Plastics manufacturers have known for more than 30 years that recycling is not an economically or technically feasible solution for waste management, but have maintained this practice for decades, according to a recent study by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI).

Plastic is made from oil and gas and it is very difficult to recycle. To achieve this, a rigorous classification is needed, as the thousands of existing varieties, by their chemical composition, cannot be recycled at the same time, further increasing an expensive process in itself. Another problem is material degradation after each use, which generally limits one or two reuses.

According to the report, the industry has known these serious problems systematically hidden in marketing campaigns for decades.

According to the report, industry experts have spent all this time saying that plastic recycling is "uneconomic", that it should not be considered a "sustainable solution for solid waste" and that it cannot "remain limitless". According to the authors of the study, the evidence found can be used to incriminate oil and petrochemical companies and their commercial companies for violating pollution protection laws and misleading marketing.

Single-use plastics

In the 1950s, plastic manufacturers came up with an idea that would ensure a market for the continued growth of their products: making disposable. According to Davis Allen, researcher and lead author of the ICC report, "knew that if he focused on single-use plastics, people would buy it and buy it."

For decades, industry has introduced the message to the public that plastics are easily depositable in landfills or incinerable. In the 1980s, municipalities began to propose, among other things, a ban on plastic bags, and industry sought a new solution: recycling.

Among the “perpetrators”, the report mentioned BASF, Chevron Philips Chemical, ExxonMobil Corporation, Eastman Kodak and INEOS Group Limited.