Democrats challenge EPA's contentious plastics plan

House Democrats want the upcoming EPA spending bill to include language on chemical recycling.

May 04, 2022

House Democrats want EPA to weigh the climate and environmental implications of a deeply contentious industry proposal for addressing plastics pollution.

Twenty-five lawmakers sent a letter last week seeking to force EPA's hand on deeming so-called chemical recycling technologies to be a form of waste incineration. In a request to the House Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, the lawmakers asked for the inclusion of language in the fiscal 2023 bill that would scrutinize the ramifications associated with chemical recycling.

EPA said last fall that the agency would weigh whether or not two chemical recycling technologies, pyrolysis and gasification, are solid waste incineration, a classification that involves significant oversight under the Clean Air Act.

Led by Democratic California Reps. Jared Huffman and Alan Lowenthal, the lawmakers who sent the letter emphasized concerns with chemical recycling, which converts plastics into products like fuel.

"A comprehensive approach focused on reducing plastic production is needed to reduce the harms of plastics to our communities, climate, and ocean," they wrote to Subcommittee Chair Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and ranking member David Joyce (R-Ohio).

But, they argued, chemical recycling is far from a solution. "Rather than incineration where plastics are [directly] combusted for energy, chemical recycling converts plastics … which are then used for energy.

No plastics are recovered in this process," they asserted, going on to conclude the technologies "contribute to climate change, cause harmful health impacts in the surrounding communities, and do not represent a solution to the plastic pollution crisis."

In order to ensure these concerns are accounted for, the lawmakers asked the committee to include language in the spending bill highlighting misgivings about the growth of chemical recycling technologies.

Suggested language would direct EPA "to consider the emissions, disproportionate impacts, and lack of circularity in its ongoing rulemaking on the regulatory treatment of gasification and pyrolysis units and directs the Agency to maintain regulating these technologies as 'municipal waste combustion units'" under the Clean Air Act.

The letter will be considered as the appropriations committee works on next year's spending bills. Spokespeople for Pingree and Joyce did not indicate whether the letter had been received or what the reaction has been.

Divisive plan

The letter marks a new lawmaker-led phase in a brewing fight over chemical recycling. Industry members and environmental groups have been engaged in a heated back-and-forth on the matter (Greenwire, Feb. 28).

Sometimes called "advanced recycling" by industry members, chemical recycling has emerged in recent years as a potential solution to daunting plastics issues. Widespread pollution and public outrage have led to pressure on corporate giants like beverage-makers to ramp up their recycling pledges and keep their products in circularity. But traditional mechanical recycling has yielded low return rates on plastics, with numbers hovering under 9 percent, and many items — like plastic bags — considered virtually impossible to reuse.

A small but growing cluster of companies and facilities have argued chemical recycling will solve that problem, turning hard-to-recycle plastics into new products. Organizations like the American Chemistry Council point to the fuel the processes can produce as an example of renewable energy, while also maintaining plastics-to-plastics processes are on the rise.

Joshua Baca, ACC's vice president of plastics, panned the lawmakers' letter as an unfair attack on a legitimate form of recycling.

"Regulating advanced recycling as solid waste incineration would be inconsistent with Clean Air Act legal criteria," Baca said, noting that 18 states have passed laws regulating the process as manufacturing.

He added: "We urge lawmakers and the EPA to follow the science and reject the false claims that advanced recycling is 'waste combustion,' and we invite them to visit an advanced recycling facility to get the facts in person.”

'Simply isn't compatible'

Environmental groups take a decidedly different approach, arguing chemical recycling facilities merely practice a form of incineration, one that poses health issues for surrounding communities. EPA data also shows that some chemical recycling facilities ship large amounts of hazardous waste across the country, where they are sent to landfills and incinerators.

Incineration itself is regulated under multiple statutes, but there have long been debates about whether that applies to processes like pyrolysis and gasification. Former President Donald Trump's EPA sought to drop pyrolysis from municipal combustion regulations despite pushback from environmental groups. Under President Joe Biden, the agency is mulling how to proceed (Greenwire, Sept. 7, 2021).

Advocates see EPA's scrutiny of the issue as a positive move, but they also worry about the outcome. Under a recycling strategy unveiled last fall, EPA indicated its openness to chemical recycling as a possible tool for addressing gaps nationwide (Greenwire, Nov. 15, 2021).

One environmental group, the Ocean Conservancy, said it worked closely with members of Congress to draft the letter sent last week. Anja Brandon, a policy analyst with the organization, said in a statement that chemical recycling "simply isn’t compatible with a healthy, plastic-free ocean" in its current state.

"Burning plastics emits greenhouse gases and countless toxic chemicals and incentivizes industry to continue unfettered plastics production instead of investing in a working recycling system," Brandon said. "To keep plastics out of our ocean, we need to make less plastic, and better recycle what we already have; expanding chemical recycling will kill any chance we have of accomplishing either."

Lawmakers have expressed varying sentiments regarding chemical recycling to date, with their stances not always falling along partisan lines. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), for example, has been actively curious about the area, eyeing chemical recycling as a potential vehicle for jobs as well as a plastics solution (E&E Daily, June 25, 2021).

By contrast, the "Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act" — S. 984 and H.R. 2238 — backed by many Democrats, includes a three-year moratorium on chemical recycling facilities.

The letter sent to the appropriations subcommittee may signal a shift as more Democrats take a harder line against chemical recycling. Recent reports from groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council have blasted the practice's potential impacts on public health and the environment, putting further pressure on lawmakers (Greenwire, March 7).


By:  E.A. Crunden
Source: Politico Pro