Underpinning the plastic waste crisis is a campaign of fraud and deception that fossil fuel and other petrochemical companies have created and perpetuated for decades.

Through new and existing research, this report shows how Big Oil and the plastics industry have deceptively promoted recycling as a solution to plastic waste management for more than 50 years, despite their long-standing knowledge that plastic recycling is not technically or economically viable at scale.

Report structure:

• Part II provides an overview of the well-established technical and economic limitations of plastic recycling.
• Part III describes how—in response to repeated waves of public backlash against plastic waste and subsequent threats of regulation—the plastics industry has sold plastic recycling to the American public to sell plastic.
• Part IV outlines the evidence of the plastics industry’s fraudulent and deceptive campaigns, which are more fully detailed in Appendix C.