Lynn L. Bergeson and Richard E. Engler, Ph.D., “Optimizing TSCA’s Potential to Reduce Plastic Waste,” ABA NR&E, Spring 2024.

A critical element of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution (Strategy) is to “improve post-use materials management.”  The Strategy identifies potential voluntary actions EPA believes can be implemented to prevent plastic waste. Plastics recycling, both mechanical and “advanced,” is core to achieving improved post-use plastics materials management. Post-use plastics management, in turn, is core to achieving circularity. Logic would have it then that the Biden Administration would be enthusiastically promoting policies that advance responsible plastics recycling. The reality is something else. This article explains how the Biden Administration’s implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is missing opportunities to grow advanced recycling and diminishing its potential to enable a circular economy.