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Opinion: We cannot reform our broken recycling system by burning plastic

Kevin Budris, an attorney with Conservation Law Foundation's Zero Waste project, explains and urges CT residents to contact their legislators to tell them that burning plastic is not a solution to our trash and recycling problems. Read the full essay at the CT Mirror's Viewpoints.

  • Less than 9% of the more than nine billion tons of plastic produced over the past seven decades has been recycled. Today, much of what we put into our recycling bins still ends up in one of Connecticut's five incinerators – or in an out-of-state landfill.
  • Most plastics end up burned in incinerators, buried in landfills, or littered in our environment. Manufacturers keep churning out single-use packaging that can't be recycled. And every year, we're making, burning, and burying even more single-use plastic.
  • Requiring corporations to ensure their packaging is reusable or recyclable and free of toxics – and holding them accountable for their single-use waste – can make a big difference. But Connecticut lawmakers are considering two bills this year that would worsen the plastic pollution crisis. What's more, they would bring a new generation of plastics-burning facilities to Connecticut.
  • SB 115, would create a producer responsibility for packaging program. Unfortunately, the bill, as written, would allow big packaging companies to set their own recycling goals with little oversight, accountability or enforcement. What's worse, the plastics and fossil-fuel industries have worked to add a loophole to the bill for high-heat plastics incineration technologies, like so-called "advanced recycling."
  • SB 352 would make it easier to build these plastic-burning "advanced recycling" facilities in Connecticut by exempting them from laws and regulations that ordinarily apply to solid waste and recycling facilities. Massachusetts and Rhode Island have repeatedly rejected attempts to pass these dangerous industry-backed laws. Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has stated publicly that it supports the development of these facilities in Connecticut. This is unacceptable.
  • Contact your legislators and tell them that burning plastic is not a solution.

Read the full essay at the CT Mirror's Viewpoints.

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RELATED: Chemical (Advanced) Recycling: A False, Climate Destroying, Environmentally Unjust Solution, by the Sierra Club Connecticut's Ann Gadwah