Well, Well, Well: DuPont Archives Show The Company Knew Plastics Recycling Wasn't Viable 50 Fucking Years Ago [View all]

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.” Found by DeSmog, the correspondence proves that by the early 1970s the plastic industry’s knowledge regarding the limitations of recycling existed at the highest level, not only in the lab but also the C-suite.

The discovery also casts new light on the plastic industry’s decades-long promotion of recycling as a viable solution to the global plastic waste crisis. On December 1, 2024, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution held what was supposed to be the final negotiating session for a global treaty against plastic pollution in Busan, South Korea. But a coalition of fossil fuel–producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia, blocked progress, arguing for solutions based on recycling and waste management. Now, an additional negotiating session will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, from August 5 to 14. Despite these fossil-fuel producing nations offering recycling as a solution, the process is neither technically nor economically viable for many types of plastic. To date, research shows that only a small fraction — under 10 percent — of all the plastic ever produced has actually been recycled and only 1 percent has been recycled twice.

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Evidence of the plastic industry’s deception over recycling has prompted two recent lawsuits against plastic producers. In September 2024, the state of California filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for the company’s alleged “decades-long campaign of fraud and deception about the recyclability of plastics”; and in December 2024, a Missouri-based class action lawsuit, filed against DuPont, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Dow Chemical, and the American Chemistry Council, is seeking an injunction prohibiting these companies from advertising their products as recyclable, court filings state. “Fossil fuel and petrochemical companies want us to believe recycling is the solution,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who filed the California suit. Addressing a New York University symposium on Plastics and Human Health in September last year, Bonta spoke of the “myth” of recycling. “It’s a farce, it’s a lie, it’s a deceit,” he said. “There is no plastic recycling at scale though they want you to believe different. Only five percent of U.S. plastic waste is actually recycled. Ninety-five percent goes into our environment, our treasured ocean and beloved streams, to landfill or is incinerated. It’s not recycled,” Bonta added.

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https://www.desmog.com/2025/08/05/maddening-proof-plastics-industry-knew-recycling-was-false-solution-in-1974-new-document-shows/