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In 1980, Disney World in Orlando, Florida, started work on a new way to generate power for the theme park, cutting its use of oil, the price of which had soared. The Solid Waste Energy Conversion Plant took trash, including plastic, and used a method called pyrolysis to turn it into combustible gases. It opened in 1982, but closed a year later, as the cost of running it mounted.
Today, environmental campaigners are invoking the Disney story to trash the reputation of a suite of new technologies, collectively known as advanced recycling, which take plastic waste and convert it back into brand new plastic.
Their argument is disingenuous. The failure of Disney’s plant had more to do with a subsequent fall in oil prices than technological or environmental problems. Pyrolysis has improved a lot since the 1980s. And in any case, Disney’s plant was designed to produce fuel, which isn’t classed as advanced recycling.
As we report in our feature “The incredible new tech that can recycle all plastics, forever”, advanced recycling is a rapidly innovating industry that could help to solve the global plastics crisis. It has the potential to take millions of tonnes of discarded plastic, most of which ends up in landfill, incinerators or the environment, and turn it back into a clean, fresh version by breaking it down to its molecular constituents. The goal is a circular economy where there is no longer any need to make “virgin” plastic from oil.
It isn’t a panacea. There are issues around such plants generating toxic waste, their energy use and the perpetuation of conventional plastics ahead of newer, greener alternatives. Campaigners are right to argue that we would be better off phasing out plastics altogether. But practical considerations mean they aren’t going away any time soon, and most advanced recycling technologies are better for the environment than the alternatives.
There is a serious discussion to be had around advanced recycling, not least whether it should be factored into a forthcoming global treaty on plastic pollution. Let’s just make sure it is based on the facts, not Disney stories.
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