Why Plastic Is Building Up at Recycling Centers and Catching Fire.
Kate Holland | September 15, 2022 | ABC News
Recycling plants are amassing millions of tons of plastic bottles, the Environmental Protection Agency says, with some becoming part of a growing problem of toxic fires at these plants, according to data provided by environmental advocates. Critics say beverage companies should be doing more to make their products more recyclable.
The majority of the combustible build-up at facilities is polyethylene terephthalate plastic, better known as PET, a clear, strong plastic typically used to make single-use beverage bottles, packaging, clothing and carpets. Most consumers believe this type of plastic can be recycled, but the majority of it is sitting in recycling facilities where experts say it is at risk of catching fire.
The problem of PET trash has been made worse because so much of it is not recycled. In the U.S., plastic bottles are sold to reprocessing plants where about 29% of them are recycled, according to the National Association for PET Container Resources. The rest end up in landfills, or often pile up until they can be sold and exported to other countries. Previously, the primary buyer for PET plastic was China, but it issued an import ban on plastic waste in early 2018.
Another reason PET bottles are building up is because so many are made with colorful dyes, most commonly green like in soda bottles, and use shrink-wrap labels, destroying the recyclability of the plastic, experts say.
"I've seen more fires in the last two years than I've ever seen," Ryan Fogelman, a fire suppression entrepreneur who tracks fires at recycling plants around the U.S., told ABC News. While the exact cause of the fires is unclear and can vary, experts say a buildup of plastics and other materials ignited by batteries may be to blame.
Steadily increasing number of fires
More than 82 million metric tons of PET plastic are produced globally every year, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory says. This is over 30 times the amount of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is currently about the size of Mexico.
Experts say the number of reported fires has steadily increased over the last five years and they believe this is due to a buildup of a combination of combustible materials like paper and plastic, sparks from discarded lithium-ion batteries and increasing temperatures as the climate warms.
Fogelman, who is part of a company that promotes fire prevention systems, began collecting data on waste and recycling facility fires in 2016 when he noticed a gap in data reporting on those type of fires. "There was absolutely no data anywhere," he told ABC News, "and if you look at the U.S. there's no regulation."
There were 343 fires reported at waste and recycling facilities in the United States and Canada in 2019, causing 49 injuries and two deaths, according to Fogelman's data, which was cited in an EPA report.
That figure increased to 367 fires in the U.S. and Canada in 2021, Fogelman reported, resulting in 37 injuries and two deaths.
Recent fires at recycling plants around the world have been reported in Turkey, South Wales and Austria as well as Northern California, New Mexico and the Bronx, where five firefighters were injured putting out a fire in June 2019, according to ABC affiliate WABC in New York.
Jan Dell, a chemical engineer, former White House national climate advisor and founder of watchdog nonprofit Last Beach Cleanup who tracks the fires, said she's noticed a lack of data reporting on recycling facility fires.
"I honestly can't keep up, there are so many of them," Dell told ABC News regarding the fires in recent years.
