Malachi Key
Climate Justice Coordinator (Chemical Recycling Campaign Lead)
To most people, January is a season where we celebrate change. We slowly pack up our festive decorations and brush the dust off our gym clothes. Every third Monday in January, we also take the time to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., those who stood alongside him to fight for change in the past, and those who continue to fight that fight today. But as much as fighting for change can be worthwhile, it has to be approached in the right way, or else you end up finding yourself in much the same spot you were in a year ago, if not worse off.
On January 19th, 2022, the City of Houston put its best foot forward to try to make a serious change. As a city that’s long struggled with illegal dumping, missed recycling pickups, and a multitude of other issues (concentrated in our most vulnerable communities), this change was desperately needed. So, the City entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with fossil fuels to address the problem, but it was a false solution. Plastic industry leaders from ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, Cyclyx International, and the environmental organization FCC International Services joined together under the City’s umbrella to form the “Houston Recycling Collaboration.” The aim of the program was to increase the amount of plastic that was collected and sorted overall, along with using “Advanced Recycling” methods to chemically affect plastics that normally would not be recyclable, all in the name of “recycling” plastic and reducing plastic waste.
Four years later, the program has worked perfectly and there’s no plastic waste problem in Houston, right? Well, not quite.
In 2024, Air Alliance Houston staff members decided to test how well the program was working. By placing Air Tags on plastic that had been dropped off at the City’s recycling depots, they were able to track its path throughout the city. The trackers followed the plastic as it moved from the bins to a truck, from a truck to a waste management company and then…nowhere. Despite promising quick and efficient plastic sorting and “recycling,” the City’s program resulted in tons of plastic stacked up to ten feet high within an open air facility that has a history of fire inspection failures. As of the writing of this blog post, the air tagged plastic still has not moved from this site, and follow-up plastic tracking in December 2025 has so far resulted in much of the same.
What went wrong with the program exactly?
Well, according to the Houston Recycling Collaboration’s own website, the facility meant to sort and process the plastic under this program is supposed to have an “expected startup in 2025” (but has still not opened). This means that the City of Houston has been encouraging consumers to place plastic in their “all purpose” plastic recycling bins at municipal drop-off sites for four years now, fully aware that they don’t yet have the facility ready to further sort them. Additionally, even if this program were fully running and functioning as intended, research has shown that the “chemical recycling” promised by their fossil fuel partners as a process releases toxic chemicals into nearby communities and is still only capable of recycling less than six percent of plastic. This means minimal to no actual “recycling” in exchange for cancer-causing air pollution in already overburdened neighborhoods.
What should be done in 2026?
Well, even if the Houston Recycling Collaboration manages to get its program fully functional for the first time in four years, Houstonians will still be left with a toxic, inefficient mess that promises far more than it delivers. Other communities across the country have tried the same thing, and those programs have been shut down or declared bankrupt. While attempts to fix this City’s recycling issues should be lauded, a stagnant, ineffective, and unhealthy program is not the kind of change that we need. If something isn’t done now, we’re going to find ourselves staring down the exact same issue in 2027 on the five year anniversary of the MOU. So let’s make this change now instead of regretting it later. Look up your representative, show up to city meetings, and make it known that you deserve a recycling program that actually works and does not pollute the air or violate fire codesTell your Council member today: “rescind the Houston Recycling Collaboration MOU.”
Interested in learning more about chemical recycling? Check out some of our other links:
Get involved as a community member: Join our Facebook group Houston is NOT Disposable. As part of our vision for clean air, every day for everyone, you will not only campaign against industrial pollution but also learn practical ways to minimize plastic usage in your daily lives. You’ll also be the first to know when there’s an opportunity to make a difference.
Get your organization involved: Air Alliance Houston is the founder and facilitator of the Houston Coalition Against Chemical Recycling (H-CACR). If your organization would like to join other like-minded groups in Houston to push back against this polluting technology, reach out to us at [email protected]. The Coalition meets virtually every other month.
Air Alliance Houston is a proud member of the Break Free From Plastics Movement and the Beyond Plastics campaign.