Exxon Mobil's 'Advanced' Technique for Recycling Plastic? Burning It (yahoo.com) 86
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:
In recent years — as longstanding efforts to recycle plastics have faltered — Exxon Mobil has touted advanced recycling as a groundbreaking technology that will turn the tide on the plastic crisis. But despite its seemingly eco-friendly name, the attorney general's lawsuit denounced advanced recycling as a "public relations stunt" that largely involves superheating plastics to convert them into fuel.
At Exxon Mobil's only "advanced recycling" facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned. [California attorney general Rob] Bonta's lawsuit seeks a court order to prohibit the company from describing the practice as "advanced recycling," arguing the vast majority of plastic is destroyed. Many environmental advocates and policy experts lauded the legal action as a major step toward ending greenwashing by Exxon Mobil — the world's largest producer of single-use plastic polymer... Advanced recycling, which is also called chemical recycling, is an umbrella term that typically involves heating or dissolving plastic waste to create fuel, chemicals and waxes — a fraction of which can be used to remake plastic. The most common techniques yield only 1% to 14% of the plastic waste, according to a 2023 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Exxon Mobil has largely used reclaimed plastic for fuel production while ramping up its virgin plastic production, according to Bonta.
The executive director of California Communities Against Toxics complains Exxon Mobil's "advanced" recycling is "the same technology we've had since the Industrial Revolution... a blast furnace." (The article also quotes her as asking "How is that better than coal?") And a UCLA researcher who studied the issue blames misperceptions about plastic recycling on "an industry-backed misinformation campaign." He agrees that the reality is "having to burn more oil to turn that plastic back into oil, which you then burn."
California's attorney general "alleges Exxon Mobil has had a patent for this technology since 1978, and the company is falsely rebranding it as 'new' and 'advanced'... It recently reemerged after the company learned that the term 'advanced recycling' resonated with members of the public..."
At Exxon Mobil's only "advanced recycling" facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned. [California attorney general Rob] Bonta's lawsuit seeks a court order to prohibit the company from describing the practice as "advanced recycling," arguing the vast majority of plastic is destroyed. Many environmental advocates and policy experts lauded the legal action as a major step toward ending greenwashing by Exxon Mobil — the world's largest producer of single-use plastic polymer... Advanced recycling, which is also called chemical recycling, is an umbrella term that typically involves heating or dissolving plastic waste to create fuel, chemicals and waxes — a fraction of which can be used to remake plastic. The most common techniques yield only 1% to 14% of the plastic waste, according to a 2023 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Exxon Mobil has largely used reclaimed plastic for fuel production while ramping up its virgin plastic production, according to Bonta.
The executive director of California Communities Against Toxics complains Exxon Mobil's "advanced" recycling is "the same technology we've had since the Industrial Revolution... a blast furnace." (The article also quotes her as asking "How is that better than coal?") And a UCLA researcher who studied the issue blames misperceptions about plastic recycling on "an industry-backed misinformation campaign." He agrees that the reality is "having to burn more oil to turn that plastic back into oil, which you then burn."
California's attorney general "alleges Exxon Mobil has had a patent for this technology since 1978, and the company is falsely rebranding it as 'new' and 'advanced'... It recently reemerged after the company learned that the term 'advanced recycling' resonated with members of the public..."
It's a Scam (Score:4, Insightful)
Plastic recycling is 95% scan, 5% facade justification for the scam.
Re:It's a Scam (Score:5, Informative)
It does not have to be. The key is reducing plastic variety and collection that makes sense. In many European countries, for example, PET beverage bottles actually get recycled and are actually turned into new PET bottles.
Re: It's a Scam (Score:4, Insightful)
Again, no it isnâ(TM)t. The majority of plastics cannot be recycled. You need a stream of new plastic to put it in and it costs more energy overall. It IS better to burn it in a high heat environment and use the resulting energy in electricity production or other industrial processes. Plastics are just structured hydrocarbons (basically crystals) it is incredibly hard to restructure them.
Re: (Score:3)
And yet, the article says that at that facility, 100% is:
The author would like to claim that 92% isn't recycled, but it is. The US EPA says [epa.gov]: "Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products." It's hydrocarbons all the way through.
What's processed into fuel displaces the ne
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: It's a Scam (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. What Exxon-Mobil is doing is the most effective way to "recycle" plastic. Turning plastic into fuel and offsetting new fossil fuel production is just as effective as reusing the plastic and then pumping new fossil fuels.
There are plenty of good reasons to hate Exxon-Mobil, but this isn't one of them.
If you want to help the environment, stop buying so much plastic crap in the first place. "Recycling" isn't the answer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's a Scam (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal favourite recycled product is "plastic wood". It's insanely expensive, maybe 4 times the cost of the equivalent wood product, but it's amazing stuff. It's a great way to create a damp proof course/membrane at the bottom of a wooden structure (which also is immune from woodworm) - in the olden days you might use a sacrificial bit of batten which you'd heavily treated, but now there's no need - a bit of plastic wood and you're good for decades. The stuff you buy is properly quality controlled and you can get it with structural ratings if you want too, so it's not "a cheapo shoddy product" by any means.
Ultimately though, this is a chicken and egg problem. Plastic wood (IMHO) has its place in a lot of construction - and could replace a few uses of uPVC and the like (ie. stop making new plastic, and re-use some old stuff). However, the price needs to be much lower and the availability needs to be much better too (right now you can only buy it from a couple of specialists, so shipping is ruinously expensive). When it starts appearing in the average builders merchant, then it'll get used.
Even if it is used in all construction though, it'll probably only still use up maybe 1% of all plastic waste :-(
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We recycle PET here in the USA too. And they do actually get turned into new bottles. At least Coca-Cola and Crystal Geyser are using the post-consumer bottles. You can ID them easily once empty because you can see they are slightly discolored towards black where the bottles are thick around the neck.
Unfortunately a lot of idiots don't know that we've had the technology to recycle all plastics with fluid bed pyrolysis for decades, so they keep shouting about how it cannot be recycled, which is exactly what
Re: (Score:2)
>> so they keep shouting about how it cannot be recycled,
Of course it can. In practice it just is not happening, because economics are bad.
So, in economic terms, it cannot be recycled because it costs way too much.
Re: (Score:1)
So, in economic terms, it cannot be recycled because it costs way too much.
It's a choice which we've made, it's not inevitable. Saying "cannot" there is just oil industry bootlicking.
Re: (Score:2)
No, saying we cannot is just conserving the environment. Because it's much more environmentally friendly to burn plastics than recycle them.
Re: (Score:1)
>> it's much more environmentally friendly to burn plastics than recycle them.
Nope. What is environmentally friendly is not extract the oil in the first place.
Re: It's a Scam (Score:2)
That's ignorant at best and thus par for you
Re: (Score:2)
>> Saying "cannot" there is just oil industry bootlicking.
Nope.
It's recognizing their B.S. that is used as a justification to market single use plastics like PET bottles.
Time to go back to wood (Score:4, Insightful)
Apart from some specialty stuff like teflone and silicone, we'll just have to go back to lignin/cellulose based chemistry.
Re:Time to go back to wood (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nice to say, but you have to think about what the goal actually is with plastic products.
Take food packaging, for example. Why does a box of cereal come packaged in thick plastic bags inside the cardboard box, or granola bars in aluminized plastic wrappers, or whatnot? The answer is gas permeability. How long your food lasts is directly proportional to how much access oxygen and water vapour have to them. The polymers (sometimes multilayered) that are used have *extremely* low permeability, and thus, allow food to last far longer without quality degradation. This prevents food waste on a massive scale and significantly lower costs and increase available options to consumers. Trying to come up with a biopolymer that matches these properties, maintains them through the point of sale, but then quickly breaks down as soon as you throw it in the landfill without any special treatment, is a really big ask. I'm not going to say "impossible", but it's certainly not something we have today.
Okay, well, what about structural plastics? To this, I'd say, exactly what sort of structural plastics do you want breaking down on you? How is a buried plastic sewage pipe supposed to know the difference between "being in the ground and handling your sewage" and "being in a landfill"? Do you really want all of your plastic pipes, fittings, casings, etc breaking down due to warmth and moisture?
There are certain categories of things, like grocery bags, that one can get away with having a polymer that steadily degrades upon exposure to moisture, etc. But this not most plastic uses.
Re: (Score:2)
Just because the feedstock is renewable doesn't mean the plastic is biodegradable. They make bakelite from lignin for instance.
Re: (Score:2)
I presumed that that was your goal. What is even the point of taking a good non-biodegradable substance and replacing it with an inferior non-biodegradable substance?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And are also MASSIVELY more expensive and resource-intensive to produce than a couple gram plastic pouch.
Re: (Score:3)
And are massively less resource-intensive to resterilize and reuse, over, and over, and over again than a plastic pouch.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes if you sterilize and reuse the glass at home. If the bottles are sent back to manufacturer for reuse, then the fuel in the logistics is more than the oil needed to produce a plastic bottle.
Re: Time to go back to wood (Score:2)
Glass is not great for everyday carrying of stuff. Think grocery shopping with glass containers. First pothole would shatter them all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, plastic makes processed foods cheaper than fresh foods. But is that really a good thing?
Re: Time to go back to wood (Score:1)
"Teflone"? Sorry, that's hilarious!
Re: (Score:2)
Global starvation because food logistics no longer function the way they do today.
About three food poisonings per person per year with debilitation and death that comes with it.
Massive amount of energy consumption on refrigerating things we don't need to refrigerate to date to desperately try to keep massive health risks from food poisoning from being even higher.
This is just one of out countless problems with this idiocy. On the bright side, outside hyper-neurotic Westerners, the world is going the exact o
I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
That's fine for thermoplastics and it's fine so long as you don't care about eg what colour it is. Not all plastics respond to heat by melting (there are quite a wide variety of plastics that undergo polymerisation with heat, so heating them makes them more solid, not less), but the big problem of this kind of direct-use recycling is that it only works if you can first sort the plastic into all the different types and colours. There are only a middle-sized handful of basic plastic types, but there are a dizzying array of small variations for different purposes. If all you care about the material properties is that they can go through a 3D printer and make something that's solid enough when you overengineer it to a degree then that's fine; if you care about cutting every last penny from the cost of producing things and about making things that are "just right" then it's not going to cut it.
You also need to be able to effectively remove all the labels and any residue of foodstuffs etc. That's easy enough to do on a small scale for your household recycling but it's labour intensive; it's quite difficult to do very cheaply and at a large scale. The advantage of the "advanced recycling" process is that it involves a refining step that removes all the contaminants.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is you're dealing with clean feedstock streams of specific, pure plastics with the exact composition you're looking for. That's not the real world. Plastics are immensely diverse (even within a given category, like ABS or PLA), with very impure feedstock streams, with many plastic products even containing multiple types of plastic on the same product.
Re: (Score:2)
And that is a problem. It could be solved though. Just have a small set of easily separated plastics as common, and require markers and put taxes on anything else. Of course, that requires regulation and corporate greed is not ok with that.
Re: (Score:2)
Plastics are diverse for a reason, not on a whim. And they're inherently going to get jumbled up. And they inherently degrade in usage. Recycling of plastics, as in "reuse", is just not realistic for the vast majority of plastic products.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it really does. Colour, texture, tensile strength, compressive / flexural properties, machining properties, machining precision, ductility, and on and on varies hugely between product lines.
I'm sorry, but plastics are not, cannot be, and never will be, one-size-fits all.
They're not completely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, compared to making plastic and then dumping it, and compared to pulling fuel out of the ground and burning it, this is actually an improvement - the carbon is used twice, once as a plastic and then again as a fuel. It's not exactly a circular economy though.
Re: (Score:2)
They want to argue that turning plastic into fuel isn't recycling. It is, and any fuel produced reduces the amount of new fuel needed. It's not "destroying" it, it's recycling it. As the US EPA says [epa.gov]: "Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The best you can do. Just don't call it recycling. (Score:2, Interesting)
Drop the facade. Plastic is fuel with very useful extra steps. The amount of plastic that we produce is dwarfed by the amount of fossil fuels we turn into CO2 without that great intermediate form. Turning plastic waste into fuel is the right way to get rid of it.
Re:The best you can do. Just don't call it recycli (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed. I hate greenwashing, but getting mad at turning plastic into fuel is beyond stupid. And what exactly does the date of the patent have to do with anything, vs. the date at which you're technologically and economically able to make the first production-scale unit? Do they have this notion that patents are always issued just days before the product becomes viable at scale? That's not how the real-world works.
Plastics are a feedstock that is immensely diverse, varying impure, and whose products have generally chemically degraded since their production. Depolymerizing them (and then using the product liquids and gases in whatever is most economically efficient at the time, whether that's new polymers, vehicle fuels, heating fuels, lubricants, etc etc) is usually going to be the best option. It is not the same thing as just burning plastic, where you recover only the thermal energy with no value-add, and with generally unclean combustion.
Even if the ultimate product is something you're going to burn, first off, (A) it's a value add, as you're not going to be shoving plastic bottles into your gas tank; it's a far more useful product; and (B) you're going to get far cleaner combustion from shorter, simpler, contaminant-free fuels than you are from raw solid plastics (which also commonly contain things like chlorine that you really don't want in your combustion, not just hydrogen and carbon - PVC for example is over half chlorine by mass)
Re: (Score:1)
Agreed. I hate greenwashing, but getting mad at turning plastic into fuel is beyond stupid.
I hate plastic garbage, in fact if I could I would ban plastics except for a handful of limited applications. Burying it in a landfill still represents re-sequestering fossil carbon while truing the plastic into fuel and burning it means de-sequestering fossil carbon and making the problem of atmospheric CO2 levels worse so given the choice I'd prefer not to make the problem of atmospheric CO2 levels any worse than it already is.
Re: (Score:2)
This is not about what they do. This is about how they sell it.
At this time, burning plastic, with all the modern precautions, is probably the only thing that works reasonably well outside of some specialty uses like PET bottles.
Re:The best you can do. Just don't call it recycli (Score:5, Interesting)
This is literally what they do. It's thermal decomposition. With traditional burning of plastic waste, you add air and get out a mixture of CO2, H2O, and a lot of pollutants (fly ash, nitrogen compounds, chlorinated compounds, etc). With thermal decomposition, you use little or no oxygen (depending on the process there may be other gases added, such as H2) and get what's predominantly a mix of oil, natural gas or syngas, and coke, with water vacuum-stripped; the goal is specifically to NOT oxidize the carbon, and to NOT get rid of the gas (although there is some oxygen present in the feedstocks themselves). At this point it is basically the same sort of mixtures that you find in fossil feedstocks, and are blended into existing fossil feedstocks. These then go through various refining / separation processes as usual to yield the desired mixtures for end products or feedstocks for new production processes. There is no ash, no nitrogen oxides, and chlorine for example forms HCl which reacts with caustic to form NaCl (salt). Industrial salt is often used in the chlor-alkalai industry, though if sufficiently purified it can also be used as road salt.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Wonderful"? No. Wasteful and stupid? Yes. Better than sending it to the landfill? Yes again, but that is a _really_ low bar.
Re: The best you can do. Just don't call it recycl (Score:1)
100%
This was the obvious solution staring at us all in the face. How did EVERYONE miss it?
Exxon/Esso should be hailed by the world for finally seeing this. Genius. The person who thought of it should be given keys to the world.
The facade is everything to the booboisie. (Score:2)
The public are not and never will be techies. Tech is magic to them. They require something like religion/superstition where they need only obey, not think, and this is because they and no one else sets conditions for their engagement.
The beastmob require utterly cynical engagement. They cannot choose to be different. See who they elect to lead them. There is not something missing or broken they can change, they are what they are.
They demand the facade so give them what works.
Surprised?! (Score:3)
Meanwhile, they're increasing plastics production as much as they can to increase profits.
Here's a new improved, advanced technology idea, framed in a way that ExxonMobil can relate to:
"In light of the pressing exigencies surrounding contemporary environmental stewardship and the overarching imperative to safeguard natural ecosystems for the collective benefit of present and future stakeholders, it is hereby proposed that the widespread utilization of polymer-based synthetic materials, colloquially referred to as "plastics," be subject to a comprehensive, preclusive legislative and regulatory framework that effectively mandates the cessation of their production, distribution, and usage within the jurisdiction. Such a framework, in its application and enforcement, would not only mitigate the deleterious environmental externalities historically associated with said materials but also serve as a pioneering, forward-thinking paradigm of eco-centric innovation, emblematic of a transformative shift toward sustainable resource utilization and waste minimization, thus heralding a new epoch in material science and environmental policy."
Re: (Score:2)
If someone decided to sue ExxonMobil over their lies about recycling, I hope that the settlement will be like the one they got for VW where they're forced to fund the electric car charging network. Something like requiring 2 fast DC car chargers at every Exxon station would be very helpful for the charging network.
why are they charging us for platic bags? (Score:1)
Re: why are they charging us for platic bags? (Score:1)
The 1980s called and wants their forests back. Save the forests!!!!!! Use plastic.
The gullibility defies explanation.
It's OK, the return of the glaciers by 2000 will make this all moot.
Re: why are they charging us for platic bags? (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s all emotion based. No logic or facts needed. Cradle to grave doesnâ(TM)t matter. Just like EV are sold on the basis of operating effects while new. Not considering power to recharge sources or manufacturing
Sounds good (Score:2)
It's turned into a useful product instead of being dumped in a landfill or the ocean. If we ever stop burning fuel then we can worry about recycling it into non-fuel.
Re:Sounds good (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. Once you depolymerize it, you're going to turn it into whatever is cheapest for those feedstocks at that point in time. In this era, we burn lots of fuel, so that's what they mostly become. If that changes, the product stream will change. It's really that simple.
I'm really happy to finally see this technology being done at scale. It's taken a long time to get to this point, to get the process efficient enough to be practical.
Cannot we dump plastic in plates subduction zones? (Score:1)
Seems like win-win:
1. we get rid of the plastic
2. we get rid of carbon
Long term it might be a problem as we may need carbon but short term it looks like some kind of a solution...
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. If you can a) wait a few millennia and b) dig _really_ deep. Might be more feasible and eco-friendly to shoot it to the moon...
Are oil companies inherently evil or something? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
My guess is that after deciding to lie about climate changes in the 1970, they lost all inhibitions and morality. Understandably, if you do something _this_ fundamentally evil, most other things you can do, including the one discussed in the story here, are small things.
Ref: https://news.harvard.edu/gazet... [harvard.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. It is also a nice example of a lie by misdirection.
Recycling is a dangerous waste of time (Score:3)
And the rabbit ... (Score:1)
... hole got deeper and deeper. Seems the oil guys do not have kids to worry about the future.
Why not just get a nuclear plant and depolymerize? (Score:2)
I've wondered about these companies that has so much plastic, what is wrong with setting up a gigawatt nuclear power plant near some coastal area, and using thermal depolymerization to boil all the waste stuff into mineral oil, which can be used for all kinds of things. Yes, this is energy intensive, but doing it this way gets it completely out of the environment, and once set up, nuclear is relatively inexpensive, or if that isn't feasible, solar/wind. At least this gets it out of the environment.
Plastic to fuel processes cause cancer (Score:2)
EPA just revoked their permission to manufacture fuel from plastic after a journalist investigation found that the process creates several cancer causing chemicals.