Trump EPA Takes Transformative Approach to Ending Plague of Plastic Waste

The Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump has launched a quiet revolution in the approach the EPA takes toward some forms of plastic waste, removing regulatory barriers by treating some plastic recycling as a form of manufacturing rather than waste disposal.

The EPA’s new approach aims to incentivize advanced recycling of plastic, contributing to the economy while addressing the spread of plastic waste into oceans and other ecosystems.

The EPA under Trump and Administrator Lee Zeldin “has taken several concrete steps to reinvigorate recycling in the United States, including actions that directly support the advanced recycling industry,” the agency told the Daily Signal in a statement.

Applying different regulations for the same technology can incentivize innovation and growth. The distinction can affect permitting costs, investment decisions, and whether a technology scales commercially.

The agency highlighted six different moves to remove regulatory barriers and incentivize more advanced recycling.

We Can Recycle Plastic?

America’s Plastic Makers, a specialized group under the industry-aligned nonprofit the American Chemistry Council, explained the process of pyrolysis, the advanced recycling of certain plastics.

“By using heat in no or low-oxygen environments, pyrolysis can convert used plastics that are difficult to recycle back into their molecular building blocks to make new products,” Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, said in a statement praising the EPA’s new approaches.

Advanced Recycling Regulations

In March, the EPA announced it would consider revising the definition of “municipal waste combustion unit” under Other Solid Waste Incinerators under the Clean Air Act of 1970 to remove the reference to “pyrolysis/combustion units.” The new definition would clarify that the rule for other solid waste incinerators will not apply to pyrolysis units.

The EPA accepted public comments on the rule until May 4, and is currently reviewing them, the agency told the Daily Signal.

Eisenberg praised the move as “a key step toward improving recycling and spurring innovation in the United States while retaining high environmental standards.”

Pyrolysis technologies “convert used plastic into valuable feedstocks to make new products, rather than combusting the plastic for energy purposes or landfilling it,” he explained.

Zeldin’s EPA told the Daily Signal it has also made site-specific determinations for advanced recycling facilities.

“If a salable product is being made, EPA has generally determined that the ‘advanced recycling’ unit is not processing a solid waste,” the agency told the Daily Signal. The agency pointed to a 2011 EPA rule on “Identification of Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials that are Solid Waste” as providing the authority to determine whether non-hazardous materials count as waste or fuels under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1972.

This change aligns with the recommendation of the American Chemistry Council that “facilities that convert used plastics into new raw materials should be regulated as manufacturing operations rather than as solid waste disposal facilities.”

The advanced-recycling changes form part of a broader EPA effort to boost resource recovery.

The agency also highlighted a proposed rule to speed cleanup of the nation’s roughly 48 million abandoned scrap tires by making it easier to use recovered tires as fuel; work on a federally required battery recycling framework; ongoing grants supporting recycling infrastructure; and research into removing impurities from recycled materials so they can be used more consistently in industrial processes.

The Administration’s Philosophy on Trash

When asked about the large amount of trash Americans produce, the EPA acknowledged that local governments struggle to adequately handle this “significant activity.”

Yet the EPA highlighted that “the challenge presents an opportunity: by prioritizing resource recovery, we can transform waste into valuable materials, reduce environmental impacts, and support a more circular economy.”

The EPA said it is committed to supporting states, tribes, local governments, and industry “to modernize recycling infrastructure, remove regulatory barriers, and advance technologies to support safe recovery of materials (including critical minerals), economic growth, national security, and environmental protection.”

As pyrolysis improves, more and more plastic that might otherwise be destined for landfills or to get stuck in the gills of a fish can become a renewable resource to improve the lives of consumers and add value to the economy.

The Trump EPA is betting that the best way to reduce waste is not merely to regulate it, but to make it worth something. That’s a transformation both Republicans and Democrats should be able to get behind.