Chemical or advanced recycling was all the rage at the Circularity 2025 Conference in late April. But is the promise that these technologies can solve the global plastics crisis legitimate? A new report from the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) reveals that these heavily promoted technologies are unlikely to solve the global plastic waste crisis.

The report, titled “The Fraud of Advanced Recycling,” examines petrochemical companies and plastic manufacturers’ claims about chemical recycling methods despite the CCI claims, knowing there are significant technical and financial limitations. Several companies, including Nexus Circular, claim they can successfully process mixed types of plastic. The company’s founder and CEO have discussed their work on Earth911’s Sustainability In Your Ear.

Advanced recycling, often called chemical recycling, includes a variety of heat- and chemicals-based technologies, which promise to break plastic down into its constituent molecules. The chemical approach differs from traditional mechanical recycling that relies on shredding and melting plastics for reprocessing. The plastic industry has promoted these technologies as capable of handling previously unrecyclable plastics and creating a circular economy for plastic materials. The CCI report presents evidence that these claims are deceptive.

Five Industry Deceptions

The report identifies five major misleading claims made by the plastics industry:

1. False Innovation: The industry presents advanced recycling as new and groundbreaking, despite decades of failed attempts to make chemical recycling work at scale since the 1970s. Pyrolysis, the underlying method in most chemical recycling, is
2. Exaggerated Scale: Major plastic producers like ExxonMobil, Eastman, and Shell have made bold commitments to process billions of pounds of plastic waste through advanced recycling, yet their actual operations have consistently fallen far short of these promises.
3. Misleading Technical Capabilities: The industry claims advanced recycling can handle mixed and contaminated plastic waste that mechanical recycling cannot, but the report shows that chemical recycling processes require clean, uniform feedstocks similar to traditional recycling.
4. Environmental Misrepresentation: Chemical recycling processes require significant energy inputs and can produce toxic byproducts, contrary to industry marketing of these technologies as environmentally friendly.
5. False Circularity: Only a tiny percentage (1-14%) of plastic waste processed through chemical recycling becomes new plastic products, with most being converted to fuels or lost during processing.

Industry Insiders Acknowledge Limitations

Particularly damning is evidence that the industry’s consultants and experts acknowledge these limitations. According to the report, Silke Einschuetz of AMI Consulting admitted at an industry conference that “the concerns of industry critics are, in many cases, justified.”

The report cites Wood Mackenzie analyst Brittany Martin, who stated, “I think a lot of it is greenwashing… If you put the name ‘recycling’ on anything, people assume that it’s green and it’s good for the environment.”

ExxonMobil Case Study

The report focuses on ExxonMobil’s advanced recycling facility in Baytown, Texas. In November 2024, the company committed to investing $200 million to process 1 billion pounds of plastic waste annually by 2026. However, according to allegations in a California lawsuit, the facility has cumulatively processed just 70 million pounds since beginning operations, only 28 million pounds per year.

Internal ExxonMobil documents cited in the CII report suggest that the company didn’t expect to meet its public goals or achieve profitability but pursued advanced recycling anyway because, according to the documents, “the public perception benefits received will be invaluable… even if it proves to not be financially sustainable.”

Dr. Anja Brandon, Ocean Conservancy’s Director of Plastics Policy and an environmental engineer who studied chemical recycling technologies, agreed with the report’s findings: “This study further confirms what growing scientific evidence has made clear: chemical recycling is not the answer to plastic pollution. These technologies are expensive, inefficient, and harmful to environmental and public health.”

The report’s author, Dr. Davis Allen, Senior Investigative Researcher at the Center for Climate Integrity, compiled evidence showing that chemical recycling processes “primarily been promoted by the plastics industry as plastic-to-fuel processes” rather than creating new plastic products as often claimed.

Mass Balance Accounting: A Shell Game

The report suggests the plastic industry uses “mass balance accounting” to make misleading claims about recycled content. The accounting method allows companies to claim recycled product content even when the amount may be minuscule.

Anthony Schiavo of Lux Research notes that products labeled as recycled through this method “may only be 2% – 5% recycled content by mass.” ExxonMobil admits in its sustainability report that “the certificate we provide our customers is not a claim that our certified-circular polymers contain any ‘recycled content.’”

Action Starts At Home

In light of the findings, what can people concerned about plastic pollution take?

1. Reduce first: Focus on eliminating single-use plastics from your shopping cart and advocate to local leaders to improve mechanical recycling and better collection and sorting investments.
2. Advocate for transparency: Push for clear labeling that explains the actual level of recycled content in products, without resorting to mass balance accounting tricks.
3. Be skeptical of all claims: When companies tout their circular economy initiatives involving advanced recycling, ask for specific data on actual plastic-to-plastic conversion rates.
4. Support policy initiatives: Back legislation that holds producers responsible for the full lifecycle of their products, like California’s SB 54, known as the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, that mandates that by 2032, all single-use packaging and plastic foodware sold in the state must be recyclable or compostable. Always remain vigilant about industry attempts to weaken implementation guidelines.
5. Focus your plastic use: The most effective way to address plastic pollution remains reducing consumption of harder to recycle plastics, including #2 (polyvinyl chloride), #6 (polystyrene), and #7 (all the plastic resins introduced since the resin number system was initiated, reusing what you can, and properly recycling the plastics accepted in your local program.

As the report concludes, “Rather, it is simply the latest attempt by Big Oil and the plastics industry to deflect attention from the myriad problems with plastics in order to continue producing ever-greater amounts of plastic, regardless of the consequences.”

Informed choice is the basis for systemic change in our packaging practices, recycling systems, and, ultimately, the successful establishment of a circular economy. Start the change by asking your local recycling system to study advanced recycling options before accepting plastic industry claims.