Davis Allen

A Bay Area startup sold a plastic recycling dream. Neighbors call it just another incinerator As California writes plastic waste rules that would affect advanced recycling, Resynergi says it will leave for a more welcoming state.

"Advanced recycling” won't solve the plastic waste crisis.

As CCI Senior Investigative Researcher @davisallen.bsky.social told @calmatters.org: “Almost any solution that is based on the idea that plastics can widely be recycled just isn’t really going to work.”

I'm curious what it will mean for the future of AI that we're constantly seeing how that isn't true.

In most applications, I think use of AI is driven less by the promise of improved outcomes than the capacity to present a choice as authoritative or rational in a way that is beyond criticism. Basically, the idea that because something is derived from AI it must be right.

YouTube video by Environmental Law Institute Chemical Recycling: More Pollution? Or a Sustainability Solution for Plastic?

Discussion around advanced recycling is "driven less by the merits or feasibility" of the technology, and more by Big Oil's need to offer a solution "that doesn’t restrict the exponential growth in plastics production," said CCI's @davisallen.bsky.social during a recent panel w/ @eliorg.bsky.social.

‘Maddening’ Proof Plastics Industry Knew Recycling Was False Solution in 1974, New Document Shows Exclusive finding by DeSmog shows high-level industry awareness that recycling plastic ‘not feasible’ as companies face lawsuits over alleged public deception campaign.

A 'maddening' new bombshell report revealing the fraud of plastics recycling.

@rebeccajohn.bsky.social reports for @desmog.com on an exclusive document showing the petrochemical industry knew as early as 1974 that recycling was a false solution.

www.desmog.com/2025/08/05/m...

‘Maddening’ Proof Plastics Industry Knew Recycling Was False Solution in 1974, New Document Shows Exclusive finding by DeSmog shows high-level industry awareness that recycling plastic ‘not feasible’ as companies face lawsuits over alleged public deception campaign.

“It's further proof that the plastics industry has been actively deceiving the public for decades about the recyclability of plastics” says @davisallen.bsky.social @climateintegrity.org

New evidence shows DuPont knew 50 years ago recycling "not feasible"

‘Maddening’ Proof Plastics Industry Knew Recycling Was False Solution in 1974, New Document Shows Exclusive finding by DeSmog shows high-level industry awareness that recycling plastic ‘not feasible’ as companies face lawsuits over alleged public deception campaign.

NEW: The president of one of the world's largest plastics producers acknowledged in 1974 that recycling plastic was "not feasible."

It's “further proof that the plastics industry has been actively deceiving the public for decades about the recyclability of plastics” says @davisallen.bsky.social.

American Beauties How plastic bags came to rule our lives, and why we can’t quit them.

@rebecca-altman.bsky.social introduced me to the Stouffer doc and has written about the industry's promotion of single use plastics in various places, including her essay "American Beauties," which is definitely worth reading web.archive.org/web/20191113...

The Fraud of Plastic Recycling | Center for Climate Integrity How Big Oil and the plastics industry deceived the public for decades and caused the plastic waste crisis

If you're interested in reading more about this transition, we wrote about it in the context of the industry's deceptive promotion of recycling (including how the industry capitalized on dozens of children suffocating on plastic bags to push disposability) in a report published last year

Glad you found it! In that same doc Stouffer writes that "The happy day has arrived when nobody any longer considers the plastics package too good to throw away." The whole thing is a pretty fascinating read.

Researchers: Effective plastic treaty requires production cuts Scientists from universities in several countries released a paper that concluded production cuts must be part of the legally binding treaty to manage global plastic pollution if it's to achieve its g...

#PlasticsTreaty #INC5.2

resource--recycling-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/resource...

Advanced Recycling Is a Fraud—And the Big Oil Plastics Industry Knows It | Common Dreams This is just a new version of a sad and familiar story: the plastics industry's attempt to use the idea of recycling to protect its license to operate and continue producing ever-greater amounts of pl...

Big Oil and the plastics industry are misleading the public about "advanced recycling." Even industry insiders concede that it's a false solution to the plastic pollution crisis.

CCI's @davisallen.bsky.social breaks down his latest investigation in @commondreams.org 👇

People are growing worried about the plastic pollution problem — and that’s worrying Big Oil and the plastics industry.

In the words of one industry consultant, Big Oil has an “[u]rgent need for success stories.”

But will they ever come? CCI’s @davisallen.bsky.social explains.

Big Oil and the plastics industry are deceptively marketing "advanced recycling" as a solution — even as industry insiders point out its limitations. 

CCI's @davisallen.bsky.social spoke to CBS News about his recent investigative report, "The Fraud of Plastic Recycling."

Touted by Big Oil and the plastics industry as a major breakthrough, "advanced recycling" is anything but. Our hidden gem of the week unpacks how the technology is neither novel, scalable, nor environmentally friendly.

By @davisallen.bsky.social in @climateintegrity.org

buff.ly/ONdAAz1

Plastics industry pushed ‘advanced recycling’ despite knowing problems – report Producers promoted chemical recycling – processes used to break plastics into constituent molecules – but knew of limitations

1/2 „#Plastic producers have pushed “advanced #recycling” as a salve to the plastic waste crisis despite knowing for years that it is not a technically or economically feasible solution, a new report argues.“ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The Fraud of Advanced Recycling | Center for Climate Integrity How Big Oil and the Plastics Industry are Promoting a False Solution to the Plastic Waste Crisis

"Advanced" recycling is not:

❌ new or groundbreaking
❌ able to address hard-to-recycle plastics
❌ environmentally friendly
❌ circular

Don't take our word for it. Read what plastics industry insiders have said: 👇

Plastics companies know about chemical recycling’s shortcomings — but still sell it as a solution A new report casts doubt on industry narratives about the “revolutionary” technology.

“They’re claiming it’s a solution and it’s not, and they know it." Great piece exposing the truth about chemical recycling, based on the new @climateintegrity.org report, from @grist.org @josephwintervhs.bsky.social @davisallen.bsky.social #plasticpollution #advancedrecycling

Plastics industry pushed ‘advanced recycling’ despite knowing problems – report Producers promoted chemical recycling – processes used to break plastics into constituent molecules – but knew of limitations

Big Oil and the plastics industry want you to think that “advanced recycling” is a solution to the plastic waste crisis.

“But they know the problems, the limitations," CCI's @davisallen.bsky.social tells @dharna.bsky.social about our new investigation.

The Fraud of Advanced Recycling | Center for Climate Integrity How Big Oil and the Plastics Industry are Promoting a False Solution to the Plastic Waste Crisis

Read the full report here: climateintegrity.org/projects/adv...

This is just a new version of the same story: the plastics industry's attempt to use the idea of recycling to protect its license to operate and continue producing ever-greater amounts of plastic, regardless of the consequences.

Advanced recycling allows the industry to present the public with a seemingly acceptable solution that doesn't put limits on plastic production. It provides the industry with the cover of a perfect technological solution that demands no changes in the way we use plastics.

According to the state of California's lawsuit against ExxonMobil, the company has promoted AR, at least in part, to avoid that outcome–what it sees as "the 'negative' impacts/consequences of the ... adoption of the circular economy way of thinking."

A 2021 Closed Loop Partners report entitled "Transitioning to a Circular System for Plastics: Assessing Molecular Recycling Technologies in the United States and Canada."

As an investment firm with industry ties explained, any positive impacts associated with AR would require "shifting away from oil exploration and new extraction infrastructure," since it would only lead to benefits "when it displaces the use of virgin plastics."

In the end, though, the companies don't want circularity at all because it would be bad for their business of extracting more fossil fuels and making more plastics.

The industry hopes to subvert this problem with creative accounting practices like the mass balance attribution scheme, which provides “little to no physical traceability to prove that there is any physical recycled content in the actual product” according to the Association of Plastic Recyclers.

One industry-affiliated group acknowledged that “[c]onversion processes typically have low yields, especially when discounting the portion of materials going to fuels," and NREL researchers found that only 1-14% of inputs processed via pyrolysis or gasification could become new plastic feedstocks.

Increased pressure to come up with a recycling solution has made them change their tune, but the facts haven't changed: a very small percentage of the material that goes into the most commonly-used chemical recycling processes can come out on the other side as feedstocks for new plastics.

The shifting names of the American Chemistry Council's chemical recycling group over the last decade reflect the industry's evolving marketing around the technologies. It was created in 2014 as the "Plastics-to-Oil Technologies Alliance" before becoming the "Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance" in 2015, the "Chemical Recycling Alliance" in 2019, and finally the "Advanced Recycling Alliance for Plastics" in 2020.

In fact, the whole idea of AR as a way to recycle plastics hasn't been the norm. The plastics industry has primarily promoted chemical recycling processes as ways to turn plastics into fuel, which isn't recycling at all. The American Chemistry Council used to just call pyrolysis "plastics-to-fuel."