Did the Plastic Industry Knowingly Push Recycling Myths For Decades?

A PBS reporter "digs into a new report covering the plastic industry's tactics to push recycling - and avoid regulation," according to a new video from PBS News Weekend:A new report by the Center for Climate Integrity, an environmentalist group, says newly uncovered statements from oil and plastics executives underscore the industry's decades-long secret skepticism about the viability and efficacy of recycling. The authors of the report reviewed old investigations and new documents, including previously unknown assertions from industry executives. In 1994, one Exxon Chemical executive put the industry's support for plastics recycling in blunt terms, saying "we are committed to the activities, but not committed to the results." Another representative from Dupont noted in 1992 that recycling goals were set knowing full well "they were unlikely to meet them." In the video NPR correspondent Michael Copley says "I think it's always striking, when you see a report like this that unearths new statements, new quotes, and to see the way in which they really seem to view recycling as sort of public relations tool, as opposed to an environmental tool that they sort of presented publicly..."I think the other reason why this matters is, it could potentially be legally problematic for the industry. And by that I mean the oil and gas industry right now is facing dozens of lawsuits from states and localities, based in part on statements it made about climate change and fossil fuel, going back decades. We know that the state of California has opened an investigation into the role of oil and gas companies and the petrochemical industry in the creation of the plastic waste crisis that we're facing. And the group that put out the report, the Center for Climate Integrity, was upfront, saying that it was compiling this to serve as kind of the fact basis, or the basis of evidence, for potential legal action. A plastics trade group accused the report of citing "outdated, decades-old technologies" and "mischaracterizing the current state of the industry," saying they're looking to have all plastic packaging be "reused, recycled, and recovered by 2040." But PBS's reporter counters that there's "deep skepticism" of the economics from market analysts - as well as from material scientists. "Obviously the industry has put out this promise. I think that its critics will say, 'We have been hearing these promises, or promises like it, for decades now, and that there's nothing in the record to think that now is any different." He adds that activists and businesses agree that government regulation will ultimately play a big role. "That gets back in large part to the economics of this. If companies don't have to deal with these costs, it's hard to imagine that they will in a sustained way create systems to deal with this if they don't have to." So what's the solution? Some ideas being seriously discussed:Reducing plastic production "to a level that is more manageable with recycling systems."Getting rid of types of plastic that are "especially hard to recycle or you can't recycle.""Being more transparent about what chemicals go into this stuff that again make recycling hard."

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