Author: Stacy Liberatore

Companies often promote the use of recycled plastics as a means to save the environment, but the 'eco-friendly' initiative could be harmful to human health. Some plastics contain toxic chemicals, like manmade bisphenol (BPA), and during the blanket recycling process, these hazardous chemicals are transferred into the recycled material used to make new bottles, cartons and other containers. These toxins can cause liver damage, thyroid disease, decreased fertility and cancer.

Author: Joseph Winters

In 1973, a DuPont engineer named Nathaniel Wyeth patented the PET plastic bottle — an innovative and durable alternative to glass. Since then, production has skyrocketed to more than half a trillion bottles per year, driven by beverage companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé. It’s no secret that most of these PET bottles, named for the polyethylene terephthalate plastic they’re made of, are never recycled. Many end up on beaches or in waterways, where they degrade into unsightly plastic shards and fragments that threaten marine life. But blighted beaches are only the tip of the iceberg. According to a new report co-published by the nonprofit Defend Our Health and Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, PET plastic bottles cause hazardous chemical pollution at every stage of their life cycle.

Author: Allyson Chiu

Instead of helping to tackle the world’s staggering plastic waste problem, recycling may be exacerbating a concerning environmental problem: microplastic pollution. A recent peer-reviewed study that focused on a recycling facility in the United Kingdom suggests that anywhere between 6 to 13 percent of the plastic processed could end up being released into water or the air as microplastics — ubiquitous tiny particles smaller than five millimeters that have been found everywhere from Antarctic snow to inside human bodies.

Author: Greenpeace

Paris, France – Over 150 civil society groups and scientists from around the world, including ethologist, anthropologist and United Nations Messenger of Peace Dr. Jane Goodall, have signed on to an open letter urging the UN to act now – to prevent the fossil fuel industry from undermining negotiations to agree to an effective Global Plastics Treaty. The letter comes as delegates prepare for the second round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations (INC2) happening in Paris, France on May 29 to June 2, 2023.

Authors: Nico Schmidt and Attila Kalman

On a sunny April afternoon, Markus Klatte climbs the ladder to the roof of his chemical recycling factory. At the top, he looks down on the industrial park in the west of Frankfurt, where Höchst AG once drove German plastics production. Today, Klatte wants his plant to deal with its legacy: the vast quantities of plastic that are still burned in incineration plants across Europe. For a few months now, Klatte’s company, Arcus Greencycling, has operated one of the first industrial-sized pyrolysis plants in Germany. The plant converts aluminium plastic into oil which is then sent to BASF Group to produce plastic again.

Author: Peter Dennis

81 NGOs (non-governmental organisations) have signed an open letter calling on the UK government to extend its upcoming consultation on banning UK plastic waste exports to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The coalition of civil society groups from close to 40 countries has called on the UK government to back a “comprehensive ban” on UK plastic waste exports ahead of an anticipated government consultation.

Author: Emma Gatten

Plastic waste sent for recycling in the UK is being dumped and burned after being shipped to other countries by Dutch middlemen, green charities fear. The Government intends to ban plastic waste exports to poorer countries outside of the OECD, but more than 80 green groups have written to Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, warning that only a total ban will be enough to stop this.

Author: Karen McVeigh

Scientists and NGOs have accused the UN’s environment programme (Unep) of locking out those “most needing to be heard” from upcoming negotiations in Paris aimed at halting plastic waste. Last-minute restrictions to the numbers of NGOs attending what the head of Unep described as the “most important multilateral environmental deal” in a decade will exclude people from communities in developing countries harmed by dumping and burning of plastic waste as well as marginalised waste pickers, who are crucial to recycling, from fully participating, they said.

Author: Jake Evans

Some of the most easily recycled household plastic waste — including milk cartons, vegetable oil containers and soft drink bottles — will be sent overseas for processing after a decision by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to "temporarily" exempt them from a nationwide plastic export ban. Oatley Resources Australia has been granted a one-year exemption to export "clean and sorted polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste plastic" to be processed and recycled into new products overseas, temporarily undoing a ban agreed to by all governments in 2020.

Author: James Bruggers

Research out of Scotland suggests that the chopping, shredding and washing of plastic in recycling facilities may turn as much as six to 13 percent of incoming waste into microplastics—tiny, toxic particles that are an emerging and ubiquitous environmental health concern for the planet and people. A team of four researchers measured and analyzed microplastics in wastewater before and after filters were installed at an anonymous recycling plant in the United Kingdom. The study, one of the first of its kind, was published in the May issue of in the peer-reviewed Journal of Hazardous Material Advances.

Author: Sandra Laville

As a boy John Chweya was one of many children who scrambled over the mountain of stinking waste at Kachok dump, using a magnet that he dangled over the rubbish to pull out metal scraps and earn a living. Over the years since, global companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestlé have increased plastic production by millions of metric tonnes, and plastic bottles have replaced metal as the source of income for those who pick through the garbage in Kisumu, the third-largest city in Kenya.

Author: Recycling Magazine

In a new study, Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) assesses the consequences of different approaches to allocating recycled content in plastic. In a new study, Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) assesses the consequences of different approaches to allocating recycled content in plastic.

Author: Andrew Paul

An unsettling report released barely a year ago painted a grim picture of the plastics industry—only about 5 percent of the 46 million annual tons of plastic waste in the US makes it to recycling facilities. The number is even more depressing after realizing that is roughly half of experts’ previous estimates. But if all that wasn’t enough, new information throws a heaping handful of salt on the wound: of the plastic that does make it to recycling, a lot of it is still released into the world as potentially toxic microplastics.

Author: Chinedum Uwaegbulam

The Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions commenced in Geneva, Switzerland to collectively advance the sound management of chemicals and waste. Under the Basel Convention (BC), the oldest of the three conventions, there are various efforts to help it reflect contemporary waste streams and management. Debates on Annex IV (disposal operations) are part of this effort. Countries debated how to handle waste that is exported for repair or refurbishment. For some, including this category, could close a loophole that allows unscrupulous dealers to bypass the Convention by claiming waste as reusable or repairable. Looming in the background is e-waste. If a computer is repairable when it is exported, but becomes waste soon after, it will be up to the importing country to dispose of it.

Author: Matt Simon

THE PLASTICS INDUSTRY has long hyped recycling, even though it is well aware that it’s been a failure. Worldwide, only 9 percent of plastic waste actually gets recycled. In the United States, the rate is now 5 percent. Most used plastic is landfilled, incinerated, or winds up drifting around the environment.  Now, an alarming new study has found that even when plastic makes it to a recycling center, it can still end up splintering into smaller bits that contaminate the air and water. This pilot study focused on a single new facility where plastics are sorted, shredded, and melted down into pellets. Along the way, the plastic is washed several times, sloughing off microplastic particles—fragments smaller than 5 millimeters—into the plant’s wastewater.