The recycling myth and the limits of tech solutions

Recycling is often proposed as the answer to plastic pollution. In practice, however, recycling is totally failing - both technologically and economically. Most plastic is not recycled (under 9% globally), and even when it is, the process often degrades the material, making it more toxic and limiting its future use.

Mechanical recycling, the most common method, involves melting and remolding plastic. This causes the plastic quality to drop with each cycle, ending up in a plastic bottle that becomes lower and lower grade, for example, and ends up in the landfill. After just a few cycles, the plastic becomes unrecyclable. And many plastics are not even recyclable to date!

Chemical recycling, which breaks plastics down into their molecular components, offers the promise of infinite reuse - but not without limitations. It’s expensive, energy-intensive and rarely done at scale. In most instances, it’s cheaper to make new plastic than recycle old plastic - a perverse incentive that the industry has little reason to fix.

Global recycling rates remain low - often under 10%, even in wealthier countries (OECD 2022). Much of what’s put in recycling bins ends up incinerated or exported, where it may be dumped illegally. The world’s most common plastic waste - packaging - has a lifespan of just six months before it becomes garbage, when it is not originally meant for single-use.

Innovation plays a role in addressing pollution, and projects like Boyan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup or Seabin Project provide impressive and expensive engineering solutions. However, even their inventors admit these are only short-term plugs that won’t contribute to stop the flow of plastics into the ocean. They can’t address upstream causes, or match the scale of new plastic entering the system. They could, however, help to clean-up pollution hotspots provided they are adapted to be secure and low impact for the local ecosystems and marine life.

Relying on tech fixes is appealing as it feels hopeful and apolitical, especially for packaging businesses like Coca Cola which fund clean-ups to green their corporate policy. However, optimism can become a distraction. The reality remains that we can’t recycle our way out of this problem, nor can we clean it up once it’s already in the sea. We must focus on stopping plastic and microplastic emissions at the sources, and that requires systems change and questioning our current mass consumption and throwaway culture, not just better gadgets.

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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk

Image: overflowing bins garbage - Photo by Mike Bird on Pexels (ST ref: 1382)

Thanks to Frédérique Mongodin from Seas at Risk and Laura Díaz Sánchez from BFFP for editorial support.