Major gas and oil corporation Shell recently backed away from its pledge to increase chemical recycling of plastics, calling its previous goal of turning over 1.1 million tons of plastic waste into oil each year "unfeasible."
What's happening?
Shell quietly walked back its highly publicized plastic recycling promise, announcing its reversal in a single sentence in the company's 2023 sustainability report. The report was published in March, but the Guardian only recently uncovered the news based on a tip from the Center for Climate Integrity.
"In 2023, we concluded that the scale of our ambition to turn 1 [million] tonnes of plastic waste a year into pyrolysis oil by 2025 is unfeasible," the company said in its report.
Pyrolysis uses intense heat to break down plastic polymers into tiny molecules that can be made into synthetic fuels or new plastics. Shell has invested in pyrolysis since 2019, banking on chemical recycling to turn plastic waste into usable oil. In 2019, Shell used oil made from pyrolysis in one of its plants for the first time.
However, the company seems to have overestimated the possibilities of pyrolysis, not evaluating the current capabilities of chemical recycling before making a public recycling pledge.
"It's an acknowledgment that advanced recycling is not developing in the way that companies have promised it will, and are counting on it to," Davis Allen, an investigative researcher at the Center for Climate Integrity, told the Guardian. "That's pretty meaningful."
Why is Shell's setback important?
Shell's reversal highlights the common issue of companies making grandiose climate pledges only to nix them with little public acknowledgment. But the setback also highlights the limits of chemical recycling — and the controversy around pyrolysis.
Shell named "available feedstock" as a reason for turning back on its pledge, which may seem odd given the high presence of plastic in our world. But pyrolysis works best with clean plastic — and sorting and cleaning plastic is expensive.
To curb expenses, the Center for Climate Integrity told the Guardian many chemical recycling facilities rely on scrap plastic — or "plastic left on the cutting room floor during production." This type of waste is far less abundant than consumer recyclables.
A recent report by environmental advocacy groups called chemical recycling "inefficient" and "energy-intensive," while also finding it "can create as much as 100 times more damaging environmental and climate impacts" than any initial plastic production.
Critics also say pyrolysis distracts from the real issue, pouring attention and action into continuing plastic use rather than replacing plastics with more sustainable alternatives.
What's next for chemical recycling and Shell?
Last year, the EPA withdrew plans to ease regulations on pyrolysis, saying the organization needed more time to understand pyrolysis and its potential impact on public health.
Recently, New Jersey decided not to consider chemically recycled material as recycled plastic. But thanks to lobbying from pro-plastic organizations, about half the country currently has legislation opening the door for pyrolysis operations in their communities.
As the Guardian noted, Shell is currently expanding plastic production in the wake of its announcement. The company recently opened a "chemical complex as large as 300 football fields near Pittsburgh, with the capacity to produce 1.6 [million] tons of plastic a year." Shell is also a member of the American Chemistry Council and its subgroup America's Plastic Makers, both of which support chemical recycling.
"Our ambition, regardless of regulation, is to increase circularity and move away from a linear economy to one where products and materials are reused, repurposed, and recycled," Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith told the Guardian.
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