From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):
We all know that “recycling” means taking a product we’ve used and turning it into something else that can be used again, creating a closed loop for the resources we take and use from our environment.
But now, legislators in the Pennsylvania General Assembly are moving a proposal that would create a new statewide definition for “advanced recycling.” This new definition would allow polluting alternatives to be categorized as “recycling,” like turning plastics into crude oil and jet fuel, and even incineration.
Email your state senator at https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=39491 and ask her/him to oppose this environmentally harmful proposal today. Then share our action page with friends and family and ask them to do the same.
The American Chemistry Council has launched an effort to convince politicians in state legislatures across the nation to reclassify recycling so that companies could take single-use plastics and turn them into fuels to be burned — just like dirty fossil fuels — but still be classified as “recycling” facilities.1
Now they’ve convinced politicians in Harrisburg to push this proposal right here in Pennsylvania. This legislation is House Bill 1808, and it will mean more air pollution, more fracking, and climate pollution.
Email your state senator and ask them to oppose HB1808 today.
Supporters of this proposal think that they can fool the public by just stamping the word “recycling” and ignoring the details. But you can’t put lipstick on a pig: fracking to make single-use plastics and then turning it around and burning it is not recycling, and it’s not good for our planet.
In fact, these processes may actually increase overall pollution, since they include an additional, energy-intensive step in the process to turn the plastics into fossil fuels before you even get to the stage of burning them.2
If we’re going to get off single-use plastics once and for all, we need to stop creating them in the first place — and put an end to these fake “solutions” that will promote more plastic production.
- Joseph Winters, “This ‘solution’ to the plastic crisis is really just another way to burn fossil fuels,” Grist, Aug 3, 2020.
- Patel, D., Moon, D., Tangri, N., Wilson, M., “All Talk and No Recycling: An Investigation of the U.S. “Chemical Recycling” Industry,” Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, 2020.
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