The plastic recycling industry lied to all of us for decades: no plastic packaging was recycled, except PET bottles.

Politicians and public officials, who were paid and supposed to ensure a proper waste management framework, did so on paper but never checked how the recycling world worked in reality.

In Western countries, plastic waste that had been sorted and collected separately for recycling purposes was incinerated and landfilled locally or exported abroad where it was incinerated (in God knows what conditions), landfilled or littered in waterways.

Some people also claim that the ships who were supposed to transport plastic waste from western countries to developing countries dumped everything in the oceans.

The European Commission has launched its circular policy framework where plastic waste becomes some kind of new feedstock …. and they still believe in it.

The plastic recyclers know better. They know that lying has become riskier and more dangerous now.

They know that the last one standing … will pay the fine.

All plastic recycling facilities are now closing in Europe and the US.

What about Compostable plastics? Compostable plastic contaminates compost and soils with deadly chemicals and addititives.

What about biodegradable plastics? Well the only solution that was without risk for the environement and public health … so called OXO bioplastics that degrades in the open air…. where plastic that had been ‘landfilled’ could degrade … has been banned by the EU SUPD.

Some companies leaked officials documents to the European Commission proving that the EU SUPD was a corrupted heap so that we could have done a tabula rasa on the EU SUPD and start from scratch and be honest for once with the naive people of the European Commission. However, the European Commission didn’t see the bigger picture of saving the plastic industry in Europe … they saw that they were going to incriminate themselves and will eventually have to pay a fine between € 20 and 100 million depending on their coming out strategy.

I did my job …. I fought for the truth … but the onion had too many layers of lies.

Plastic is an incredible material and Europe should remain a plastic hub but the achilles heel, the end of life of plastic waste, hasn’t been solved yet and our public officials are in full denial about that.

Good luck to solve this equation without being honnest with the European Commission.

And remember what kind of world we’ll leave behind for the next generation.