Labeling Lies: Circular Meets Cynical

The RMAA and PACK Act may appear to make innocuous changes limited to product labeling, but in reality, these policies are integral parts of a broader effort by the fossil fuel and chemical industry to lock in a massive increase in plastic production—which is projected to triple by 2050. This deluge of plastic production will jeopardize climate progress and unleash a highly toxic threat to public health, not to mention guaranteeing future demand for the fossil fuels needed to create it. As more plastic is produced, its harms to our health are becoming even more pronounced. Among other far-reaching implications, evidence continues to grow that virtually all of us have microplastics in our bodies. A key piece of industry’s relentless expansion of plastic production is the attempt to deceptively rebrand plastic waste incineration as a solution to this crisis. 

The incineration of plastic waste, primarily through a process called pyrolysis, is championed by industry under the misnomer “chemical recycling” (or sometimes “advanced recycling”). This old and inefficient technology can’t reconstitute much, if any, plastic. What it mostly produces is dirty, highly toxic fuels—nothing that can be considered “recycling.” Pyrolysis generates large quantities of hazardous waste and produces harmful air pollution, including known human carcinogens such as benzene, dioxins, and PFAS; heavy metals like cadmium, lead, and mercury; and other pollutants known to cause serious health harms. 

When industry incinerates plastic waste via pyrolysis, it also generates a highly toxic mixture called “pyrolysis oil.” This pyrolysis oil is then heavily diluted with virgin fossil fuels for further processing and eventually turned into toxic fuels. This is not recycling.

The RMAA seeks to upend the widely understood concept of recycling by requiring the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to update the Green Guides to adopt the RMAA’s self-serving definition of recycling, which sweeps in plastic incineration like pyrolysis and gasification that mostly produces fuels, not new plastic. It would also include other solvent-based technologies with large toxic footprints in this definition. 

 The Green Guides currently state that it is “deceptive to represent, directly or by implication, that an item contains recycled content unless it is composed of materials that have been recovered or otherwise diverted from the waste stream.” The RMAA would further undermine the integrity of the Green Guides by overturning this commonsense understanding and forcing the FTC to authorize industry’s use of convoluted and deceptive accounting practices, including the worst forms of “mass balance” which breaks the link between actual recycled materials and marketing claims about the products. Companies using pyrolysis to turn plastic waste into toxic fuels could then generate “recycling” credits, apply these credits to packaging made of virgin plastic, and sell it as “recycled,” even when it contains no recycled plastic whatsoever.  

This means your water bottle labeled as “100 percent recycled plastic” may not contain any recycled plastic at all, and that label claim could just be based on credits from plastic waste that was ultimately burned as fuel. 

Converting plastic waste to fuel should never amount to a credit or claim for recycling. In essence, this is an industry-concocted bill that directs the government to allow industry to deceive consumers about whether plastic packaging contains recycled plastic or not. The bill also pre-empts states from taking any action that would protect against these types of fabricated claims, which some states are at the forefront of doing now. 

In a similar vein, the PACK Act aims to allow industry free rein to put a recycling symbol (also known as the chasing arrows symbol) on packaging that, in reality, may not be recyclable. This bill amounts to an industry attack on protective state truth-in-labeling laws, which prohibit packaging from using recycling and compostability indicators on labels, unless the products are actually being recycled or composted at scale.  

The PACK Act’s primary function is to pre-empt these effective state-level policies that protect both consumers and recyclers, thus leaving behind a national framework that is weak, voluntary, and ripe for industry abuse.  

This would not only impede a traditional and established area of state regulation, but it would saddle states, cities, and local municipalities with the increased costs of handling large volumes of unrecyclable plastic waste in the recycling stream. 

Don’t be fooled by the greenwashing—both the RMAA and PACK Act champion anti-consumer, misleading policies tied to the promotion of a massive increase in plastic production and incineration under the false branding of “recycling.” While these bills use the word “recycling” or lay claim to “circularity” to make them seem environmentally friendly, they are part of a larger scheme by the fossil fuel industry to support and increase the build-out of new plastics production at the expense of public health. There is nothing circular about plastic waste incineration and burning toxic fuels, and Congress should be considering legislation that actually reduces plastic production instead of perpetuating it.