Automobile Recycling Regs are a Policy Pothole

The U.S. automobile industry is driving innovation forward, employing more than a million Americans despite exaggerated reports of the industry’s demise. According to a recent report by the American Chemistry Council, materials such as plastics have played a key role in bolstering vehicle safety (through lighter vehicles) and helping manufacturers meet often-stringent fuel efficiency standards. But because of strict and outdated rules on plastics recycling, producers have had to think twice before incorporating innovative products into their business plans. Bureaucrats must avoid the policy pothole of needless rules holding back safer and better vehicles.

Recycling has long been considered an onerous and inefficient part of the products manufacturing process. As longtime science writer and journalist John Tierney noted in 2023, “Recycling is an industry that uses increasingly expensive labor to produce materials that are worth less and less.” The good news is that more sophisticated recycling systems are replacing older and less efficient programs. When using their favorite products made of various plastics, Americans no longer need to choose between economy and ecology. 

On July 16th, Ross Eisenberg (president of America’s Plastic Makers) testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment about this recycling renaissance. The hearing tackled several items related to domestic plastic manufacturing infrastructure. Eisenberg emphasized the importance of updating regulations to reflect the increased ease and efficiency of recycling.

As the Taxpayers Protection Alliance has pointed out in previous blog posts and op-eds, allegedly “wasteful” and “dirty” industries such as plastics manufacturing were frequent targets of the Biden administration. Through measures such as “national strategies” (read: bans) and “risk mitigation plans,” the former President emphasized needless administrative procedures (often of dubious constitutionality). All this came at the cost of regulatory flexibility as well as job and wage growth.

These costly plans failed to take into account increasingly-popular technologies such as pyrolysis. This is a process by which plastics are heated in a controlled environment and turned into new products such as fuels. According to a 2025 analysis published in Energy Conversion and Management, “Pyrolysis can convert 60–80 percent of plastic waste into liquid fuels, with yields of up to 85 percent in fast pyrolysis processes conducted at temperatures between 450 °C and 600 °C. The process also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent, mitigating 3.5 tons of CO₂-equivalent per ton of plastic waste processed. Economically, pyrolysis oil can be sold for $600–$900 per ton, while syngas, with a market value of $200–$300 per ton, can generate up to 800 kWh of electricity per ton of waste.”

Given these significant benefits, recycling advocates have pushed for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate certain pyrolysis processes as manufacturing instead of incineration or waste management. These latter categories trigger not only stringent federal regulations, but also onerous state laws. Unshackling plastics recycling and pyrolysis from outdated statutes would lead to lower costs for customers and a cleaner planet. Unfortunately, the EPA recently closed the door on this idea. In recent rulemaking, the agency stated it will “not be taking additional action [in current rulemaking] related to pyrolysis/combustion units.”

That’s bad news for millions of consumers, the roughly 700,000 workers employed by plastics manufacturers, the one million workers employed by the auto industry, and the planet. The EPA should reverse course and address pyrolysis in future rulemaking. It’s time for a new regulatory approach that gets economy and ecology back on track.