Recycling is an outdated solution — it's time for a circular economy
In March, the Break Free from Plastic Act of 2021 (BFFPA) was reintroduced to Congress, targeting the chemicals and plastics industries for their role in pollution and landfilling. The bill argues for increasing recycling rates, shifting financial responsibility for recycling and waste management systems to upstream producers, and bans an expanded list of petroleum-based, single-use plastic products. Delaine Mayer, opinion contributor to The Hill, agues that this is a good starting point, but these are linear solutions that still result in wasted resources. Truly circular solutions are needed. Therefore the BFFPA must push for circular economy principles that design out the concepts of waste and pollution entirely and advance regenerative natural systems instead.
The BFFPA needs to go beyond recycling and build the legislative framework for a true circular economy, enabling development of emerging waste-to-biomaterials technology to tackle the conjoined climate crises of plastic and food waste generation. Beyond a packaging fee, these industries need a real incentive to move away from carbon-intensive chemicals and packaging production to safe materials production. Subsidies for these industries need to be cut, taxes on emissions and local pollution instituted, and incentive programs passed to modern, clean industries instead.
An opportunity to build a circular economy exists within the BFFPA. In 2018, the U.S. generated 35.7 million tons of plastic, 12.2 percent of total municipal solid waste generation. That same year, 35.3 million tons of American food waste was landfilled, contributing to methane and carbon emissions. Technology exists that creates compostable biomaterials from food waste; we should be incentivizing these solutions to displace oil-based plastics in our supply chain and reduce organic waste landfilling. The BFFPA’s proposed ban on certain single-use plastic (SUP) products would be better framed as enforcement that SUP products be made of certified degradable biomaterials. In this arena, Polyhydroxalkanoate (PHA), is emerging as both an upstream and downstream solutions.
Read full opinion article here