\n<\/p>\n
By 2025, Nestle promises<\/a> not to use any plastic in its products that isn\u2019t recyclable. By that same year, L\u2019Oreal says<\/a> all of its packaging will be \u201crefillable, reusable, recyclable or compostable.\u201d<\/p>\n And by 2030, Procter & Gamble pledges<\/a> that it will halve its use of virgin plastic resin made from petroleum.<\/p>\n To get there, these companies and others are promoting a new generation of recycling plants, called \u201cadvanced\u201d or \u201cchemical\u201d recycling, that promise to recycle many more products than can be recycled today.<\/p>\n So far, advanced recycling is struggling to deliver on its promise. Nevertheless, the new technology is being hailed by the plastics industry as a solution to an exploding global waste problem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The traditional approach to recycling is to simply grind up and melt plastic waste. The new, advanced-recycling operators say they can break down the plastic much further, into more basic molecular building blocks, and transform it into new plastic.<\/p>\n PureCycle Technologies, a company that features prominently in Nestl\u00e9, L\u2019Or\u00e9al, and Procter & Gamble\u2019s plastics commitments, runs one such facility, a $500 million plant in Ironton, Ohio. The plant was <\/strong>originally to start operating in 2020<\/a>, with the capacity to process as much as 182 tons of discarded polypropylene, a hard-to-recycle plastic used widely in single-use cups, yogurt tubs, coffee pods and clothing fibers, every day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But PureCycle\u2019s recent months have instead been filled with setbacks: technical issues at the plant, shareholder lawsuits, questions over the technology and a startling report from contrarian investors who make money when a stock price falls. They said that they had flown a drone over the facility that showed that the plant was far from being able to make much new plastic.<\/p>\n PureCycle, based in Orlando, Fla., said it remained on track. \u201cWe\u2019re ramping up production,\u201d its chief executive, Dustin Olson, said during a recent tour of the plant, a constellation of pipes, storage tanks and cooling towers in Ironton, near the Ohio River. \u201cWe believe in this technology. We\u2019ve seen it work,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re making leaps and bounds.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Nestl\u00e9, Procter & Gamble and L\u2019Or\u00e9al have also expressed confidence in PureCycle. L\u2019Or\u00e9al said PureCycle was one of many partners developing a range of recycling technologies. P.&G. said it hoped to use the recycled plastic for \u201cnumerous packaging applications as they scale up production.\u201d Nestl\u00e9 didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment, but has said it is collaborating with PureCycle on \u201cgroundbreaking recycling technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n PureCycle\u2019s woes are emblematic of broad trouble faced by a new generation of recycling plants that have struggled to keep up with the growing tide of global plastic production, which scientists say could almost quadruple by midcentury<\/a>.<\/p>\n A chemical-recycling facility in Tigard, Ore., a joint venture between Agilyx and Americas Styrenics, is in the process of shutting down after millions of dollars in losses. A plant in Ashley, Ind., that had aimed to recycle 100,000 tons of plastic a year by 2021 had processed only 2,000 tons in total as of late 2023, after fires, oil spills and worker safety complaints.<\/p>\n At the same time, many of the new generation of recycling facilities are turning plastic into fuel, something the Environmental Protection Agency doesn\u2019t consider to be recycling, though industry groups say some of that fuel can be turned into new plastic.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Overall, the advanced recycling plants are struggling to make a dent in the roughly 36 million tons of plastic<\/a> Americans discard each year, which is more than any other country. Even if the 10 remaining chemical-recycling plants in America were to operate at full capacity, they would together process some 456,000 tons of plastic waste, according to a recent tally by Beyond Plastics<\/a>, a nonprofit group that advocates stricter controls on plastics production. That\u2019s perhaps enough to raise the plastic recycling rate \u2014 which has languished below 10 percent for decades \u2014 by a single percentage point.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For households, that has meant that much of the plastic they put out for recycling doesn\u2019t get recycled at all, but ends up in landfills. Figuring out which plastics are recyclable and which aren\u2019t has turned into, essentially, a guessing game<\/a>. That confusion has led to a stream of non-recyclable trash contaminating the recycling process, gumming up the system.<\/p>\n \u201cThe industry is trying to say they have a solution,\u201d said Terrence J. Collins, a professor of chemistry and sustainability science at Carnegie Mellon University. \u201cIt\u2019s a non-solution.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a long-awaited day last June at PureCycle\u2019s Ironton facility: The company had just produced its first batch of what it describes as \u201cultra-pure\u201d recycled polypropylene pellets.<\/p>\n That milestone came several years late and with more than $350 million in cost overruns. Still, the company appeared to have finally made it. \u201cNobody else can do this,\u201d Jeff Kramer, the plant manager, told a local news crew<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n PureCycle had done it by licensing a game-changing method \u2014 developed by Procter & Gamble researchers<\/a> in the mid-2010s, but unproven at scale \u2014 that uses solvent to dissolve and purify the plastic to make it new again. \u201cIt\u2019s like a molecular washing machine,\u201d Mr. Olson said.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason Procter & Gamble, Nestl\u00e9 and L\u2019Or\u00e9al, some of the world\u2019s biggest users of plastic, are excited about the technology. Many of their products are made from polypropylene, a plastic that they transform into a plethora of products using dyes and fillers. P.&G. has said it uses more polypropylene than any other plastic, more than a half-million tons<\/a> a year.<\/p>\n But those additives make recycling polypropylene more difficult.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The E.P.A. estimates that 2.7 percent of polypropylene packaging<\/a> is reprocessed. But PureCycle was promising to take any polypropylene \u2014 disposable beer cups, car bumpers, even campaign signs<\/a> \u2014 and remove the colors, odors, and contaminants to transform it into new plastic.<\/p>\n Soon after the June milestone, trouble hit.<\/p>\n On Sept. 13, PureCycle disclosed<\/a> that its plant had suffered a power failure the previous month that had halted operations and caused a vital seal to fail. That meant the company would be unable to meet key milestones, it told lenders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Then in November, Bleecker Street Research \u2014 a New York-based short-seller, an investment strategy that involves betting that a company\u2019s stock price will fall \u2014 published a report asserting that the white pellets that had rolled off PureCycle\u2019s line in June weren\u2019t recycled from plastic waste. The short-sellers instead claimed instead that the company had simply run virgin polypropylene through the system as part of a demonstration run.<\/p>\n Mr. Olson said PureCycle hadn\u2019t used consumer waste in the June 2023 run, but it hadn\u2019t used virgin plastic, either. Instead it had used scrap known as \u201cpost industrial,\u201d which is what\u2019s left over from the manufacturing process and would otherwise go to a landfill, he said.<\/p>\n Bleecker Street also said it had flown heat-sensing drones over the facility and said it found few signs of commercial-scale activity. The firm also raised questions about the solvent PureCycle was using to break down the plastic, calling it \u201ca nightmare concoction\u201d that was difficult to manage.<\/p>\n PureCycle is now being sued by other investors who accuse the company of making false statements and misleading investors about its setbacks.<\/p>\n Mr. Olson declined to describe the solvent. Regulatory filings reviewed by The New York Times indicate that it is butane, a highly flammable gas, stored under pressure. The company\u2019s filing described the risks of explosion, citing a \u201cworst case scenario\u201d that could cause second-degree burns a half-mile away, and said that to mitigate the risk the plant was equipped with sprinklers, gas detectors and alarms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It isn\u2019t unusual, of course, for any new technology or facility to experience hiccups. The plastics industry says these projects, once they get going, will bring the world closer to a \u201ccircular\u201d economy, where things are reused again and again.<\/p>\n Plastics-industry lobbying groups are promoting chemical recycling. At a hearing in New York late last year, industry lobbyists pointed to the promise of advanced recycling in opposing a packaging-reduction bill that would eventually mandate a 50 percent reduction in plastic packaging. And at negotiations for a global plastics treaty<\/a>, lobby groups are urging nations to consider expanding chemical recycling<\/a> instead of taking steps like restricting plastic production or banning plastic bags.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastics makers as well as oil and gas companies that produce the building blocks of plastic, said that chemical recycling potentially \u201ccomplements mechanical recycling, taking the harder-to-recycle plastics that mechanical often cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n Environmental groups say the companies are using a timeworn strategy of promoting recycling as a way to justify selling more plastic, even though the new recycling technology isn\u2019t ready for prime time. Meanwhile, they say, plastic waste chokes rivers and streams, piles up in landfills or is exported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThese large consumer brand companies, they\u2019re out over their skis,\u201d said Judith Enck, the president of Beyond Plastics and a former regional E.P.A. administrator. \u201cLook behind the curtain, and these facilities aren\u2019t operating at scale, and they aren\u2019t environmentally sustainable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The better solution, she said, would be, \u201cWe need to make less plastic.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Olson recently strolled through a cavernous warehouse at PureCycle\u2019s Ironton site, built at a former Dow Chemical plant. Since January, he said, PureCycle has been processing mainly consumer plastic waste and has produced about 1.3 million pounds of recycled polypropylene, or about 1 percent of its annual production target.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a bag that would hold dog food,\u201d he said, pointing to a bale of woven plastic bags. \u201cAnd these are fruit carts that you\u2019d see in street markets. We can recycle all of that, which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The plant was dealing with a faulty valve discovered the day before, so no pellets were rolling off the line. Mr. Olson pulled out a cellphone to show a photo of a valve with a dark line ringing its interior. \u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to look like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The company later sent video of Mr. Olson next to white pellets once again streaming out of its production line.<\/p>\n PureCycle says every kilogram of polypropylene it recycles emits about 1.54 kilograms of planet-warming carbon dioxide. That\u2019s on par with a commonly used industry measure<\/a> of emissions for virgin polypropylene. PureCycle said that it was improving on that measure.<\/p>\n Nestl\u00e9, L\u2019Or\u00e9al and Procter & Gamble continue to say they\u2019re optimistic about the technology. In November, Nestl\u00e9 said it had invested in a British company that would more easily separate out polypropylene from other plastic waste.<\/p>\n It was \u201cjust one of the many steps we are taking on our journey to ensure our packaging doesn\u2019t end up as waste,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Molecular washing machine\u2019<\/h2>\n
Chasing the \u2018circular economy\u2019<\/h2>\n
Touring the plant<\/h2>\n