"Peak Greenwashing": Two Bills in Congress Endorse Misleading Recycling Claims

Two bipartisan bills in Congress would create national rules for recycling labels and recycled-content claims, but they would also prevent states from imposing stricter standards. Critics argue this would weaken laws such as California’s, which restricts the chasing-arrows symbol on products that cannot realistically be recycled or contain toxic chemicals. The bills have gained support from packaging, chemical and oil companies that have spent millions lobbying on the proposals. Both cleared a House committee in September, and the mass-balance bill was also introduced in the Senate.

One bill would require the Federal Trade Commission to recognize “mass balance” accounting as a valid way to substantiate recycled-content claims. This method can assign recycled-material credits to products that contain little or no recycled plastic; an investigation of ExxonMobil’s Baytown facility found that much of the plastic it processes becomes fuel, while its resulting products may contain less than 0.1% recycled content. The second bill would allow packaging to carry the recycling symbol if recycling programs serving 60% of consumers accept it and it is technically recyclable, without requiring that recycling be economically practical. Plastic recycling rates remain very low, and chemical recycling has struggled to operate at scale. Environmental advocates say the measures could legitimize misleading claims, increase plastic production and waste incineration, and distract from reducing plastic use.