That the plastic recycling system is broken is an open secret. But it is only little by little that we are realizing the dimension of the problem. The American association Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) published the year 2024 a report on plastic recycling. In it, they attacked the plastics industry, which they accused of having promoted the recycling of these materials even while knowing of the poor technical and economic feasibility.
A difficult task. Recycling plastics is not an easy task. In our daily lives we use a wide variety of materials of this type, each one with certain functional and chemical characteristics. They all end up in the same container, the packaging, but from there it is necessary to separate each type of plastic to proceed to recycling when possible. It is not always possible.
Disparate data. According to Ecoembes data, in 2024, 589,885 tons of plastic packaging were recycled in Spain, although NGOs such as Greenpeace cast doubt. According to GreenpeaceIn other years, the difference between the plastic recycling rate declared by Ecoembes (89.2%) and that estimated by the NGO itself (34.8%) is notable. It should be noted that it is still higher than the world average of 9% estimated by the OECD.
According to the reportfigures like these are just a reflection of an impossibility: effectively recycling plastics is out of our reach. Not only from an economic perspective but also from a technological point of view.
Single use. However, the report emphasizes an accusation: even knowing this impossibility, the industry promoted the idea that recycling was possible and viable to pave the way for single-use plastics like the ones we use in packaging. “They knew that if they focused on single-use (plastics) people would buy and buy,” explained to Guardian Davis Allen, CCI researcher and co-author of the report.
Another point of view. The reaction of the industry did not take long to arrive. The American Chemistry Council, in a statementnoted that “American plastic manufacturers are investing billions of dollars in better, innovative products and technologies that separate, capture and recycle larger quantities and more types of plastics.”
They allege that the “erroneous report” made reference to obsolete technologies and that it represents a misleading characterization of the industry and the present capacities for recycling plastics. “As is typical, instead of working together toward real solutions to plastic waste, groups like CCI choose political attacks over constructive solutions,” protested Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, in a statement also collected by Guardian. Be that as it may, California took legal action in the matter.
Will we make it? We may never achieve an efficient system of recycling that we can apply to the plastics of our daily life. In fact, the UN Global Plastics Treaty has failed again and again. But perhaps one day we will be able to treat this waste so that its waste does not contaminate our environment. One of the big bets In this sense, it is the discovery of enzymes capable of decomposing plastic polymers, breaking these chains to convert them into harmless molecules. It is undoubtedly a great promise that is getting closer and closer, but it is still far from being able to solve the problem.
Although time is not what is left over. Pollution caused by microplastics is already a reality. These wastes have appeared in the most remote places on Earth, a sign of the great reach of these contaminants. Furthermore, we know very little about the potential impacts on health and the environment of this waste.
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Image | Krizjohn Rosales
*An earlier version of this article was published in February 2025
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