Advanced Recycling

Learn the facts about “advanced recycling” (“chemical recycling,” “chemical conversion,” pyrolysis) and equip yourself with the knowledge and tools to defend Virginia’s environment from this polluting process and its Big Plastic proponents.

DEQ Solid Waste Planning and Recycling Regulations Periodic Review — Accepting Public Comments

The situation:

The current administration has a stated desire to invite plastic to fuel manufacturing facilities to Virginia. Executive Order 17 expressed an emphasis on burdening rural areas with these dangerous, polluting facilities. Economic development does not have to come at the expense of human and environmental health.

Furthermore, under the guise of Executive Order 19 (with a stated goal of removing 25% of all regulatory requirements in Virginia), the administration is attempting to weaken Virginia’s solid waste protections and inviting dangerous polluting industries into the Commonwealth. Eliminating solid waste regulations will have an overwhelmingly negative impact on the economic, human, and environmental health of Virginia.

What’s happening now:

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is reviewing the Commonwealth’s Solid Waste Planning and Recycling Regulations [9 VAC 20 – 130] to determine if the current regulations should be amended, retained, or repealed. There is a public comment period open through 11:59pm on June 26th, 2023 on the Virginia Town Hall website.

The issue at hand:

As written now, the recycling regulations in Virginia do not specifically exclude practices that convert plastic waste to fossil fuels from their recycling definitions. Moreover, the current regulations enable and encourage advanced recycling facilities in Virginia; contributing harmful pollutants to the environment, burdening already vulnerable communities, and taking economic development funds under the guise of solving the plastic pollution problem. “Advanced recycling” is not recycling by any definition, and directly impedes the Commonwealth from achieving a true circular economy.

What to do:

Make sure your voice is heard! Submit public comments to let the DEQ and current administration know how Virginians feel about advanced recycling and plastic pollution in their state. The talking points below are a guide–be sure to make your comments unique!

Talking Points:

Strengthening Virginia’s Recycling Regulations

“Chemical conversion” or “chemical/advanced recycling” are fossil fuel industry terms for plastic to fossil fuel production. This polluting and energy intensive process includes technologies such as pyrolysis, gasification, and solvolysis, and has not proven commercially viable in over 40 years.
Virginia’s loose definition of “recycling” enables plastic to fossil fuel production. The current regulations define “recycling” as “the process of separating a given waste material from the waste stream and processing it so that it may be used again as a raw material for a product, which may or may not be similar to the original product” (LIS, 2023).
The federal government does not consider plastic to fossil fuel production to be recycling. The EPA’s recent Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution reaffirms that the federal agency does not consider “activities that convert non-hazardous solid waste to fuels or fuel substitutes (‘plastics-to-fuel’) or for energy production to be ‘recycling’ activities” (EPA, 2023). Virginia should strengthen its regulations to align with this definition.
A “circular economy” keeps items in their circle. True circular economy practices convert plastic waste to new plastic products–not fuel, fuel ingredients, energy or other feedstock. The EPA’s Draft National Strategy outlines the Agency’s efforts to promote a circular approach for plastics management in the U.S.; Virginia’s state regulations should support this national goal.
A closed loop circular system recycles plastic items back to their original forms. For example, virgin plastic beverage bottles become new bottles, or other plastic products. Virginia’s current recycling regulations discourage such closed loop systems and make it impossible to achieve a full circular economy.
The solution to the plastic pollution crisis is to make less plastic. Developing new ways to chemically manage or burn plastic waste only perpetuates the problem and incentivizes further plastic production.

Opposing Advanced Recycling in Virginia

Advanced recycling (a.k.a. chemical conversion, chemical recycling) is a false and flawed solution to the plastic pollution crisis which threatens local environmental and community health. It will not reduce the use of single-use plastics, but instead will incentivize their continued use as a feedstock for plastics-to-fuel facilities (VCN, 2022).
Not only does the federal government consider pyrolysis to be incineration, so does the State of Virginia (see 9VAC5-40-7380). Under this definition of pyrolysis, plastics to fuel (i.e., advanced recycling) processes cannot be considered “resource recovery” or “waste to energy” in Virginia, and should not continue to be promoted as such.
Plastic to fossil fuel production facilities are energy intensive and still classified as incineration under the Clean Air Act. These facilities require a NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) Permit. Virginia’s taxpayers should not be footing the bill for these polluting, energy intensive facilities.
Advanced recycling is a polluting activity. According to the Conservation Law Foundation, “studies commissioned by plastic manufacturers themselves revealed that advanced recycling generates more climate-damaging emissions than either landfilling plastic or burning it. And it generates far more pollution than eliminating single-use plastics altogether” (CLF, 2023). Additional pollution with no recycled plastic in return is a bad trade for Virginians.
Plastic to fossil fuel production facilities are not economically sustainable. In 2020, Virginia taxpayers provided $215,000 in Opportunity Funds to Braven Environmental for a plastic to fuel manufacturing facility. This facility is not being built, perpetuating a common nationwide pattern. Virginia’s taxpayers should not be subsidizing/footing the bill for these failed facilities.
There are no plastic to fuel facilities operating at scale in the United States, despite the chemical industry trying to convince the public and lawmakers for decades that this is the solution to plastic pollution. These facilities are not creating new plastics, they are melting and/or chemically breaking down plastic to be added to fossil fuels which are later burned. This is neither recycling, nor a circular economy practice.

A Closer Look at Advanced Recycling

Reporting from Inside Climate News took a closer look into one of the major advanced recycling facilities in the U.S.—the Brightmark “plastics renewal” plant in Indiana. Their reporting included a helpful diagram of the advanced recycling/pyrolysis process: