Skip to content
  • Science
  • Politics
  • Justice & Health
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Clean Energy
  • ICN Local
  • Projects
  • Impact
  • About Us
Inside Climate News
Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet.
Donate
Trump 2.0: The Reckoning
Inside Climate News
Donate

Search

  • Science
  • Politics
  • Justice & Health
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Clean Energy
  • ICN Local
  • Projects
  • Impact
  • About Us
  • Newsletters
  • ICN Sunday Morning
  • Contact Us

Topics

  • A.I. & Data Centers
  • Activism
  • Arctic
  • Biodiversity & Conservation
  • Business & Finance
  • Climate Law & Liability
  • Climate Treaties
  • Denial & Misinformation
  • Environment & Health
  • Extreme Weather
  • Food & Agriculture
  • Fracking
  • Nuclear
  • Pipelines
  • Plastics
  • Public Lands
  • Regulation
  • Super-Pollutants
  • Water/Drought
  • Wildfires

Information

  • About
  • Job Openings
  • Reporting Network
  • Whistleblowers
  • Memberships
  • Ways to Give
  • Fellows & Fellowships

Publications

  • E-Books
  • Documents

advanced recycling

New York Plastics Law Advances Amid Debate Over ‘Chemical Recycling’

Environmentalists and some state lawmakers say the process does more harm than good. Plastics producers are pushing back.

By Lauren Dalban

Environmental advocates join state legislators and health care professionals to urge the passage of the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act on Monday in Albany, N.Y. Credit: Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images
The Freepoint Eco-Systems chemical recycling plant near Hebron, Ohio, emits black smoke in July 2025. Credit: Courtesy of Shawn Jones

As a Plastic Waste Plant Violates Pollution Rules, Its Owner Makes the Case for a Second Location

By James Bruggers

After Chemical Industry Lobbying, EPA Considers Dropping Clean Air Protections for Plastic Waste Recycling 

By James Bruggers

Plastic waste piles up along the bank of the San Gabriel River just a few hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean in Seal Beach, California, on Dec. 13, 2022. Credit: Mark Rightmire/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Alleging Decades of Lies, California Sues ExxonMobil Over Plastic Pollution Crisis

By James Bruggers

Wright Waste Management in July. Credit: CBS News

Houston’s Plastic Waste, Waiting More Than a Year for ‘Advanced’ Recycling, Piles up at a Business Failed Three Times by Fire Marshal

By James Bruggers

California-based Fulcrum BioEnergy wants to turn trash and plastic into jet fuel at this former cement plant in Gary, Indiana. Credit: James Bruggers/Inside Climate News

Fulcrum Bioenergy, Aiming to Produce ‘Net-Zero’ Jet Fuel From Plastic Waste, Hits Heavy Turbulence

By James Bruggers

The ExxonMobil Baytown Complex in Baytown, Texas, at dusk. Credit: James Bruggers/Inside Climate News

The Missing Equations at ExxonMobil’s Advanced Recycling Operation

By James Bruggers

Jan Dell, founder of The Last Beach Cleanup and a chemical engineer, examines the contents of a large container of bagged plastics at a Houston Recycling Collaboration all-plastics recycling depository in the Houston community of Kingwood in September. Credit: James Bruggers/Inside Climate News

Dumped, Not Recycled? Electronic Tracking Raises Questions About Houston’s Drive to Repurpose a Full Range of Plastics

By James Bruggers

In Youngstown, Ohio, SOBE Thermal Energy Systems proposed using a zero or very low oxygen chemical process that would turn shredded tires into a gas that would be burned to produce steam for heating buildings. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Youngstown City Council Unanimously Votes Against an ‘Untested and Dangerous’ Tire Pyrolysis Plant

By James Bruggers

Baled plastic at the Brightmark chemical recycling plant in Indiana in July. The plant is designed to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel, naphtha and wax. Credit: James Bruggers

Environmentalists Want the FTC Green Guides to Slam the Door on the ‘Chemical’ Recycling of Plastic Waste

By James Bruggers

A fire Tuesday at a plastics recycling plant in Richmond, Indiana, forced the evacuation of 2,000 nearby residents. Credit: Kevin Shook/Global Media Enterprise.

Where There’s Plastic, There’s Fire. Indiana Blaze Highlights Concerns Over Expanding Plastic Recycling

By James Bruggers

A corn field wilts in a mid summer dry spell in a Point Township, Pennsylvania, field where Houston-based Encina says it will convert plastic waste to benzene, toluene and xylene. Credit: James Bruggers

Encina Chemical Recycling Plant in Pennsylvania Faces Setback: One of its Buildings Is Too Tall

By James Bruggers

Jay Schabel, president of the plastics division at Brightmark, holds plastic pellets in his hand the company's new chemical recycling plant in northeast Indiana at the end of July. Credit: James Bruggers

‘Advanced’ Recycling of Plastic Using High Heat and Chemicals Is Costly and Environmentally Problematic, A New Government Study Finds

By James Bruggers

A Turkish diver dives amid plastic waste in Ortakoy coastline to observe the life and pollution of Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey on June 27, 2020. Credit: Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Is ‘Chemical Recycling’ a Solution to the Global Scourge of Plastic Waste or an Environmentally Dirty Ruse to Keep Production High?

By James Bruggers

Houston-based Encina is planning a $1.1 billion chemical recycling plant for plastic waste on these bottomlands along the Susquehanna River in Point Township, Pennsylvania. Credit: James Bruggers

An Environmental Group Challenges a Proposed Plastics ‘Advanced Recycling’ Plant in Pennsylvania

By James Bruggers

Nick Vafiadis, the vice president of plastics for Chemical Market Analytics by OPIS, the Dow Jones Company, speaks at his company's plastics conference known as GPS + PEPP. Credit: James Bruggers

The Plastics Industry Searches for a ‘Circular’ Way to Cut Plastic Waste and Make More Plastics

By James Bruggers

Jay Schabel, president of the plastics division at Brightmark, stands amid what he described as 900 tons of waste plastic at the company's new plant in northeast Indiana at the end of July. The plant is designed to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel, naphtha and wax. Credit: James Bruggers

A New Plant in Indiana Uses a Process Called ‘Pyrolysis’ to Recycle Plastic Waste. Critics Say It’s Really Just Incineration

By James Bruggers

Refuse bags full of materials for recycling in different colored plastic bags. Credit: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images

A Houston Firm Says It’s Opening a Billion-Dollar Chemical Recycling Plant in a Small Pennsylvania Town. How Does It Work?

By James Bruggers

Plastic and other debris floats underwater in the Red Sea off Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Credit: Andrey Nekrasov / Barcroft Media via Getty Images.

A Commonsense Proposal to Deal With Plastics Pollution: Stop Making So Much Plastic

By James Bruggers

Newsletters

We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web's top headlines deliver the full story, for free.

Keep Environmental Journalism Alive

ICN provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going.

Donate Now
Inside Climate News
  • Science
  • Politics
  • Justice & Health
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Clean Energy
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Whistleblowers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Charity Navigator
Inside Climate News uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept this policy. Learn More