By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency on Friday said it will require companies that
produce oil from a process known as "advanced recycling" to
submit the product to the agency to test it for impurities.
The measure is one of dozens of goals and objectives the EPA
has outlined in a new draft federal strategy for preventing
plastic pollution that was required by a law passed in 2020
aimed at keeping plastic waste and post-consumer materials out
of waterways and oceans.
The agency is seeking public input on an array of strategic
objectives and voluntary actions that can be taken to "reduce,
reuse, collect, and capture plastic and other waste from
land-based sources" by 2040.
While the EPA has said it wants to promote "circular economy
policies," which focus on the reuse of plastic waste, it said it
will exclude "processes that convert solid waste to fuels, fuel
ingredients, or energy from being considered as a recycling
practice in this strategy."
"Advanced recycling," also known as pyrolisis or chemical
recyclling, is a set of reprocessing technologies that the
plastics industry has touted as a solution to deal with the
global scourge of plastic waste. It uses heat or chemicals to
turn plastic waste into fuel or reclaimed resin to make new
plastic.
The agency said that though it had welcomed "further
discussion" on the technology when its released a separate draft
national recycling plan in late 2021, it now "reaffirms
that...it does not consider activities that convert
non-hazardous solid waste to fuels or fuel substitutes or for
energy production to be 'recycling' activities."
The EPA also said it has become aware of health concerns and
environmental risks related to impurities found in oil from
pyrolisis and will require companies to submit oil chemicals
to the Agency for review under the Toxic Substances Control Act
for testing prior to approval of projects, and ongoing testing
to ensure there is no variability in the plastic waste stream
used to generate the pyrolysis oil.
A recent Reuters investigation found that advanced recycling
projects backed major companies have been dropped or
indefinitely delayed because they were not commercially viable.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici
Editing by Marguerita Choy)
