Last year, the City of Houston joined with ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, Cyclyx International, and the recycling company FCC Environmental Services, to develop the "Houston Recycling Collaboration". This new collaboration aims to significantly increase Houston’s plastics recycling rates. It is good that companies that produce fossil-fueled based plastics are finally responding to world-wide public pressure to reduce the impacts of plastic pollution. But it is also concerning that these same companies will be motivated to steer their efforts to approaches and technologies that will perpetuate and even expand future fossil-fuel based plastics production. There are also environmental concerns about the 'chemical' recycling and pyrolysis approaches that have been proposed (see links at end of this article). 

This effort to advance plastic recycling methods is outlined in the City's press release: Houston Recycling Collaboration (houstontx.gov)

New City of Houston 'All Plastic" Recycling Collections:

As part of this Recycling Collaboration effort, new "All-Plastic" recycling drop-off collections have started at the Kingwood Recycling Center and the North Main Recycling Drop Off Center. This new program allows residents to bag all types of plastic items together (#1 through #7) to drop off for recycling at the designated locations. Details for the program can be found at the following links:

Houston Recycling Collaboration (houstontx.gov)

City of Houston expands recycling program to accept all plastics at North Main depository | Community Impact

Houston Recycling Collaboration launches first Cyclyx 10 to 90® program, expanding collection to nearly all plastics in Kingwood, Texas, community (plastics-technology.com)

Note: The current "All Plastic" collections are a work in progress. At the City of Houston's Earth Day event in April, when asked, representatives of the program said that the plastic types that are difficult to recycle are currently being stockpiled until new processes can be tested, and new facilities completed. So, it is currently unclear how much some types of plastic might actually be recycled. 

Related article on the "Houston Recycling Collaboration" and new plastic recycling developments: 

Plastics companies, Houston sign chemical recycling MOU (resource-recycling.com)

Environmental Concerns about Chemical Recycling of Plastics: 

Most environmentalists have concerns about proposed chemical recycling processes. Since most all plastics are currently derived from fossil fuel sources, technologies that involve pyrolysis or heating of plastics can produce unhealthy air emissions that would impact adjacent communities and regional air quality. And there is no guarantee that these technologies will lead to effective, economic recycling of the many hard to recycle fossil-fuel based plastic items. 

Below are articles that outline some of those concerns:

Is ‘Chemical Recycling’ a Solution to the Global Scourge of Plastic Waste or an Environmentally Dirty Ruse to Keep Production High? - Inside Climate News

A New Plant in Indiana Uses a Process Called ‘Pyrolysis’ to Recycle Plastic Waste. Critics Say It’s Really Just Incineration - Inside Climate News

A Houston Firm Says It’s Opening a Billion-Dollar Chemical Recycling Plant in a Small Pennsylvania Town. How Does It Work? - Inside Climate News

Much research is currently underway on alternative plastics made from non-fossil-fuel source materials. Many types of fossil-fuel based plastic products could likely be replaced by materials that would be easier to bio-degrade, compost, or recycle without harmful side effects. 

For questions or comments, contact Frank Blake at frankblake@juno.com

Photo by iStock.com/Mukhina1.