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Column: Should We Call it Advanced, Chemical, or Molecular Recycling?

What's in a name? It depends on who you ask, but "advanced" seems to be emerging as the preferred descriptor of a host of new recycling technologies. Let's find out how the public views them.

(from left) John Avolio of NOVA Chemicals leads a brand owner panel of LEGO's Drew Felz, Peapod and Ahold's Mike Roxas, Mars Petcare's Barnaby Wallace, and Adrianna Wolf of McCain Foods.
(from left) John Avolio of NOVA Chemicals leads a brand owner panel of LEGO's Drew Felz, Peapod and Ahold's Mike Roxas, Mars Petcare's Barnaby Wallace, and Adrianna Wolf of McCain Foods.

Editors at Packaging World have kicked around the idea of standardizing on one descriptor—among advanced, chemical, or molecular—to refer to a host of burgeoning recycling technologies that tend to revolve around (but aren’t limited to) depolymerization via pyrolysis, gasification, or solvents. My instinct was to default to “chemical” recycling, the earliest common descriptor. But “advanced” is an inclusive umbrella term that doesn’t carry the negative connotation baggage that some say the word “chemical” elicits. Meanwhile, “molecular” limits conversation to the depolymerization set of technologies, thus omitting methods like PureCycle polypropylene recovery. As PureCycle’s Matt Cripe explained to me at the recent MRP Solutions Sustainability Summit near Chicago, the tech cleans PP to virgin quality, but it doesn’t break it down to a monomer. Anyhow, PW will hold off on standardizing on a single descriptor for now.

This minor editorial conundrum is a microcosm of the public relations problem faced by advanced recycling (I guess I’m going with “advanced”). A big source of negative press has come from Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) and other legislators who, in my opinion, have oversimplified pyrolysis and gasification (advanced recycling methods), labeling them as incineration instead of recycling to focus on CO2 byproducts. They aim to convince the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to keep considering these techs municipal waste combustion, and thus regulate them under the Clean Air Act. The experts tend to wear down non-expert legislators over time, so I’m hoping a course correction will occur. Or, as my buddy Eric Greenberg suggests in his column here, maybe agencies like the EPA won’t have such sharp teeth before long.

I heard advanced recycling’s PR travails laid bare in Orlando last month at the American Chemistry Council’s Innovation & Circularity Summit, in a panel discussion on the so-called mass balance approach, third-party certification for credibility, and ongoing consumer education.

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