研究发现，“化学回收”只是空谈，没有回收

研究发现，“化学回收”只是空谈，没有回收

"Chemical Recycling" is the petrochemical industry's latest response to the recycling crisis. It is a recycling process where plastic waste is processed into fuels or back into the chemical building blocks that plastics are made of. It's key to the circular economy where there is no such thing as waste, just feedstock for new plastics. The House of Representatives' "Congressional Action Plan For a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America" thinks it's a great idea, saying "Federal policies should also promote the transition to a circular economy, which aims to keep resources in a closed cycle and to eliminate waste and pollution."

“化学回收”是石化行业应对回收危机的最新举措。这是一种回收过程，将塑料废料加工成燃料或重新加工成制造塑料的化学材料。这是循环经济的关键，在循环经济中没有废物，只有制造新塑料的原料。国会众议院的“清洁能源经济行动计划和一个健康的,有弹性,就美国”认为这是一个好主意,说“联邦政策还应该促进循环经济的过渡,旨在保持资源在一个封闭的循环,消除浪费和污染。”

Waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen (not chemical recycling).Lloyd Alter

Now a new report from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (with the clever acronym GAIA) looked at what chemical recycling is actually being done, and finds that it's "All talk and no recycling."

现在，一份来自焚化炉替代品全球联盟(缩写为GAIA)的新报告审视了化学物质的回收实际上是如何进行的，发现这“全是空谈，没有回收”。

Chemical recycling is just making fuel. GAIA

GAIA looked at the 37 chemical recycling facilities proposed since the 2000s and found that only three were actually operating, and found that none of them were actually recovering plastic in any way that could be considered "circular." Instead, they are pushing "plastic to fuel" (PTF) using pyrolysis or gasification, and just burning the stuff.

GAIA研究了21世纪以来提出的37个化学回收设施，发现只有3个在实际运行，并发现它们都没有以任何可被视为“循环”的方式回收塑料。取而代之的是，他们推行“塑料燃料”(PTF)，使用热解或气化，只燃烧材料。

Some might say that PTF is a good thing because that's kind of what plastic is, a solid fossil fuel, so we are getting double use out of it, but that's not the case, primarily because "PTF carries a large carbon footprint that is not compatible with a climate-safe future. It only adds to global carbon emissions created by the fossil fuel industry."

有些人可能会说PTF是个好东西，因为它和塑料差不多，是一种固体化石燃料，所以我们会对它进行双重利用，但事实并非如此，主要是因为“PTF会带来很大的碳足迹，与气候安全的未来不相容。”它只会增加全球化石燃料工业产生的碳排放。”

This makes a lot of sense, considering that one has to use fuel and resources to pick the stuff up, process it, cook it, and then burn it. Making PTF is also toxic.

考虑到人们必须使用燃料和资源来提取、加工、烹饪，然后燃烧，这就很有意义了。制造PTF也是有毒的。

What it is really doing is making waste plastic disappear, which is the entire point of the exercise, so that they can keep making new plastic in all their new petrochemical plants. New plastic is cheaper and easier to use, and the industry has spent 60 years making the old stuff disappear.

它真正做的是让废塑料消失，这是整个行动的重点，这样他们就能在所有新的石化工厂里不断制造新塑料。新塑料更便宜，更容易使用，行业用了60年的时间让旧塑料消失。

Amager Bakke Waste to Energy. Lloyd Alter

Chemical recycling, at least as is happening now, is just an elaborate and expensive version of waste-to-energy. There is no point, other than it makes waste disappear. Given the amount of CO2 it generates, from a climate point of view, we would be better off just burying it, and we are not going back there. The only real way to deal with this is to stop making so much of the stuff in the first place, to reuse and to refill, and to go truly circular.

化学品的回收，至少像现在正在发生的那样，只是一种复杂而昂贵的废物转化为能源的方式。除了让废物消失之外，没有任何意义。考虑到它产生的二氧化碳量，从气候的角度来看，我们最好把它埋起来，这样我们就不会重蹈覆辙。唯一真正解决这个问题的方法就是一开始就停止制造那么多的东西，重新利用和填充，真正做到循环利用。