Burning plastic trash in poorer parts of the world to fuel cement kilns is not being “plastic neutral” nor is it a path to sustainability. It’s polluting the world even more and speeding up climate change. We’ll let you know if a company who claims to be sustainable participates in plastic offsets which includes burning plastic.
After we learned about plastic credits or plastic offsets (thanks to excellent reporting from Reuters, SourceMaterial and Bloomberg Green), we decided it was time to include whether a company we buy a sustainable product from uses carbon and/or plastic offsets as part of their business model. That information will be included with all our product reviews. You should know what companies do with your money since you are buying their products.
As an example, Grove Collaborative, whose products we have reviewed (and liked) partners with rePurpose Global and yes, rePurpose Global takes part in the co-processing of the plastics they collect, meaning, it gets burned to fuel cement kilns. Grove points to their partnership here and here, where you can find the information on pages 14-16.
I have contacted Grove Collaborative on this asking them what percentage of plastic offsets they purchase is for recycling and what percentage, if any, is for co-processing or burning plastic for cement manufacturing.
The first email back from them did not answer the question I posed which was, “I am wondering what percentage of plastic offsets Grove buys from rePurpose Global that include plastic co-processing and what percentage is recycled? I am curious as to how much plastic is burned.”
