Advanced recycling: Plastic crisis solution or distraction?
Associated PressPROVIDENCE, R.I. — The plastics industry says there is a way to help solve the crisis of plastic waste plaguing the planet’s oceans, beaches and lands— recycle it, chemically. The process doesn’t involve oxygen so there’s no combustion or incineration of plastics, DeBenedictis said, and their product is trucked as a synthetic oil to petrochemical companies, essentially the “building blocks on a molecular level for new plastic production.” The materials they take in, that haven’t been able to be recycled until now, should not be sent to landfills, dumped in the ocean or incinerated, DeBenedictis said. “There is absolutely no way we can meet our climate goals without addressing plastic waste.” DeBenedictis said he’s licensing the technology to try to grow the industry because that’s the “best way to make the quickest impact to the world.” A Finnish oil and gas company, Neste, is currently working to commercialize Alterra’s technology in Europe. “And innovative technologies like advanced recycling will be what makes this possible.” Kate O’Neill wrote the book on waste, called “Waste.” A professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley, she has thought a lot about whether chemical recycling should be part of the solution to the plastic crisis.