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VOL. 12,
NO. 179
The delusion of advanced plastic recycling using pyrolysis — ProPublica
Horvath, Hahn propose expansion of LA County board to 9 members
By Lisa Song, illustrations by Max Guther, special to ProPublica
By Anusha Shankar, City News Service
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Photo by tanvi sharma on Unsplash
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ast year, I became obsessed with a plastic cup. It was a small container that held diced fruit, the type thrown into lunch boxes. And it was the first product I’d seen born of what’s being touted as a cure for a crisis. Plastic doesn’t break down in nature. If you turned all of what’s been made into cling wrap, it would cover every inch of the globe. It’s piling up, leaching into our water and poisoning our bodies. Scientists say the key to fixing this is to make less of it; the world churns out 430 million metric tons each year. But businesses that rely on plastic production, like fossil fuel and chemical companies, have worked since the 1980s to spin the pollution as a failure of waste management — one that can be solved with recycling. Industry leaders knew then what we know now: Traditional recycling would barely put a dent in the trash heap. It’s hard to transform
flimsy candy wrappers into sandwich bags, or to make containers that once held motor oil clean enough for milk. Now, the industry is heralding nothing short of a miracle: an “advanced”type of recycling known as pyrolysis — “pyro” means fire and “lysis” means separation. It uses heat to break plastic all the way down to its molecular building blocks. While old-school, “mechanical” recycling yields plastic that’s degraded or contaminated, this type of “chemical” recycling promises plastic that behaves like it’s new, and could usher in what the industry casts as a green revolution: Not only would it save hard-torecycle plastics like frozen food wrappers from the dumpster, but it would turn them into new products that can replace the old ones and be chemically recycled again and again. So when three companies used ExxonMobil’s pyrolysis-based technology to successfully conjure
up that fruit cup, they announced it to the world. “This is a significant milestone,” said Printpack, which turned the plastic into cups. The fruit supplier Pacific Coast Producers called it “the most important initiative a consumerpackaged goods company can pursue.” “ExxonMobil is supporting the circularity of plastics,” the August 2023 news release said, citing a buzzword that implies an infinite loop of using, recycling and reusing. They were so proud, I hoped they would tell me all about how they made the cup, how many of them existed and where I could buy one. Let’s take a closer look at that Printpack press release, which uses convoluted terms to describe the recycled plastic in that fruit cup: “30% ISCC PLUS certified-circular” “mass balance free attriSee Plastic Page 14
bution” It’s easy to conclude the cup was made with 30% recycled plastic — until you break down the numerical sleight of hand that props up that number. It took interviews with a dozen academics, consultants, environmentalists and engineers to help me do just that. Stick with me as I unravel it all. So began my long — and, well, circular — pursuit of the truth at a time when it really matters. This year, nearly all of the world’s countries are hammering out a United Nations treaty to deal with the plastic crisis. As they consider limiting production, the industry is making a hard push to shift the conversation to the wonders of chemical recycling. It’s also buying ads during cable news shows as U.S. states consider laws to limit plastic packaging and lobbying federal agencies to loosen
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os Angeles County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn unveiled a proposal Wednesday to revamp county government, in part by expanding the Board of Supervisors from its current five members to nine. Their proposal would also establish an independent ethics commission and make the county CEO an elected position. Since the measure requires a change to the County Charter, the proposals would have to be approved by voters. “The last time the county meaningfully changed its form of governance was in 1912, before women had the right to vote, far before the end of segregation and well before comprehensive labor rights took hold,” Horvath said, calling the proposal “the most comprehensive reform package for Los Angeles County government in over 100 years.” Horvath and Hahn will present the proposal to the full board next week, with the goal of placing the matter on the November ballot. Supervisor Hilda Solis issued a statement Wednesday afternoon saying she supports the proposal, so it already has the support of a board majority. Horvath and Hahn stressed that the proposal focuses on representation, efficiency and transparency in the governance structure for about 10 million residents of the county. “Today, five elected supervisors serve the most populous county in the nation, each representing 2 million constituents. Now is the time to reform Los Angeles County’s form of government to be responsive See LA County board Page 28
to our region’s greatest challenges,” according to a statement outlining the proposals. Addressing the transition to an elected CEO, Horvath said it would serve to increase transparency and accountability. “Separating out the executive authority from the legislative body is typical in most governments throughout the country, and this allows for accountability and a check and balance on the process,” she said. The supervisors said expanding the board without establishing an elected CEO who wasn’t directly accountable to the voters would make the government less transparent. The proposals unveiled by Horvath and Hahn also include a commission that would review the county Charter every 10 years, creation of a Department of Budget and Management and a County Legislative Analyst, annual open departmental budget hearings and creation of a task force to oversee the implementations of the changes. Horvath and Hahn both stressed that the proposed changes would not involve any sort of tax hike. “This proposal requires that it does not come at additional cost to the taxpayers, that we work within our budget,” Horvath said. “And with a $46 billion budget, I know we can do it.” Hahn added, “We are not raising the taxes for this government reform.” In their statement outlining the proposals, they noted, “We can no longer let a dated bureaucracy prevent us from more effectively addressing our homelessness crisis,