Kickstart: Recycling's ‘guilt-free card' isn't working

Single-use packaging and plastics took center stage at the GreenBiz Circularity conference this week, with concerns about the state of recycling topping the list.

Sustainability and marketing consultant Suzanne Shelton told the online portion of the event that the public sees recycling as its "guilt-free card" so we don't have to feel bad about what we buy.

But here's the problem, as Shelton lays out: With the public feeling that recycling's not working, they're uncomfortable, and companies need to help work on fixing recycling, making composting work at curbside and accelerating circularity and reuse.

It's similar to what she told us in an appearance in March at our Plastics News Executive Forum, where she delivered a more detailed and more plastics-focused presentation.

Other GreenBiz opening speakers pushed for systematic change in recycling. Keefe Harrison, head of The Recycling Partnership, came off the opening day stage and penned this blog on how $17 billion over five years would go a long way toward addressing problems.

She pointed to Colorado's new extended producer responsibility legislation, which she said could extend curbside recycling in the state. Six of Colorado's 10 largest cities don't have universal curbside recycling service.

There's a lot needed on many fronts, including more recycled content in products to boost markets and working systems of reusable packaging, but at a shockingly basic level, access to recycling services remains a problem in the U.S.

There's a lot of changes in resin pricing markets, and my colleagues Frank Esposito and Don Loepp have updates in our monthly half-hour Polymer Points Live webinar.

Frank updates on polyethylene, polypropylene, engineering resins and other materials, offering details on the impacts of logistics and supply issues in North America, as well as the impact of the war in Ukraine and COVID-19 shutdowns in China on resin markets.

There's a lot in the discussion, including an analysis of how shipping problems are not going away anytime soon.

Polymer Points Live is available to our subscribers.

This week saw what you might call a plastics industry pushback in the climate debates.

The conservative environmental group Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions released a report arguing for policymakers to take a nuanced approach in how we look at plastics and fighting climate change.

CRES, a center-right group that advocated for the U.S. to remain in the Paris Climate Agreement and opposed the Trump administration leaving that treaty, noted environmental benefits of plastics in areas like lightweighting cars while acknowledging big challenges in waste and pollution.

It also argued that the U.S. ethane-based feedstocks are cleaner than naptha feedstocks common in China and Europe.

There are clear political implications in publications like this, as lawmakers debate climate and plastics.

The Plastics Industry Association is a CRES member and it hailed the report, while environmental groups argued in a report last year that the rapid growth of plastics production, and its fossil-fuel feedstocks, make it a climate risk on par with the coal industry.