06 June 2019, Saxony, Dresden: The hand of an employee of Biofabrik White Refinery GmbH holds a ... [+]
Marketed as a solution to the environmental and waste problems the plastic industry is currently facing, recycled carbon fuels are problematic. And they will be at odds with Wednesday’s vote from the EU Parliament backing a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
A briefing published by Zero Waste Europe shows that these fuels are produced by converting plastics back to their original fossil form. As they are burnt and carbon is released to the atmosphere, they are ultimately exacerbating climate change.
“Some proponents have claimed that plastic fuels could be labelled as low carbon, effectively using plastic production as a stepping stone to greenwash CO2 coming from fossil oil and gas,” says Janek Vähk, Zero Waste Europe's climate, energy and air pollution program coordinator. “To prevent gaming and selective accounting, robust guidelines for a full life cycle assessment are needed. The fossil carbon embedded within plastics needs to be traced from the extraction of the fossil carbon to its emission into the atmosphere.”
Zero Waste has been working with Bellona Europa on the issue of using partial life cycle assessment to justify certain high carbon fuels as part of the Renewables Directive.
Ana Šerdoner, industry policy manager at Bellona Europa, agrees with Vähk: “Fuels made from plastic waste are essentially a refined form of fossil oil and gas. As fossil fuels produced with very energy intensive production techniques, these fuels are not even close to being low-carbon. Their production can also result in other environmental pollutants being released into the environment and the atmosphere.”
Šerdoner told me that the Renewable Energy Directive
According to Šerdoner, “claiming that turning fossil plastic into fossil fuels is a solution for climate change is part of a growing greenwashing trend.”
The two NGOs have been working with DG ENER, with the help of the Joint Research Center, to design the emissions calculation methodology. "Many member states have expressed interest in fuels from recycled carbon fuels we should expect the accounting to be under stress to provide a helpful answer," Vähk says. "A subsidy for plastic to fuels via a climate instrument is politically very attractive."
Other processes may work better, but are still controversial. U.S. packaging company Sealed Air
“We realized that we must also be an industry leader in reducing the impact of our products on the environment after their primary life is finished,” says Steve Garland, Sealed Air’s chief innovation officer. “There is not a single solution to this challenge, including mechanical recycling of waste plastics. No single technology will work for all waste plastics, and the world will need several technology platforms to solve the plastic waste challenge. In order to accomplish this, companies need to work together to build and expand the kind of infrastructure that will allow more types of plastic to be recycled.”
He adds that Sealed Air is committed to using mechanically recycled materials where technically viable, however it is not effective for more complex, multi-layer plastic. “As an industry, we need to simplify and reduce the amount of packaging needed to safely protect the products being packaged.”
Since announcing the partnership with Plastic Energy, they have partnered with U.K.-based retailer Tesco and cheese at stores will be packaged with chemically recycled plastic.
As for Plastic Energy, they are now upscaling their plant capacity and expect by 2025 to have around 10 chemical recycling plants in Europe. Cloé Ragot, head of policy and sustainability at Plastic Energy, says: “Whenever technically and economically possible, the plastic should be reused, or then recycled (mechanically or chemically) to create new products. However, the next level shouldn’t be dismissed. Although it is not Plastic Energy’s activity, creating alternative fuels still reduces the dependency on fossil fuels and ensures that no polymeric waste is left without value to enter the environment.”
New policies will intervene to regulate these techniques. Plastics Recyclers Europe points out the Article 2(35) of the RED, stating that recycled carbon fuels come from waste streams of non-renewable origins and are not suitable for material recovery, creates some ambiguity in practical terms.
“Only plastic waste that cannot be recycled to produce secondary material in manufacture of products can be transformed into fuels, and that must be clarified,” they told me. “Additionally, these fuels could contribute only to the renewable energy targets in the transportation sector (with a minimum share of 14% by 2030). However, the savings from their use must prove to reach at least 70% of the greenhouse gas emissions and the methodology to calculate these savings is currently being drafted by the European Commission.”
“It’s easy for industries to announce support for net zero climate goals when they simultaneously attempt to dismantle basic accounting of the climate damaging emissions their products cause,” Šerdoner concludes. “These greenwashing attempts must be filtered out if we are to achieve the climate neutrality objectives set out by the EU Climate Law.”
On October 14, the European Commission released its Chemical Strategy for Sustainability, which attaches some conditions for chemical recycling: "Technologies such as chemical recycling could also have a role but only if they ensure an overall positive environmental and climate performance, from a full life cycle perspective."
For Vähk, it's a positive news in line with Zero Waste Europe’s ask to take a precautionary approach towards chemical recycling. They also sent a letter to the European Commission (DG Envi) to seek clarification on the role of chemical recycling in the circular economy.
"The Commission has so far had a relatively relaxed approach towards legislation around chemical recycling," he says. "But, as we are seeing lots of activity from industries promoting chemical recycling as the solution to the plastic crisis, it is crucial that we show that NGOs want that this happens in a transparent way and protects the goals of the circular economy agenda."
