Potential Return of Trump Could Legalize Hazardous Plastic Recycling, Posing Significant Challenges for Environmental Protection

A federal recycling bill presented last month, billed as environmentally friendly, contains a wish list of deregulation and government aid for the plastics industry, rather than tough new rules to address the global plastics crisis.

The bill won support from petrochemical industry lobbyists but was roundly criticized by environmentalists, who saw it as a self-planned 2025 blueprint for the industry and a continuation of the Trump administration's support for an oil and gas industry that increasingly relies on plastic production.

Supporters of the bill have laid out a list of expectations: They expect taxpayers to fund so-called "advanced" chemical recycling technologies that companies have hyped as solutions to the problem of plastic pollution in oceans and communities. They hope to circumvent air pollution laws by redefining one of the dirtiest and least efficient technologies in the plastics industry, such as incineration, as a production activity. They also want to legalize an accounting method that allows companies to overstate the amount of recycled plastic in their products, ensure that how companies dispose of used plastic remains secret, and prevent states from imposing stricter regulations on the industry.

Daniel Rosenberg, director of federal toxics policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted that while the bill has little chance of passing at the legislative level, But federal agencies under Donald Trump could adopt some of these extreme provisions without congressional approval. The Trump administration had activated important exemptions from air pollution regulations until the Biden administration overturned them. "The chances of really bad things happening in a second Trump term are going to increase dramatically," Rosenberg warned. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Rothenberg added that lobbyists could also undermine the bill, and they could try to gradually push it through regardless of the election outcome. The American Chemistry Council, a prominent plastics lobbying group, praised the bill, calling it "groundbreaking, solution-oriented legislation to increase plastic recycling and prevent plastics from ending up in the environment." The bill echoes key provisions of the 2022 ACC Policy Plan. Committee spokeswoman Andrea Alboeheim disputed the "inflammatory" characterization of the bill as a 2025 plan and emphasized that it has bipartisan support.

The bill, called the Accelerating Plastics Circular Economy and Recycling Innovation Act of 2024, is co-sponsored by Rep. Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat, and Dr. Larry Buchson, a Republican Congressman from Indiana. Buchson is retiring at the end of the legislative session, while Davis is in the first term of his congressional career and faces a tight re-election race in November. He serves on congressional committees dealing with agriculture and the military, not science or the environment.

Neither Congressman responded to ProPublica's questions about the enactment of the bill and its contents. Davis' press release about the legislation included a supportive statement from the CEO of Berry Global, a major plastic packaging manufacturer with plants in Davis' district. Kevin Kwelinski, CEO of Berry Global, said in a statement that he supports the bill because it will help modernize the nation's fragmented recycling infrastructure and significantly increase the use of recycled materials in new products. Buchson noted in the press release that his district is "home to numerous plastics manufacturers."

Industry spokesman Albert Sheim praised Buchson for "a long history of working in a bipartisan manner on recycling infrastructure legislation." Buxen "reached out to various stakeholders, including the ACC, to get perspectives, information and feedback," she said.

Notably, the bill does not contain the remedies researchers have found to be most effective in curbing the plastic crisis: limiting plastic production, limiting single-use plastics, and removing toxic chemicals from plastic products.

Petrochemical senior analyst Cynthia Palmer, from the group Moms Clean Air Force, said the pro-recycling arguments obscure the true purpose of the bill, which is to promote chemical recycling. "Without going into detail, the bill sounds attractive."

The plastics industry plans to double production over the next few decades, preferring to solve the plastic crisis through waste management rather than production cuts. The industry has long touted recycling as a solution, although it is aware that traditional methods have limited effect on the problem. More recently, the industry has promoted new chemical recycling as a solution.

ProPublica took a closer look at the most popular form of chemical recycling, pyrolysis, and found that it is extremely inefficient and produces products that contain virtually no actual recyclable ingredients. Companies exaggerate the recyclability of their high-margin products by taking credit for recycled components of other low-margin products through a mathematical trick called mass balance. This allows plastic cups containing less than 1% recycled plastic to be advertised as containing 30% recycled plastic.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued the first federal policy against mass balancing, while the California attorney general filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for its "deceptive" plastic recycling practices, including mass balancing. An ExxonMobil spokesperson recently told ProPublica that the company's chemical recycling process is effective and has "turned more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials and kept it out of landfills."

The bill seeks to reverse current trends and requires the Environmental Protection Agency to authorize mass balancing for all forms of recycled plastic packaging. Under the bill, federal regulations would override state laws and prevent states, including California, from imposing restrictions on mass balancing or chemical recycling in their jurisdictions.

Rosenberg points out that the Environmental Protection Agency could easily legitimize mass balance under an industry-friendly administration. Further changes may also come from the Federal Trade Commission, which has issued Green guidelines, national guidelines on how companies can advertise environmentally friendly products without misleading the public. The Biden administration has spent nearly two years working on an updated version of the Green Guide that could define what recycling means and whether companies can use the quality balance to advertise their products.

Currently, the United States has very limited capacity to recycle chemicals. The few facilities in the U.S., including one owned by ExxonMobil, can handle only a fraction of the plastic waste in the United States.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) recently told ProPublica that it is lobbying for a mandate to use more recycled plastic in packaging, which would create more demand for technology and thus spur economic growth.

The bill aims to establish a national standard that the recyclable content of plastic packaging needs to be increased to 30% by 2030. To achieve these goals, the U.S. recycling market must accelerate the deployment of advanced recycling technologies.

The bill dedicates significant federal resources to the expansion of plastic recycling infrastructure and paves the way for the construction of new chemical recycling facilities. However, no details have been disclosed about the scale of these plans, their cost and their feasibility for large-scale operation.

Some of the money will come from fines for companies that do not comply with the new recycling standards. In addition, the Act also requires government employees to invest a lot of manpower and time to develop the relevant norms, guidelines and requirements for plastic recycling. For example, regulators need to establish "data collection procedures" to count how much plastic waste chemical recyclers are able to process into new plastic each year. Another rule says the federal government encourages the use of plastic as a building material, with potential applications including seawalls to protect communities from rising sea levels and storm surges.

In 2019, plastic production accounted for about 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is one of the causes of climate change and severe flooding. Emissions from the sector are expected to double or even triple by 2050.

A study mandated by the law provided the basis for increased government spending. The report will include input from representatives of the plastics and chemical recycling industries and recommend financial incentives to optimize the collection and sorting process for recyclables - a key prerequisite for chemical recycling - and is expected to expand EPA's national recycling strategy to include quality balance considerations. Rosenberg noted that under the Trump administration, the EPA could update its strategy in light of this change.

Past news reports and investigations have revealed that plastic bag delivery programs in places like Sandale, Pa., have not worked well, with much of the plastic still ending up in landfills.

During pyrolysis, materials such as plastics are heated in a low-oxygen environment until they break down into other chemicals. This process can produce hazardous waste and release carcinogens, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are toxic at very low concentrations.

Jim Pugh, an attorney with the environmental group EarthJustice, said the EPA has defined pyrolysis facilities as incinerators for decades, while the Clean Air Act defines any facility that burns solid waste, including discarded plastics, as an incinerator.

The Act classifies pyrolysis as a manufacturing activity rather than incineration. Pew argues that such administrative changes would invalidate federal air pollution regulations governing toxic air emissions from these facilities. He added that there are no manufacturing regulations that automatically apply, so the EPA would need to create new rules and other changes, which is unlikely given the ongoing efforts of multiple executive branches.

ACC spokesperson Albersheim said: "The idea that this bill would exempt or repeal pyrolysis provisions of the Clean Air Act or other environmental laws is not accurate. Instead, the bill aims to address the uncertainty under current law and correct misconceptions about how the technology works."

When ProPublica asked what federal air pollution laws would apply if pyrolysis were no longer considered incineration, Albersheim responded that some of the facilities were releasing pollutants that did not meet certain thresholds set by the EPA.

As a result of lobbying by ACC and others, about half of US states have passed laws classifying pyrolysis as a manufacturing industry. But the federal government has the final say in enforcing the Clean Air Act.

Under President Trump's administration, the EPA set out to redefine pyrolysis as a manufacturing industry. Rosenberg said the Biden administration then reversed the decision but "left the door open" for future attempts. He predicted that if Trump is re-elected, a Republican administration would find it easier to strip the pyrolysis provisions from the Clean Air Act.

The bill gives regulators the power to audit companies' recycling practices, but the results may not be made public. Any "proprietary information" uncovered in such investigations is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Journalists and researchers often use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain government records and inform the public about corporate wrongdoing or threats to public health.

Trade secrets are protected under the Freedom of Information Act; Rothenberg is concerned that the language of the bill could expand the definition of exemptions from public disclosure. The bill's co-sponsors did not respond to questions seeking clarification.

Palmer, of Moms Clean Air Force, noted that the bill provides a safeguard for an industry trying to triple plastic production over the next few decades. All of these efforts to increase recycling by any means possible, she argues, are aimed at "diverting our attention from the 'sinister' effects of plastics on the environment and communities."