Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 35
About 48 million tons of plastic waste are generated each year in the U.S., and very little of it is ever recycled. The city of Houston says it has an innovative new program that can recycle any type of plastic, calling it a model for the nation, but environmental groups say the results leave much to be desired.
Brandy Deason, a climate justice coordinator for Air Alliance Houston, has been adding tracking devices when she bags up her plastics for recycling. She was skeptical of Houston’s program and its claims that it could recycle any type of plastic.The tracker showed her bags ended up at a storage site — not a recycling center.
Deason said she doesn’t think the average person in Houston is aware that this is where their recycling ends up.
Plastic is made from oil and gas, and it comes in thousands of chemically distinct varieties that can’t be mixed together. That’s why less than 10% gets recycled. But Cyclyx says it figured out a way to sort and process any kind of plastic into pellets that can then be recycled.
Ray Mastroleo, Exxon’s global market development manager for advanced recycling, said the process “ultimately allows us to take a wide range of plastic waste that doesn’t have a home today and repurpose them. Advanced recycling is real. It’s happening. We’re doing it.”
Plastic makers are now waging a new recycling ad campaign — just as Shell Oil shelved its advanced recycling plans, calling them “unfeasible.”
Source: CBS News
