Exxon Mobil's 'Advanced' Technique for Recycling Plastic? Burning It (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0175157445
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/30/0050246/exxon-mobils-advanced-technique-for-recycling-plastic-burning-it
- Source link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/exxon-mobil-says-advanced-recycling-100018708.html
> In recent years — as longstanding efforts to recycle plastics have faltered — Exxon Mobil has touted advanced recycling as a groundbreaking technology that will turn the tide on the plastic crisis. But despite its seemingly eco-friendly name, the [2]attorney general's lawsuit denounced advanced recycling as a "public relations stunt" that largely involves superheating plastics to convert them into fuel.
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> At Exxon Mobil's only "advanced recycling" facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned. [California attorney general Rob] Bonta's lawsuit seeks a court order to prohibit the company from describing the practice as "advanced recycling," arguing the vast majority of plastic is destroyed. Many environmental advocates and policy experts lauded the legal action as a major step toward ending greenwashing by Exxon Mobil — the world's largest producer of single-use plastic polymer... Advanced recycling, which is also called chemical recycling, is an umbrella term that typically involves heating or dissolving plastic waste to create fuel, chemicals and waxes — a fraction of which can be used to remake plastic. The most common techniques yield only 1% to 14% of the plastic waste, according to a 2023 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
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> Exxon Mobil has largely used reclaimed plastic for fuel production while ramping up its virgin plastic production, according to Bonta.
The executive director of California Communities Against Toxics complains Exxon Mobil's "advanced" recycling is "the same technology we've had since the Industrial Revolution... a blast furnace." (The article also quotes her as asking "How is that better than coal?") And a UCLA researcher who studied the issue blames misperceptions about plastic recycling on "an industry-backed misinformation campaign." He agrees that the reality is "having to burn more oil to turn that plastic back into oil, which you then burn."
California's attorney general "alleges Exxon Mobil has had a patent for this technology since 1978, and the company is falsely rebranding it as 'new' and 'advanced'... It recently reemerged after the company learned that the term 'advanced recycling' resonated with members of the public..."
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/exxon-mobil-says-advanced-recycling-100018708.html
[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/09/23/2336240/california-sues-exxonmobil-for-alleged-decades-of-deception-around-plastic-recycling
Time to go back to wood (Score:3)
Apart from some specialty stuff like teflone and silicone, we'll just have to go back to lignin/cellulose based chemistry.
I don't get it (Score:2)
I've been recycling ABS and PLA since 2015ish when i bought a Filastruder. It's a mild pain in the neck to operate, but it works well. What's the big difficulty? Just make those in an industrial scale. I know that's not all plastic but these two are very common and would make a significant dent
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine for thermoplastics and it's fine so long as you don't care about eg what colour it is. Not all plastics respond to heat by melting (there are quite a wide variety of plastics that undergo polymerisation with heat, so heating them makes them more solid, not less), but the big problem of this kind of direct-use recycling is that it only works if you can first sort the plastic into all the different types and colours. There are only a middle-sized handful of basic plastic types, but there are a d
They're not completely wrong (Score:3)
Well, compared to making plastic and then dumping it, and compared to pulling fuel out of the ground and burning it, this is actually an improvement - the carbon is used twice, once as a plastic and then again as a fuel. It's not exactly a circular economy though.
The best you can do. Just don't call it recycling. (Score:3)
Drop the facade. Plastic is fuel with very useful extra steps. The amount of plastic that we produce is dwarfed by the amount of fossil fuels we turn into CO2 without that great intermediate form. Turning plastic waste into fuel is the right way to get rid of it.
Surprised?! (Score:2)
ExxonMobil has a very long track record of being untrustworthy. Believing anything they say would be foolish.
Meanwhile, they're increasing plastics production as much as they can to increase profits.
Here's a new improved, advanced technology idea, framed in a way that ExxonMobil can relate to:
"In light of the pressing exigencies surrounding contemporary environmental stewardship and the overarching imperative to safeguard natural ecosystems for the collective benefit of present and future stakehold
why are they charging us for platic bags? (Score:2)
i thought it was to save the environment
Sounds good (Score:2)
It's turned into a useful product instead of being dumped in a landfill or the ocean. If we ever stop burning fuel then we can worry about recycling it into non-fuel.
It's a Scam (Score:3)
Plastic recycling is 95% scan, 5% facade justification for the scam.