrade 100,000 plastic bottles in 20 hours; its 2025 facility aims to break down 50,000 tonnes of PET a year.

PET plastic flakes and enzymes are mixed together in this Carbios demonstration bioreactor.Credit: Carbios

Despite the explosion of interest, enzyme-based recycling has limitations. The technology remains costly. One 2023 estimate by Gregg Beckham, a chemical engineer at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and his colleagues suggest that enzymatically recycled PET might currently cost around twice as much as the virgin product, and around four times as much as the mechanically recycled one; it also uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases than does mechanical recycling4.So far, the enzyme approach seems limited to PET and polyurethanes: two polymers which might be easier to break down because they are not made solely of carbon–carbon bonds. Other plastics, such as polyolefins (polyethylene and polypropylene) and polystyrene, which are held together by carbon–carbon bonds, have been much more difficult to tackle, says Jose Jiménez, a molecular biologist at Imperial College London.
Plastic pollution: Three problems that a global treaty could solve
Enzymes do have an advantage over mechanical recycling, however, because they are highly selective in what they digest. When they work on a PET bottle that includes additives — such as other plastic types, or chemicals for colouring — the enzymes digest the PET and leave the rest, says Marty. That means enzymatic recycling can deal with some plastics that mechanical recycling cannot, and requires a less stringent sorting process. Carbios argues that this will help enzymatic processing compete on cost over time. (For instance, European Union rules will require PET bottles to contain at least 25% recycled plastic by 2025, which Carbios says will cause PET waste to become scarcer and thus raise the cost of sourcing material for mechanical recycling.)Enzyme-based recycling is just one form of chemical recycling, the term for a broader class of techniques that break plastics into their molecular building blocks. Chemical catalysts might be used, too, says Beckham — and many scientists are trying to go beyond just breaking down PET.In a 2022 study, Beckham and his colleagues demonstrated that combining biological and chemical catalysts could be a powerful technique for mixed plastics5. The researchers used a two-step process, including a metal catalyst and an engineered soil bacterium, to degrade a blend of plastics — PET, high-density polyethylene (HDPE), a plastic commonly used in shampoo bottles and milk cartons, and polystyrene, which is used to make styrofoam — into chemicals that could be used to make new polymers. More work is needed before this technology is available for use, says Beckham, such as figuring out the cost and what new plastic it could be used to produce.

Alli Werner at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory tests plastic-degrading enzymes.Credit: Dennis Schroeder/NREL

Another technique sometimes referred to as chemical recycling is pyrolysis, in which mixed plastics are heated to extremely high temperatures in the absence of oxygen until they break down into components that can be used as fuel or for building new polymers. But this labelling is controversial. Critics question whether it can really be considered recycling — because it is often used to generate fuel — and have argued that it is an energy-intensive process that is little better than incineration. Despite these critiques, many large chemical companies are in the process of building pyrolysis plants around the world.Some polymer scientists, such as Michael Shaver at the University of Manchester, UK, argue that even though new recycling methods are important, “mechanical recycling and reuse will always be better in terms of environmental footprint”. So increasing the amount of plastics that are mechanically recycled is crucial, Shaver says, by improving the systems through which plastics are collected and processed at recycling plants. “We can’t chemically recycle our way out of this problem.”Building better plastics For Jeremy Luterbacher, a biochemical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, one solution is going back to the drawing board — and designing a new type of plastic. Luterbacher sees the ideal plastic replacement as having a life cycle akin to paper: minimally modified from the source material, simple to recycle, and with minimal potential for harm if it leaks into the environment.In 2022, Luterbacher’s group reported a way to use chemicals known as aldehydes to turn inedible biological material, such as wood chips and the cobs of maize (corn), into a biodegradable polyester, called dimethylglyoxylate xylose, that he thinks could be this replacement material6. Although the production process is currently proof of concept, it should be possible to make this polyester simply and in large amounts, Luterbacher says.

A bioplastic (white powder) developed in Jeremy Luterbacher’s group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne sits on a mixture of other plastics (such as PET and polyethylene). The bioplastic can be chemically dissolved and recycled without affecting the other plastics.Credit: Lorenz Manker

Luterbacher hopes that staying as close as possible to the original chemical structure of wood, maize cobs or whatever material is used will help to reduce the cost and complexity of this process by reducing the steps needed to get to a polymer. A start-up that he co-founded, Bloom Biorenewables in Marly, Switzerland, is developing this, but there are many steps between idea and commercial product, Luterbacher says. For instance, if dimethylglyoxylate xylose is to be used in food packaging, researchers will need to be sure that, as it degrades, any molecules produced won’t be harmful to health or have any other unintended effects such as leaving a bad taste.“When you’re competing against products that have been developed, in some cases, over 100 years, it takes a lot of resources to catch up,” he says.Like Luterbacher, many researchers are working to develop a new generation of plastics that are often collectively referred to as bioplastics. This umbrella term can refer to any of the bio-based plastics, which are derived from plant-based materials; biodegradable plastics, which can degrade within months in the environment; and compostable plastics, a subset of biodegradable plastics that, among other things, do not produce toxic residues when broken down. (The term biodegradable is itself controversial. Researchers have raised questions about whether such plastics actually break down in the time span manufacturers claim, and have concerns that they might contribute to the problem of microplastics in marine ecosystems.) Because bioplastics don’t rely on fossil fuels as their raw material, their production can also have a smaller carbon footprint than for virgin-plastic counterparts.
Chemistry can make plastics sustainable – but isn’t the whole solution
Currently, the two biggest categories of bioplastics, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) and polylactic acid (PLAs), are both bio-based and biodegradable; they are used in applications including food packaging, cutlery and textiles. Firms are investing billions of dollars into making bioplastics. But they currently comprise only an estimated 1% of the more than 400 million tonnes of plastics produced per year. And when it comes to competing with virgin plastics, bioplastics face limitations.Shaver says that PLA is often brittle, and some PHAs can be difficult to process. He adds that the physical properties of these plastics are often tuned by blending in other materials or using high levels of additives — which it’s important to be transparent about to ensure product safety, especially if these plastics are released to be biodegraded in the environment.It’s also expensive to mass-produce bioplastics, even though they can lead to lower carbon emissions than do virgin plastics. Existing bioplastics, Jiménez says, “are much more expensive than simply getting plastic from oil”.One common way to make PHAs, for example, involves extracting molecules that accumulate in bacteria grown under special conditions — a process that can be costly and hard to scale. Some researchers are trying to boost PHA production by using genetically modified bacteria or even chemicals, rather than microorganisms, to make the bioplastic.Improving plastics design doesn’t only mean going back to the drawing board, says Melanie Bergmann, a marine ecologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany. It can also involve improving on what we already have — for example, by ensuring that products contain just one type of plastic to make them more easily recyclable.A tractable problem? Will humanity be able to find a way through the plastics crisis? Some of the researchers Nature interviewed are optimistic. Bornscheuer, for example, is reassured that so many research teams around the world are working on this problem, and because he sees more media attention and public interest.Bergmann has a less rosy outlook. The many obstacles in dealing with climate change give her little confidence that the plastics problem will be adequately addressed. Still, she sees the UN resolution to create a global plastics treaty as a step in the right direction. “I have great hopes — plastics pollution is a transboundary problem, so we need global action to efficiently address it,” she says.“The plastics pollution crisis is literally visible, and it’s hard not to be heartbroken when you see it in the natural environment, especially,” Beckham says. “I do think that humankind has recognized this problem, and I am hopeful that we can solve this. But it will take monumental amounts of work and time.”

Plastics recycling plant proposed for Susquehanna shoreline

A proposed $1.1 billion plastics recycling plant, shown here in an artist’s rendering, would be located along the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania. (Encina)

Is a $1.1 billion plastics recycling plant proposed for Pennsylvania an innovative way to re-use plastics and keep them out of landfills, incinerators and waterways? Or will it help cement society’s reliance on plastics and create pollution concerns for the Susquehanna River?The answer depends on who you ask.
Pennsylvania outcompeted other states to land what Houston-based Encina says will be the flagship for a global network of “advanced recycling” facilities. Over the course of a year, up to 450,000 tons of hard-to-recycle plastics — enough to fill an NFL stadium — would arrive via 80 truckloads a day from materials recovery facilities around the region. The items would include plastic bags, packaging, straws, ice cream and yogurt containers, potato chip bags and more.Then a process called pyrolysis — high heat without oxygen — combined with an unspecified proprietary catalyst, would liquify, separate and purify the plastic’s molecules, the company says. It breaks them down into basic chemicals: benzene, toluene and mixed xylenes.The compounds would be sold and shipped by train to customers who make new plastics that can be used in thousands of products. Potentially over and over. Unlike other advanced recycling plants in the U.S., Encina claims, none of the material would be sold as diesel fuel, synthetic oil or other forms of fossil fuel.“Increasingly, customers are demanding sustainable practices across the product supply chain and life cycle,” said Encina CEO David Roesser. “What we manufacture helps reduce waste, offsets the need to extract virgin resources and helps manufacturers achieve carbon reduction goals.”The company has operated a small-scale demonstration plant since 2016 in San Antonio, TX.

A small-scale plant in Texas has been used by Encina since 2016 to demonstrate plastics recycling technology. (Encina)

To build the Pennsylvania facility, the company has signed a long-term lease on 101 acres in a floodplain on an aggregate mining site along the Susquehanna River in Northumberland County, about 60 miles north of Harrisburg.If it obtains all the necessary permits, Encina hopes to start operations in 2024. So far, one company, American Styrenics, has agreed to buy up to 250,000 tons of recycled resins a year.In March, township officials denied the company’s request for a variance to build its 80-foot-high processing building in a 50-foot maximum height zone. While surprised by the denial, Encina officials expressed confidence it would only be a temporary setback.Former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf celebrated the project when it was announced in 2022.“Not only will they be creating new, good-paying jobs, but they’re committed to doing it with an innovative approach that will lessen their impact on the climate and sustain a brighter future for all of us,” he said at the time.But not everyone sees it that way.
The Encina plant does nothing to address single-use plastics that are the heart of the plastics crisis, said Tamela Russell, founder of the Pennsylvania-based group Move Past Plastic. The $1.1 billion would be better spent creating biodegradable packaging and establishing a re-use model in which plastic products are designed to be collected by manufacturers, refurbished, cleansed and used again.“It’s just going to perpetuate using more plastics,” she said. “And it’s still just taking those environmental contaminants and just recycling them. It’s the same false recycling narrative. It’s not going to stop more production, which we must do.”

A proposed $1.1 billion plastics recycling plant, shown here in an artist’s rendering, would be located along the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania. (Encina)

Alexis Goldsmith, of Vermont-based Beyond Plastics, said the pyrolysis process will produce greenhouse gases and emit toxic volatile organic compounds, which she claimed would end up either in the air or water.She also called the Encina project “greenwashing.”“The petrochemical industry sees the writing on the wall,” she said. “In order to divert political will from passing laws to reduce plastic use, they say chemical recycling is the solution. The real solution that we need is to reduce plastics production.” Danny Berard, the mayor of Northumberland, just downriver of the proposed plant, has said there are too many unanswered questions about how microplastics would be kept from entering the river, the extent and management of truck traffic and the financial stability of “a start-up company.” The Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association has not taken a position on the project, but Riverkeeper John Zaktansky expressed concern. “There’s just so many red flags in this situation,” he said. “For one thing, we’re concerned with the massive number of plastics sitting on a site within a floodplain.”He also is dubious about guarantees that PFAS, commonly known as “forever chemicals,” would not escape into the river from bales of plastics as they are washed and processed.Zaktansky said his research of other advanced recycling initiatives launched around the country has shown that many run into problems.At a public call-in session with Encina officials in March, residents raised concerns about air pollution, building in the floodplain, microplastic pollution, wastewater pollution and the plant’s water consumption — estimated at up to 2.5 million gallons daily.Encina representatives said modifications would be made to protect buildings from flooding. Water withdrawn from the river would be treated and likely returned with better quality. A membrane bioreactor system would filter plastics from discharged water, and the water would be monitored before releases. None of the materials will contain PFAS, they said.Air emissions would adhere to restrictions set by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. “Anything we are producing will be captured,” Roesser said.Encina officials disagree that the plant enables more plastic production without addressing the heart of the excess plastics problem.“We need a more refined approach where we reduce as much as we can, replace as much as we can and re-use as much as we can,” said Sheida Sahandy, the company’s chief sustainability officer. “But at the end of the day, at least in the short to middle term, there are some critical uses of plastics that none of these alternatives address.”

Where there’s plastic, there’s fire. Indiana blaze highlights concerns over expanding plastic recycling

The dense black smoke from a fire at a plastics recycler in Richmond, Indiana, that began Tuesday afternoon and continued burning on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 nearby residents, was  dramatic, but far from an isolated incident in the world of facilities that store or recycle vast quantities of plastic waste.

There are hundreds of such fires in the United States and Canada every year and most of them never make the news, said Richard Meier, a private fire investigator in Florida who worked 24 years as a mechanical engineer in manufacturing, including in plastics companies.

“These plastics, most of them are derived from oil. They are petrochemicals and they have the same propensity for burning once ignited,” Meier said.

So far, in Richmond, in eastern Indiana between Indianapolis and Dayton, Ohio, local health officials say the biggest threat to the public is from breathing particulates in the smoke.

But as firefighters and residents there are now experiencing, the toxic chemicals plastic fires can release also pose significant threats.

“There can be a lot of nasty things that come along with burning plastics. Polyurethane can release hydrogen cyanide,” Meier said, referring to the chemical warfare agent. 

“Dioxins come from burning plastics,” he said, referring to a group of highly toxic chemicals that can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system and interfere with hormones. 

The fire at the plastics recycling plant in Richmond, Indiana, that ignited on Tuesday afternoon. Credit: Ron Oler

“That’s why firefighters wear full respiratory gear when fighting a plastic fire, with an air tank on their back,” Meier said.

On Wednesday, Richmond Mayor Dave Snow told reporters the fire occurred at a plastic waste collection business that city officials have been trying to clean up for several years. 

“We were aware what was operating (there) was a fire hazard,” Snow said. “The business owner is responsible for all this.”

The fire raised new and old concerns about the global plastics crisis that is overwhelming landfills and collection sites, choking the oceans and depositing microplastics inside the bodies and bloodstreams of wild animals and humans alike. Although plastics are ubiquitous in much of modern life, the United Nations and many of its member countries now view them as posing a health and climate threat thoughout their lifecycle, and are working on a plastics treaty in an effort to stop their proliferation and clean them up. 

In Richmond, City Councilman Ron Oler said as much as 70 million pounds of waste plastic was stored inside and outside several buildings on the burning property, which is near a residential area.

He said the plastics there were the hardest types to recycle and had been piling up ever since China stopped accepting most plastic waste —including from Richmond—under a policy called National Sword.

“This guy was buying up scrap plastic and selling it to China,” Oler said. When the China market dried up, so did his business prospects, he added.

But the plant’s owner kept receiving it and storing it, Oler said.

“Our biggest fear has been there would be a fire because there is so much plastic,” he said. Cleanup efforts, however, have been tied up in the courts, he said.

Oler said the fire itself has been terribly disruptive, requiring an evacuation zone of one-half mile, which affected at least 2,000 residents. It could burn for days, officials said.

“This is Richmond’s East Palestine moment,” he said, referring to the Feb. 3 train derailment in eastern Ohio and the controlled release and burning of five railcars of vinyl chloride, a cancer-causing chemical used to make PVC plastic.

At a Wednesday press conference, Christine Stinson, the executive director of the Wayne County Health Department, said air monitoring has revealed the biggest concern to be particulates in the smoke.

“Just standing here, you can see how close we are to the fire, my throat is starting to get a little sore,” she told reporters, several blocks from the charred and burning remains of the recycling business, with smoke still rising as a backdrop.

EPA officials said they will continue air monitoring for particulates and several types of chemicals, including volatile organic compounds, benzene, chlorine and hydrogen cyanide.

China’s National Sword policy rocked global recycling markets, including across the United States.

“I will bet there are almost a hundred of these facilities laying around the United States with giant stockpiles of plastics,” said Jane Williams, executive director of the environmental group California Communities Against Toxics. “There is no way to recycle it because it’s not recyclable.”

Since China adopted National Sword, a lot of plastic waste has been sent to landfills or burned in incinerators, said Jan Dell, a chemical engineer who has worked as a consultant to the oil and gas industry and now runs The Last Beach Cleanup, a nonprofit that fights plastics pollution and waste.

She’s been so concerned about fire threats from old and new stockpiles that she’s been tracking most of those plastic fires that actually do make the news. 

She has counted 70 and mapped their locations in several countries since 2019.

“This is a horrific problem because plastic waste is highly flammable and at these operations, not all of them have proper health and safety management,” she said. “They are sketchy operators.”

With the chemical and plastics industry promoting more recycling, and selling recycling to the public as “clean and green,” plastic fires at  recycling plants illustrate a contradictory and, she said, more realistic image of the industry.

She and other environmentalists say that fires at plastic recycling operations also highlight a threat from the American Chemistry Council’s national push to persuade state legislatures to regulate so-called “advanced recycling” operations as manufacturing and not solid waste management, limiting the need for waste management permits and regulations. 

The industry uses the term “advanced’’ to include recycling processes that convert plastic waste into chemical ingredients for new plastic products or fuel, using high heat and other chemicals. But these advanced recycling plants, which many environmentalists describe as essentially plastics incinerators, also typically stockpile waste plastics onsite. 

In fact, a Brightmark advanced, or chemical, recycling plant in northeast  Indiana experienced a fire in 2021 that also sent a large plume of black smoke into the air, according to a local television station report.

Kansas on Monday became the 23rd state to pass such legislation categorizing advanced recycling as a manufacturing process, subject to far less regulation than waste disposal or incineration, according to the American Chemistry Council. Indiana lawmakers passed their own version of such a law, Senate Bill 472, in March, and on Wednesday the Indiana chapter of the Sierra Club urged Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb to veto it.

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Nearly a quarter of people in the UK flush wet wipes down the toilet

Whether you’re cleaning your house, your car or your child, there are a variety of wet wipes manufactured for the job. Wet wipes are small, lightweight and extremely convenient. They have become a staple in most of our lives, particularly so during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.

But according to Water UK, an organisation representing the water industry, flushing wet wipes down the toilet is responsible for 93% of sewer blockages and costs around £100 million each year to sort out. And the majority of these wipes, about 90%, contain plastic.

Water UK also found that 22% of people admit to flushing wipes down the toilet, even though most of them knew they posed a hazard. And it’s estimated that 300,000 sewer blockages occur every year because of “fatbergs”, with wet wipes one of the main causes.

But it seems wet wipes could soon be banned in England – well, at least the ones that contain plastic – as the government has said it will launch a public consultation on wet wipes in response to mounting concerns about water pollution and blockages. This follows pledges made by major retailers, including Boots and Tesco, to discontinue the sale of such products.

Market projections show that 1.63 million tons of material will be produced in 2023 for wet wipes globally – an industry worth approximately $2.84 billion (£2.04 billion). Though these figures are likely to be on the conservative side as manufacturers increased the production of disinfecting wipes in 2020 during the pandemic – and have remained at the same level since.

Despite the popularity and wide use of wet wipes, not a lot is known about their environmental footprint. This is because manufacturers are not obliged to state what the wipes are made from on the packaging, only the intentionally added ingredients. This creates a challenge for both scientists and consumers alike.

What we know

Wet wipes are made from non-woven fibres that are fused together either mechanically or with the aid of chemicals or heat. The individual fibres can be made from either natural (regenerated cellulose or wood pulp) or petroleum-based (plastic) materials, including polyester and polypropylene.

Most wet wipes are a mixture of natural and synthetic fibres – and the majority contain plastic. As well as the fibres, wet wipes also contain chemicals, including cleaning or disinfecting agents which are impregnated into the material.

Wet wipes can cause a lot of issues for our sewerage system.
JoyImage/Shutterstock

Some wipes are designed to be “flushable” and contain chemical binding agents that are designed to release the fibres of the wipe when they are exposed to water. This means that if wipes are not disposed of correctly, they can create both a plastic and a chemical hazard to the environment.

It’s well known that plastic breaks down extremely slowly and persists for centuries in landfill. And if plastic-containing wipes are released into the environment – either through littering or via the sewerage system – they can pose a number of hazards.

The plastic problem

When wet wipes reach the environment – including soil, rivers and the ocean – they generate microplastic pollution in the form of microfibers. Microfibers are one of the most prevalent types of plastic pollution in the aquatic environment and affect ecosystems as well as potentially human health through their introduction into the food chain.

The problem has been exacerbated by these “flushable” wipes. One study identified seven different types of plastics as potential components of flushable wipes – meaning that they still risk being a source of microplastic pollution. Recent work has confirmed that wet wipes (along with sanitary products) are an underestimated source of white microfibers found in the marine environment.

Data on the environmental impact of the associated chemicals is lacking, but this is something my research group is currently working on. What is known though is that plastics have the ability to absorb other contaminants such as metals and pesticides as well as pathogens. And this provides a way for pollution to be transported large distances through the environment.

Are flushable wipes really flushable?
Shutterstock/nito

Driven by environmental concerns as well as impending legislation, many plastic-free wipe products are now available or being developed. But even products made from natural fibres can still pose a problem to sewerage systems and so safe disposal – in a bin – is key.

The scientific evidence surrounding the environmental effects of bio-based plastics (plastics made from non-petroleum sources such as corn or potato starch) is also lacking, so caution is needed when thinking about simply switching from petroleum-based to bio-based plastics.

With this in mind, reusable washable products are a great alternative to disposables and have a much smaller environmental footprint. They are particularly handy around the home when washing is convenient.

That said, there will remain a market for disposables, but manufacturers should have to clearly label what the wipes are made from so that consumers can make a more informed choice.

New shark-inspired robot can help tackle water pollution

LONDON (WSVN) — A new robot inspired by sharks that eat just about anything, is making waves in the fight against ocean pollution.The autonomous “Waste Shark” is designed to collect trash, debris, and biomass from the surface of city waters. Creator Richard Hardiman explained that the device measures water quality by analyzing parameters such as turbidity, salinity, temperature, PH balance, and water depth.London’s River Thames has a Waste Shark hard at work and is reportedly capable of clearing the equivalent of more than 22,000 plastic bottles a day. Data collected by the United Nations revealed 85% of marine litter is some form of plastic and predictions indicated that by 2050, the amount of plastic in the ocean could outweigh all the fish.The Waste Shark’s ability to stop trash before it reaches the ocean could make a significant impact in reducing this pollution. According to Hardiman, the device can travel up to three miles before it needs to be recharged and can collect more than 1,000 pounds of trash before it needs to be emptied.“Once you empty it, you can put it back in,” he said. “It’s got batteries inside it so, it’s purely electric.”While each machine costs approximately $25,000, the investment could prove valuable in improving water quality and reducing the impact of plastic waste on our oceans.
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How the Boston Marathon Is embracing sustainability

This article is part of Outside Run’s complete 2023 Boston Marathon race coverage.
The Boston Marathon is making major strides when it comes to sustainability. As one of the world’s premier marathons, it’s working hard to implement systems and educate participants about event sustainability. And while running might not immediately seem like it has an enormous carbon footprint, the impact adds up.
Just getting to the start line produces emissions. More than three-quarters of race participants travel from outside of New England, producing .24 pounds of CO2 per mile of air travel. The marathon’s official flight partner, JetBlue, offers an option for travelers to offset its carbon emissions. Then, the buses that transport athletes 26 miles from Boston Common to the startline in Hopkinton contribute another 11.2 tons of greenhouse gas emissions (though mass transit, like buses, has less impact than personal vehicles). A major challenge presented in shrinking the marathon’s footprint is the sheer size of the event, with more than 30,000 runners and half a million spectators along a course.
“The biggest issue is definitely the scale of the marathon, and the fact that it happens so quickly over just one day. We have a limited window to get things set up and make sure everything’s going according to plan,” says Will Pollard, operations manager at the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.), which owns and operates the race. “The fact that our footprint spans over 26 miles creates a lot of logistical elements that require a lot of planning to figure out.”
The B.A.A. is also working on educational initiatives for participants, including athlete newsletters and a booth at the expo that will spotlight the B.A.A.’s successes and challenges in making the marathon more environmentally friendly.
“There is always room for improvement! We evaluate each operational area post-event to see what worked well and what could use tweaking,” says Pollard. “I’m excited to see what we learn after this year about where we want to take the program next.”
Waste Diversion
Physical waste presents a major challenge for event organizers. In 2017, the marathon produced 62,000 disposable water bottles, 1.4 million water cups, and 171,380 paper brochures. While race foods, like bananas and orange slices, are compostable, athletes often toss food and trash on the ground, which results in more manpower needed to sweep the course, potentially tainted waste streams, and biodegradable waste ending up in landfills.
In recent years, 80 percent of waste from the Boston course has been diverted into sustainable streams such as recycling or compost. The B.A.A. has achieved this by placing volunteer-run waste stations in high-traffic areas of the course so that athletes and spectators can sustainably dispose of things, rather than throwing everything in the trash.
“Someone will bring an item that they need to throw away, then the volunteer will sort it into the correct stream: recycling, compost, or landfill,” says Pollard. “This gets everything organized before being hauled away by our trash and recycling partner.”
Sorting things effectively is critical for making sure materials can be composted or recycled, since “tainted” streams (like recycling bins that contain trash products) can’t be recycled or composted.
In 2022, the B.A.A. introduced compostable cups along the course.
RELATED: 8 Running Brands That Actually Give a Damn About The Planet
“We have 24 hydration stations set up to service all 30,000 athletes; that’s a lot of material that has previously been collected and sent to the landfill,” says Pollard. Now, all Gatorade and Poland Spring cups are made of compostable materials. The cups are collected in compostable bags and transported to a large, industrial compost facility. Last year, over 6.5 tons of cups were composted (roughly the equivalent of an adult African Elephant).
Runners typically bring extra layers to Hopkinton on race morning so they can stay warm before the start. Volunteers will collect discarded hats, gloves, jackets, and shirts from the Athletes’ Village area all the way to the Ashland town line. Last year, 21 tons of clothing were collected at the start line and donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Sustainable Jacket
Event organizers aren’t just working to redirect used clothing back into circulation; they’re also ensuring that new garments are more sustainable and use more recycled materials. This year’s Boston Marathon Celebration Jacket contains 70 percent recycled content. This is a substantial move, as adidas provides volunteer jackets to more than 10,000 volunteers and official participant shirts to 18,000 men and 14,950 women.
“We’re creating products with recycled materials, making products to be remade, and developing products made with nature,” says Jennifer Thomas, Vice President of Global Sports Marketing at adidas. “Overall, the Boston Marathon articles reflect our overall ambition to use sustainable materials in 9 out of 10 products with every article in this collection using either recycled polyester or cotton that is sourced through our partnership with Better Cotton.”
This year’s Boston finisher’s jacket contains yarn that’s 50 percent Parley Ocean Plastic, which is plastic from islands, beaches, coastal communities, and shorelines that is upcycled into polyester fibers. According to Chris Lotsbom, Director of Communications at the B.A.A., the jacket colors reference the intersection of athletics and the environment, “by pairing natural tones inspired by sand and stones as a twist on the traditional blue and yellow colors of the Boston Marathon.”
Adidas is also partnering with the B.A.A. to collect and recycle water bottles from race weekend and turn them into park benches, in addition to providing a race bag for all participants that is sustainable and has a tag that reads: “This bag is made of 100 percent recycled polyethylene, sparing unnecessary natural resources + energy consumption. 91 percent of plastic products end up in a landfill despite being sturdy enough to give a second life,” to help educate participants about textile production and recycling. Adidas will also have a booth at the expo that will prominently feature the brand’s sustainability efforts and highlight a timeline of what adidas has done in sustainability, and what additional actions they hope to take to meet ambitious sustainability goals.
The B.A.A. is learning as it goes, but optimistic that it can keep finessing systems and incorporating learnings from previous years to limit the event’s environmental impact.
According to the Council for Responsible Sport, environmentally responsible races can recycle everything from cardboard to aluminum and glass. The Council certifies and lists events that meet certain criteria established by the Council, but the Boston Marathon has yet to achieve this standard, though they have been working with Athletes for a Fit Planet to establish best practices.
“We produce year-over-year sustainability reports which summarize our program post-race. These reports include weight data from the haulers and calculate our diversion rates. It’s important that we’re seeing year-over-year improvements,” says Pollard. “We also will use these reports to target new areas to target the following year.”
Read Outside‘s complete coverage of the 2023 Boston Marathon.

Op-ed: Why is the chemical industry pitting public health against economic growth?

Recent reporting on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed rules that would restrict or ban an array of toxic chemicals used in industrial manufacturing presented the regulation as a ‘tough choice’ for a White House seeking to balance its economic agenda and public health.

The “public health vs economic growth” framing is unhelpful and demonstrably false. The only “tough choice” to be made is whether to stick with an outdated and toxic model that benefits a few regressive companies or to focus on innovation in chemistry that catches up to our competitors abroad and saves on American medical bills to boot.

To understand why, let’s tally the costs of continuing business as usual. A report just published on March 21 in the Annals of Global Health estimates that in 2015 the health-related costs of plastic production – the single most common use of industrial chemical manufacturing today – exceeded $250 billion globally. And, in the U.S. alone, the annual health costs of disease and disability caused by four industrial chemicals – PBDE, BPA, DEHP and PFAS – approach a staggering $1 trillion. Considering that there are more than 86,000 industrial chemicals in circulation, it seems likely that the actual health costs are much, much higher.

A growing emerging body of research supports those seemingly astronomical estimates. A 2015 study published by the Lancet Group estimated that the cost of disease mediated by exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the U.S. could exceed $340 billion annually. A 2022 cohort study used historical data to link phthalate exposure in the US to roughly 100,000 premature deaths and a resulting $40 billion in societal costs annually.

There are serious climate risks too. A 2022 study from Lund University in Sweden found that petrochemicals are responsible for a tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions when researchers evaluate their full lifecycle, which might include everything from a fracking well in Pennsylvania to a raft of Styrofoam disintegrating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. More recently, the Minderoo Foundation published an analysis showing that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions from plastics alone – a subset of total petrochemical use – were roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Russia.
Critically, the plastics and petrochemicals industry has known about the health-harming effects of its products for decades. In the 1970s, research by 3M scientists showed conclusively that compounds in the PFAS forever chemical family bioaccumulate in the human body and pose significant health risks. Yet rather than remove the chemicals from use and develop safe alternatives, the industry doubled down on defending their products, resulting in the universal PFAS contamination that can be found in every American and every American community today.

EPA’s oversight is important

EPA Administrator Michael Regan.Credit: Mecklenburg County/flickrStatus quo chemistry is costing us money and shortening our lives. To make matters worse it’s also standing in the way of necessary innovation and likely impairing economic growth. By not incorporating the cost of health and environmental harms of petrochemical production and use, the existing industry enjoys an artificially low cost of doing business, thus hindering new researchers and companies seeking to develop healthier, more sustainable chemical products.The European Union (EU) has found an approach that could translate. Europe is pursuing a “Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability” roadmap that puts innovation at its core while strengthening the concept of “no data, no market.” This can only be achieved by testing the chemicals before they enter the market with the best of today’s biomedical science, including tests for endocrine disruption.The European approach centered on safer solutions is already in action at the state level in the U.S. – from Maine to Washington state. Corporations are taking the lead as well, enacting ever more stringent chemical policies to protect their workers and customers. Related: The Titans of Plastic The EPA’s oversight is important. So is preventing the U.S. petrochemical industry from expanding with a new generation of toxic projects that will extend the health-harming and economy-stifling status quo for decades. Many of these projects are located in disadvantaged communities that are already severely polluted – places like the Gulf Coast of Texas, “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, and the Ohio River Valley. That’s why Michael Bloomberg recently launched a new campaign, Beyond Petrochemicals: People Over Pollution, that will block the expansion of more than 120 proposed petrochemical and plastic projects concentrated in three target geographies – Louisiana, Texas and the Ohio River Valley – and will also work to establish stricter rules for existing plants to safeguard the health of American communities. The EPA’s proposed rules represent a critical step towards leveling a playing field that has enriched the few and harmed the many for far too long. Now is the time to unleash the innovative brilliance of American scientists and companies in pursuit of chemistry that is truly safe and sustainable by design, from the production facility to the store shelves and into our homes. Our health and our climate cannot wait another moment.Linda Birnbaum is former Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Scholar in Residence at Duke University. Terry Collins is a Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon and founder of Sudoc.From Your Site ArticlesRelated Articles Around the Web

Exxon’s new ‘advanced recycling’ plant raises environmental concerns

ExxonMobil just launched one of the largest chemical recycling plants in North America – but environmental advocates say the technology is a dangerous distraction from the need to reduce plastic production.On the surface, the latest addition to ExxonMobil’s giant petrochemical refinery complex in Baytown, Texas, sounds like it could be a good thing: An “advanced recycling” facility capable of breaking down 36,000 metric tons of hard-to-recycle plastic each year. But plastic waste advocates warn that plants like it do little actual recycling, and instead generate hazardous pollutants while providing cover for oil giants to keep producing millions of tons of new plastic products each year.The facility, which began large-scale operations in December of last year, is one of the largest chemical recycling plants in North America. Chemical recycling works by breaking down plastic polymers into small molecules in order to make new plastics, synthetic fuels and other products. Companies like ExxonMobil have rebranded the technology as “advanced recycling” and are now touting it as the latest hi-tech fix to address the plastic crisis, as traditional, mechanical recycling has failed to slow the tide of plastic piling up in landfills and the ocean.ExxonMobil also says it’s planning to build chemical recycling plants at “many of its other manufacturing sites around the world”. Though it hasn’t committed specific dollar amounts to building new plants, the company is currently assessing locations in Louisiana, Illinois, Belgium, Singapore and elsewhere.By the end of 2026, the oil giant hopes to have enough chemical recycling capacity to process roughly 450,000 metric tons of plastic each year.But that’s a drop in the bucket compared with how much plastic ExxonMobil creates.In 2021 alone, ExxonMobil churned out 6m tons of new single-use plastic, more than any other petrochemical company, according to a recent report by the philanthropic Minderoo Foundation. What’s more, recent research has shown that chemical recycling is worse for the environment than mechanical recycling in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and water use, and in some cases, worse than virgin plastic production. The process ExxonMobil’s Baytown plant uses, called pyrolysis, is often so inefficient that many environmental advocates say it should not be called recycling at all.Conventional mechanical recycling involves sorting different types of plastic into individual streams that are washed, shredded and melted down to make new products. During this process, the chemical makeup of the plastic remains unchanged, although contaminants can find their way in during the melting and cutting process and the end products have a weaker physical structure.Chemical recycling relies on high heat, pressure or chemical catalysts like enzymes to break down plastic into its molecular building blocks. Those building blocks can then be used to make new products – including new plastics with the same physical structure as the original material.The most commercially widespread chemical recycling technology today is pyrolysis, according to Taylor Uekert, a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory who studies plastic recycling.Pyrolysis has significant environmental impacts. Plants that use it require large amounts of energy to operate: Uekert found that recycling a kilogram of high-density polyethylene plastic using pyrolysis requires nearly seven times the amount of energy needed to make a kilogram of virgin plastic. Typically, that energy comes from burning fossil fuels, which creates air pollution and planet-heating carbon emissions.Pyrolysis operations can also consume large volumes of water, and they often generate hazardous waste. Overall, Uekert’s research found that the environmental impact of making recycled plastics with pyrolysis is 10 to 100 times greater than virgin plastic production.In a pyrolysis plant, plastic is put in a reactor and subjected to high temperatures (ranging from 300 to 900C) and pressures in the absence of oxygen. This treatment transforms plastic into a synthetic form of crude oil which can be used as a replacement for fossil fuels or to create new plastics.While pyrolysis is able to handle more types of plastic waste than some other chemical recycling technologies, Uekert said it is not typically considered “closed loop” recycling because the fuel it generates is often burned for energy – meaning it can’t be recycled again and again. Although pyrolysis is not the same as incineration, in which waste is burned in the presence of oxygen, environmental advocates often liken pyrolysis to incineration since the end products tend to go up in smoke one way or the other.Chemical recycling “is a way for the industry to continue to expand its plastic production and assuage people’s concerns about plastic waste”, said Veena Singla, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council who has analyzed chemical recycling facilities around the US. “They’re trying to put a pretty bow on it.”ExxonMobil’s Baytown recycling plant uses the firm’s proprietary “Exxtend” technology, a pyrolysis-based approach, according to company statements. Reached for comment, an ExxonMobil spokesperson, Julie King, told the Guardian that this process “complements traditional mechanical recycling” by turning hard-to-recycle plastics into raw materials which can be used to make new plastics for food packaging, medical equipment and personal hygiene products.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKing declined to respond to criticisms about the negative environmental impacts of pyrolysis or answer questions about how much pollution the Baytown recycling plant generates. She also did not confirm the exact name or location of the plant: when asked for any identifying information that could be used to look up its state and federal permits, King simply said that ExxonMobil reports emissions to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the state of Texas in a “consistent and timely manner in accordance with all laws, regulations and permits”. King also offered that a third-party analysis by the environmental consulting firm Sphera found that every ton of plastic waste fed through ExxonMobil’s chemical recycling process generates 19 to 49% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than processing the same amount of crude-based feedstocks. (ExxonMobil did not share a copy of a report, and Sphera didn’t answer emails.)She also declined to say how much of the plastic waste fed into the plant would be used to make recycled plastic versus synthetic fuel. An internal analysis shared with the Guardian by the Minderoo Foundation found that if ExxonMobil’s Baytown plant had yields typical of pyrolysis plants, only 23% of the fuel it generates would be used to produce new plastics. The rest would go to other non-plastic applications, like fuel for transportation.Chemical recycling is “deflecting attention away from what we need, which is reducing single-use plastics and a global treaty on plastic waste”, said Phaedra Pezzullo, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder who has a book forthcoming on plastics and environmental justice.In an undercover investigation in 2021, Unearthed caught the ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy on video explaining how the firm uses recycling – including the Baytown plant – to shift the conversation around how to deal with plastic away from reducing consumption. (ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, later said that McCoy’s comments “in no way represent the company’s position on a variety of issues”, and the oil company has since parted ways with McCoy.)As the petrochemical industry forges ahead with chemical recycling, the same low-income communities and communities of color that bear the burden of plastic manufacturing are seeing these plants pop up in their backyards.Of the eight chemical recycling facilities operating in the US in 2021, six are located in disproportionately Black and brown communities, according to a report by Singla. Five are in areas with a large number of households living on less than $25,000 a year.The Baytown plant wasn’t included in Singla’s analysis, which only included facilities for which data had been reported to the EPA or state permits were available as of August 2021. But the city, already a hub of petrochemical production, fits the pattern she identified: nearly 20% of its predominantly white, working-class residents live in poverty, with a per-capita income of just $25,000.ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex – which includes the third largest oil refinery in the US and a plant that manufactures 2.3m metric tons of plastic a year – is a major contributor to regional air and water pollution. It also has a long history of emitting chemicals above its permit limits, including the carcinogenic compound benzene. In recent years, ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex has been the site of fires and explosions that have injured workers and triggered shelter-in-place orders for nearby residents.“Exxon has a terrible track record of polluting the Baytown community,” Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas, told the Guardian. “This false ‘chemical recycling’ will only produce more toxic misery for Baytown.”

East Palestine isn’t alone: Communities around the country grapple with toxic chemical exposure

East Palestine isn’t alone: Communities around the country grapple with toxic chemical exposure | The Hill Skip to content A view of the scene on Feb. 24, 2023, as the cleanup continues at the site of of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailment that happened on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio. (AP Photo/Matt Freed) …