"Exclusive finding by DeSmog shows high-level industry awareness that recycling plastic ‘not feasible’ as companies face lawsuits over alleged public deception campaign."
"With international treaty negotiations aimed at addressing the plastic pollution crisis resuming in Switzerland this week, a new document reveals that one of the world’s largest plastic producers, DuPont, acknowledged as early as 1974 that recycling its plastic products was not possible.
This new discovery also comes against the backdrop of two pending lawsuits alleging that U.S. plastic producers have deceived the public about the feasibility of recycling since the 1980s.
For decades, the plastics industry has publicly advocated recycling as a strategy for managing plastic waste. But the document, a letter written in May 1974 by Charles Brelsford McCoy, a president and board chairman of DuPont, represents the earliest evidence to date of a top-level industry insider admitting that many commonly used plastic products cannot be recycled due to their complex chemical structures.
The letter contains DuPont’s response to an invitation asking the company to join a pilot recycling scheme in honor of the U.S.’s 1976 bicentennial celebrations. DuPont refused. The reason: recycling DuPont’s plastic products was simply “not feasible.”"
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