I had the opportunity to discuss plastic pyrolysis on NPR’s On Point with host Meghna Chakrabarti and ProPublica reporter Lisa Song. You can listen to the full episode here and read the original ProPublica article by Lisa here. It was my first time on radio, and I was impressed by the overall quality of the conversation and the voices that they brought to the discussion. It really drove home for me, however, how far apart the industry’s position is from consumers’ views on issues like plastic pollution. A few highlights from the conversation that really stood out to me:
Links to “big oil” are top of mind for consumers. The phrase “big oil” got thrown around a fair bit during the conversation, and not without reason: Companies like ExxonMobil have been promoting pyrolysis as a solution at least in part to the plastic waste issue. On NPR, the role of big oil was positioned as a reason for suspicion of the sustainability bona fides of plastic pyrolysis — reflecting a very real sentiment among consumers that Lux’s Predictive Anthropology team has clearly identified using our AI tools on consumer conversations. When I talk to my clients in the chemicals industry about how consumers view the industry, they have a tendency to roll their eyes when I mention links to “big oil” as something that’s at the forefront of consumer sentiment. I get the sense that for industry, oil and gas feedstocks are so natural that it’s hard to take this seriously as a concern. The chemicals industry needs to get a lot more serious about defossilization — or at least breaking the link in consumer perception between their industry and oil and gas.
Mass balance is a tough sell. We identified early on that mass-balance frameworks are confusing and difficult to explain to the broader public. Having to try to talk through mass-balance calculations on the radio really drove that point home for me. Even if consumers are accepting of pyrolysis, mass balance is a really challenging way to position sustainability claims. What’s worse is that there’s a real risk of mass balance diluting the value of existing recycling claims. If consumers start to see lots of mass-balance claims on their plastic packaging in the store and then find out that those products have less physical recycled material than the reported percentage, it could sour them on all recycling and create a negative feedback loop for the industry. The chemicals industry needs to be cautious and responsible with how it positions these mass-balancing claims as more products roll out.
Systemic solutions are necessary. We didn’t have time on the program to dig into all the guts of local, state, national, and international regulations governing the collection and recycling of waste, which I’m sure would have been riveting for the broader radio audience. Still, when Meghna asked what an individual consumer could do about this problem, Lisa and I were both pretty consistent with our response that plastic waste is really a systemic issue. Framing it as an issue of consumer choice — “will people pay for sustainable packaging?” — really ignores the role that public policy plays in creating the waste ecosystem. Systemic change in the form of regulation is really going to be necessary for substantive improvement to waste management globally.
All in all, it was a great discussion that to me highlighted how far the chemicals industry has to go in both delivering on the promise of advanced recycling and convincing consumers that it’s really committed to sustainability. Can the industry do it? It will take not just technology innovation but also real engagements with consumer views, and a willingness to participate actively in developing new systems — a big challenge for the industry, but one it has a chance, and the need, to meet.