Ocean acidification impairs mussels' ability to attach to surfaces – alarming commercial growers farming the waters around Puget Sound. If you like your moules marinieres, this is bad news.
PENN COVE, Wash. – Cookie tray in hand and lifejacket around chest, Laura Newcomb looks more like a confused baker than a marine biologist. But the University of Washington researcher is dressed for work.
Her job: Testing how mussels in this idyllic bay, home to the nation's largest harvester of mussels, are affected by changing ocean conditions, especially warmer and more acidic waters. It's a question critical to the future of mussel farmers in the region. More important, it's key to understanding whether climate change threatens mussels around the world, as well as to the food chains mussels support and protect in the wild.
"Along the West Coast, mussels are well-known ecosystem engineers," said Bruce Menge, an Oregon State University researcher who studies how climate impacts coastal ecosystems. "They provide habitat for dozens of species, they provide food for many predators and occupy a large amount of space, so are truly a 'dominant' species."
Breaking with 20 million years of tradition
Miguel Llanos
Carbon from greenhouse gas emissions has steadily turned seawater more acidic, disrupting organisms accustomed to slightly alkaline waters of the past 20 million years.
In the case of mussels, an earlier University of Washington lab study found that increased carbon dioxide weakens the sticky fibers, called byssus, that mussels use to survive by clinging to objects like shorelines or the ropes used by commercial harvesters.
"If byssal thread weakening does eventually become important," Menge added, "the consequences would be major if not catastrophic."
Newcomb's goal now is to apply in the real world what was learned in the lab. "Instead of spending a lot of time tightly controlling the temperature and pH conditions mussels grow in, I use the natural seasonal variation to try to answer the same questions," Newcomb said.
Newcomb's field office is the rear deck of a harvesting boat -- right between the toilet and the microwave. The quarters are cramped, but the view is grand: The blue waters of Penn Cove on Washington state's Whidbey Island are set against rolling bluffs and snow-capped mountains.
The University of Washington marine biologist is there courtesy of Penn Cove Shellfish, which is also the oldest and best known mussel operation in the United States. If you're a mussel fan, you've probably had a few – they're sold at Costco as well as upscale restaurants across the country.
Placing just-harvested mussels on her tray, Newcomb samples for size, thickness and strength. The mussels are grown on 21-foot-long ropes hanging from several dozen rafts in the bay, and Newcomb takes samples from two depths: Three feet and 21 feet. She also samples water temperature and pH levels at those depths.
Trouble in acidic waters
Miguel Llanos
Prior to the Industrial Revolution and the explosion of manmade CO2, ocean pH averaged 8.2. Today it's 8.1, a 30 percent increase in acidity on the logarithmic scale. Computer models peg ocean acidity at 7.8 to 7.7 by the end of the century at the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions.
Washington state is a bit ahead of that curve because ancient carbon stores in the deep ocean are periodically churned up by local currents.
The surprising lab discovery was that mussel byssus weakened by 40 percent when exposed to a pH of 7.5.
At Penn Cove, low pH levels are not uncommon – Newcomb has even seen 7.4 in the year that she's been sampling.
"We're worried they're going to see it more frequently," said Emily Carrington, Newcomb's graduate adviser and leader of the University of Washington team that published the earlier lab results.
The Penn Cove work follows well-publicized research that show oyster larvae in hatcheries along Washington's coast are having trouble forming shells because of the acidic waters.
"Mussels are the new oysters," Carrington said. But there's a twist: Mussels confirm that ocean acidification's impact extends in mollusks beyond an inability to form a shell.
The lab finding is "part of a growing body of evidence that ocean acidification alone and combined with other stressors will have effects beyond shell mineralization," said Terrie Klinger, a University of Washington marine sciences professor studying the impacts of acidification.
Other research, she said, shows more acidic seas spurs "changes in fish behavior and toxin production in harmful algae."
Miguel Llanos
Penn Cove Shellfish and the UW researchers joined forces after company harvesters saw empty patches on some cultivation ropes that should have had mussels. Was that due to weakened byssus?
"We had a significant amount two years ago, and little bit less last year," said Ian Jefferds, general manager at Penn Cove Shellfish. "The question arose, 'Was there something related to that?'"
The concern about what the industry calls "slough-off" goes well beyond Penn Cove.
"We know that mussel slough-off has periodically been an issue but we don't know why," said Margaret Barrette, director of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association.
It's a global issue. Among major shellfish producers, New Zealand is creating an acidification monitoring network while researchers in Spain are planning a study similar to that in Penn Cove.
And across the Mediterranean, mussel farmers have reported problems. "A great majority of producers experienced important difficulties in past years as a consequence of summer heat waves," said Luis Rodrigues, a researcher with a European Commission panel studying acidification.
Those issues include slough-off in Italy and Montenegro, as well as thinning of shells and even die-offs in waters that topped 82.4 degrees F.
A related lab study showed "total mortality" of mussels when exposed to waters above 82.4 degrees, said researcher Frederic Gazeau.
That team also "observed a very clear impact of acidification on the capacity of mussels to produce their byssal thread," noted Gazeau. "At low pH, it was very easy to pick up mussels individually; they could not attach themselves anymore."
Miguel Llanos
Of course, it's not just loss on the farms that worry scientists. In the wild, mussels form vast beds along coastlines, and some areas have seen slough-off as well.
"It's quite common in California in recent years," said Herb Waite, a University of California, Santa Barbara, biochemist who studies mussels. "A favorite collecting spot will suddenly disappear."
Any widespread slough-off in the wild could have other repercussions as well. It hasn't happened yet, but researchers are worried.
Mussel beds in sandy areas "stabilize shores against erosion," Waite noted, and any loss there could expose beaches to the erosive power of waves.
Carrington thinks her team's research could lead to an "early warning system" for a global mussel farming sector valued at $1.5 billion a year. Establishing pH thresholds, farmers could better monitor areas and, if needed, seek out safe havens in less acidic and cooler waters.
"It does matter where in the water mussels are," Newcomb added, noting that even preliminary results suggest growing them closer to the surface tends to mean less acidity. However, a trade-off there can be warmer temperatures.
The research will need two more years of data gathering before any definitive conclusions, but Carrington said the earlier lab tests underscore the need for field data.
"Would you be worried about being weakened by 40 percent?" she asked. "I would be."
Miguel Llanos is a freelance reporter based in the Pacific Northwest.
“Because of its purchasing power … the Federal Government has the potential to significantly impact the supply of these products.”
The U.S. government will stop using single-use plastics in all federal operations by 2035, according to a strategy released by the Biden administration on Friday.
The announcement also set a goal for the federal government to stop buying plastic for food service, events and packaging by 2027. While the strategy isn’t enforceable by law and could change under future administrations, it is the first government-wide strategy aimed at reducing plastic pollution and recognizes that the plastic pollution “crisis” encompasses the entire lifecycle: from the fossil fuels used as building blocks in plastic manufacturing to the microplastic bits lining our shorelines.
“With its multitude of environmental impacts across its supply chain, broad global effects, and severe public health consequences, plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing and consequential environmental problems in the U.S. and around the globe,” said Brenda Mallory and Ali Zaidi, two White House environmental and climate officials, in the joint letter accompanying the strategy document.
Changes in federal purchasing can have huge impacts: The U.S. federal government is the largest buyer of consumer goods in the world, with nearly $600 billion in annual spending. “Because of its purchasing power, by reducing the demand of plastic products through procurement changes, the Federal Government has the potential to significantly impact the supply of these products,” the strategy reads.
"Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing and consequential environmental problems in the U.S. and around the globe." - Brenda Mallory and Ali Zaidi, White House officials
The announcement comes as the plastic crisis continues to grow. The world generates roughly 400 million tons of plastic waste each year, and less than 10% of plastic ever made has been recycled. Plastic waste is set to triple by 2060.
The crisis has garnered international attention as more than 175 countries are negotiating a global plastics treaty. The talks have stalled over issues such as regulating the chemicals in plastic, production caps, and the role of chemical recycling and bioplastics. There is a High Ambition Coalition of countries that want an end to plastic pollution by 2040. There is also a Global Coalition for Plastics Sustainability — made of nations economically reliant on fossil fuels — that is pushing for a larger focus on addressing plastic waste (via chemical and mechanical recycling and other means) rather than plastic bans or production limits. The U.S. — the largest exporter of oil and gas in the world — is not part of either and has been criticized for not taking a stronger stance on limiting production.
The new strategy similarly does not call for any plastic production caps, but many environmental groups said it is a step in the right direction.
“This report is the clearest articulation to date from the White House of the scale and urgency of the plastic pollution crisis and the threat it poses for our ocean and communities,” Jeff Watters, Ocean Conservancy’s vice president of external affairs said in a statement.
Erin Simon, vice president and head of plastic waste and business for the World Wildlife Fund, praised the strategy for focusing on the entire lifecycle.
“We’re heartened to see this report doesn’t shy away from the negative impacts that plastics have on human health and analyzes the problem through the full life cycle of plastic,” Simon said in a statement. “Cleaning up the global plastic mess must start at home. And today under President Biden and Vice President Harris’ leadership, the U.S. government is doing exactly that."
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
PITTSBURGH — On July 17, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed into law a carbon capture and storage bill that creates a legal framework for climate-warming carbon emissions captured from burning fossil fuels to be injected underground and stored indefinitely to prevent them from escaping into the atmosphere.
The bill is controversial because carbon capture and storage technology is still new and scientific researchers have unanswered questions about whether it’s a viable climate solution and whether it will pose health and safety risks to communities.
A handful of environmental advocacy groups supported the bill, including the Clean Air Task Force, which said in a statement that carbon capture and storage technologies will “play a role in decarbonizing the industrial and power sectors of the commonwealth’s energy economy.”
However, around 45 environmental advocacy groups wrote letters urging the Pennsylvania state legislature and Gov. Shapiro not to pass the bill. Those groups have spoken out against the new law, saying in a statement that it guarantees “Pennsylvania will not be part of any climate solution.”
“Governor Shapiro should be ashamed of signing a bill that threatens the public and our environment with the dangers of carbon capture and storage, all for the benefit of special interests, namely the fracking industry,” Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said in a statement. “This is a terrible day for the Commonwealth and we’ll experience the harms far into our future.”
The groups also expressed concern about the unusual way the bill moved through the legislature. In the state House, the bill was never referred to the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, but instead went through the Consumer Protection, Technology and Utilities Committee and was advanced without discussion.
As a result, “there were no hearings or discussions,” said Karen Feridun, co-founder of the Better Path Coalition, a Pennsylvania-based environmental advocacy group. “In the end, an unproven, failed technology was deemed to be in the public interest.”
The new law will pave the way for two proposed, federally-funded hydrogen hubs in Pennsylvania that will rely on carbon capture and storage.
The fashion industry is responsible for millions of tonnes of plastic waste, much of which ends up polluting the environment due to improper management.
A study by NC State University revealed that the fashion industry produced over 20 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2019.
Synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon, and acrylic were the largest contributors, accounting for 89% of this waste.
Much of this plastic pollution occurs in lower-income countries where discarded clothes end up, exacerbating environmental issues.
Key quote:
"Much of the plastic waste that leaks into the environment comes from clothes that are thrown away, especially synthetic apparel. There is also waste from manufacturing, packaging and even from tyre abrasion during transport, as well as microplastics which get pulled into the water when we wash our clothes."
— Richard Venditti, professor of paper science and engineering at NC State
PITTSBURGH — Chemical recycling projects are unlikely to generate local economic benefits or help reduce global plastic pollution, according to a new report.
The report, published by the progressive think tank Ohio River Valley Institute, investigated the technological and economic challenges associated with chemical recycling, with a focus on the Ohio River Valley, which spans western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
“There’s a tendency to co-locate these facilities where there’s already a petrochemical cluster of some sort, which means communities already burdened by petrochemical industries, such as Ohio River Valley, become even more polluted,” Kathy Hipple, one of the report’s authors, told EHN.
Chemical recycling, sometimes referred to as advanced or molecular recycling, refers to processes that use heat, chemicals or both to break down plastic waste into component parts for reuse as plastic feedstocks or as fuel. These processes are different from conventional or mechanical plastic recycling, which breaks down plastic waste physically but not at a molecular level.
Only 5% to 6% of plastic waste gets recycled in the U.S., and the proponents of chemical recycling say the industry could help change that.
“We’re not going to create circularity for plastics with one single solution,” Chris Layton, director of sustainability for specialty plastics at Eastman Chemical Company, told EHN. “We’re going to have to eliminate some plastics we really don't need, figure out ways to reduce and reuse and maximize what we can do for mechanical and advanced recycling.”
But environmental and health advocates say the process is still inefficient, energy intensive and emits hazardous chemicals into the air and water. As much as 80% of plastic waste put into chemical recycling processes is lost as hazardous emissions, according to a report by the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) and Beyond Plastics.
The Ohio River Valley Institute’s report concluded that chemical recycling only converts 15%-20% of plastic waste into recycled plastic products (the rest become emissions, fuel or hazardous waste), that none of the chemical recycling plants currently operating in the U.S. are commercially successful, that chemical recycling is technically and financially risky and that the chemical recycling process is toxic and poses health and safety risks to workers and communities — particularly those that are already overburdened by pollution from the petrochemical industry.
“Going into writing this report, I thought maybe chemical recycling was a good solution to the global plastic pollution problem,” Hipple said. “Unfortunately, it turns out that chemical recycling is not the solution — it wouldn’t even make a dent in the amount of plastic pollution out there.”
There are 10 functional chemical recycling facilities in the U.S., according to the report, two of which are in the Ohio River Valley (Alterra and Purecycle, both of which are in Ohio). Most are still operating in pilot phases, according to the report, processing only small amounts of plastic, because chemical recycling is expensive and it’s still cheaper to buy virgin plastic and fossil fuels.
“Unfortunately, it turns out that chemical recycling is not the solution — it wouldn’t even make a dent in the amount of plastic pollution out there.” - Kathy Hipple, report author
As an example of the industry’s financial challenges, Hipple noted that Shell, which operates a large petrochemical plant in the Ohio River Valley, recently conceded that it would abandon its pledge to turn more than 1 million tons into oil per year by 2025 because the plan is “unfeasible.”
“If a company like Shell is backing away from its pledge to increase advanced recycling when they have some of the biggest capital expenditure budgets in the world, that really demonstrates that this technology is immature and there’s no business case for doing this at the moment,” Hipple said.
At the national level, 70% of constructed chemical recycling plants are located
in low-income areas and 60% in neighborhoods of color, according to Beyond Plastics, prompting concerns about environmental injustice.
The new report adds to these concerns, as it found that six of the nine chemical recycling facilities proposed in the region would be located in environmental justice communities with a higher percentage of low-income households than the state average. Three would be located in neighborhoods predominantly populated by people of color.
“These communities are already overburdened by pollution and the emissions from chemical recycling facilities are highly polluting and highly toxic,” Hipple said.
A database compiled in March revealed that more than 16,000 chemicals are used in plastics production, with thousands of them being toxic even in very small quantities. Many of these chemicals are released into air or water during the chemical recycling process.
“These industries often promise jobs and economic growth that never materialize for local communities,” Hipple said. “It isn’t fair that these communities wind up bearing the environmental and health costs.”
Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation, details how a second Trump term could weaken the EPA and reshape climate regulations.
The plan includes reducing industries required to report greenhouse gas emissions and reviving policies from Trump's first term.
Transparency and cost-benefit analysis are central themes, aiming to limit EPA's regulatory reach.
Key quote:
“The biggest difference is we have a plan from Day One, we’re going to start implementing it, and we won’t be as susceptible to process problems that really sunk a couple of those final regulatory proposals and actions we took at the tail end of the administration.”
— Mandy Gunasekara, former Trump EPA chief of staff
U.S. oil companies, recovering from the pandemic slump, are now seeing significant profits due to market forces and geopolitical events.
Many oil companies have shifted strategies, focusing on financial returns by cutting costs and improving efficiency.
Despite increasing renewable energy adoption, global demand for oil continues to grow, with the U.S. leading in production.
Key quote:
“We’re not going to get out of this business because supply was squeezed, because there’s plenty of it. We’re going to get out of the business because demand went down.”
— Samantha Gross, director at Brookings Institution
Why this matters:
This tug-of-war between old-school energy and the shiny new kids on the block highlights the tough balancing act of transitioning to a cleaner future. For now, Big Oil's got its foot firmly on the gas pedal, leaving us all to wonder how long this joyride can last. Read more: “Code Red” for climate means reducing US oil and gas production.
As mounds of dredged material from the Houston Ship Channel dot their neighborhoods, residents are left without answers as to what dangers could be lurking.
