[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                        PLASTIC WASTE REDUCTION
                        AND RECYCLING RESEARCH:
                   MOVING FROM STAGGERING STATISTICS
                         TO SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 24, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-22

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology




               [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
               



       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov






                                 ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

44-862PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2023












              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman

ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         VACANCY
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                VACANCY
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
                                 ------                                

                Subcommittee on Research and Technology

                HON. HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, Chairwoman

PAUL TONKO, New York                 MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida, 
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                    Ranking Member
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
DON BEYER, Virginia                  PETE SESSIONS, Texas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         PETER MEIJER, Michigan









                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             June 24, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Haley Stevens, Chairwoman, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........     8
    Written Statement............................................     9

Statement by Representative Michael Waltz, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    10
    Written Statement............................................    11

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    12
    Written Statement............................................    12

                               Witnesses:

Ms. Keefe Harrison, Chief Executive Officer, The Recycling 
  Partnership
    Oral Statement...............................................    14
    Written Statement............................................    16

Dr. Marc Hillmyer, Director and Principal Investigator, 
  University of Minnesota National Science Foundation Center for 
  Sustainable Polymers
    Oral Statement...............................................    20
    Written Statement............................................    22

Dr. Gregory Keoleian, Director, Center for Sustainable Systems, 
  Peter M. Wege Professor of Sustainable Systems, School for 
  Environment and Sustainability; Professor, Civil and 
  Environmental Engineering, co-Coordinator, Engineering 
  Sustainable Systems Program, University of Michigan
    Oral Statement...............................................    31
    Written Statement............................................    33

Mr. Joshua Baca, Vice President, Plastics Division, American 
  Chemistry Council
    Oral Statement...............................................    45
    Written Statement............................................    47

Discussion.......................................................    56

              Appendix: Additional Material for the Record

Letters submitted by Representative Haley Stevens, Chairwoman, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    Anthony Pitagno, Senior Director, American Chemical Society..    76
    Clarence E. Anthony, CEO and Executive Director, National 
      League of Cities...........................................    77
    Steve Alexander, President and CEO, Association of Plastic 
      Recyclers..................................................    79
    Tony Radoszewski, President and CEO, Plastics Industry 
      Association (PLASTICS).....................................    82







 
                        PLASTIC WASTE REDUCTION
                        AND RECYCLING RESEARCH:
                   MOVING FROM STAGGERING STATISTICS
                         TO SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
           Subcommittee on Research and Technology,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

     The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., 
in room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building and via 
Webex, Hon. Haley Stevens [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] 
presiding.


[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


     Chairwoman Stevens [continuing]. Order. Without objection, 
the Chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Before I 
deliver my opening remarks, I wanted to note that today the 
Committee is meeting both in person and virtually. I want to 
announce a couple of reminders to the Members about the conduct 
of this hearing. First, Members and staff who are attending in 
person, and are unvaccinated against COVID-19, must stay masked 
throughout the hearing. Unvaccinated Members may remove their 
masks only during their questioning under the 5 minute rule. 
Members who are attending virtually should keep their video 
feed on as long as they are present in the hearing. Members are 
responsible for their own microphones. Please also keep your 
microphones muted, unless you are speaking. Finally, if Members 
have documents they wish to submit for the record, please e-
mail them to the Committee Clerk, whose e-mail address was 
circulated prior to the hearing.
     So good morning, and thank you all for joining today's 
hearing, and a special thank you to our witnesses for joining 
us here today. 2 years ago I had the honor and privilege of 
chairing the first hearing on recycling in this Committee in 
almost over a decade. Since then much has changed, but the 
problem of plastic waste, and how to enable a circular economy 
for recycling continues. We only have to look to the past year 
and a half to see some of the important medical and safety 
functions of plastic. Face shields, face masks, and other 
personal protective equipment allowed America's essential 
workers to be on the front lines of our Nation's COVID-19 
response. Disposable syringes are helping to deliver vaccine 
shots in arms all across this country. Plastic can be 
designated to be rigid enough to use in vehicle safety 
applications, durable enough to hold liquid products for years, 
and flexible enough to keep our food fresh. Virgin plastic is 
also cheap to produce.
     Unfortunately, the characteristics that make plastic 
convenient also make it difficult to recycle and to manage 
after it has been used. Global plastic production increased 
from two million tons per year in 1950--we remember plastic, 
plastic, plastic--to 400 million tons annually in recent years. 
What's more, if current trends continue, plastic production is 
projected to quadruple by 2050. So there is no one-size-fits-
all solution here, but what we do know, and where we want to 
start, is with reducing, reusing, and recycling.
     Historically the U.S. has done a great job--excuse me, has 
not done the best job at recycling. We recycle less than 9 
percent of our plastic waste, despite all the campaigns that 
are pursued across the country. For more than 20 years the U.S. 
shipped our plastic waste to international markets to be 
recycled. When one of the major markets closed in 2018, items 
collected for recycling sat in warehouses because many cities 
across the Nation didn't have a local recycler that could 
process these bales of plastic, which were too often highly 
contaminated. Unfortunately, our communities face the choice of 
incinerating recyclables, or dumping them in landfills. While 
market, economic, and other factors led to the current plastic 
pollution crisis, part of the solution can be to invest in 
research to reduce plastic waste, and improve domestic 
recycling infrastructure and capabilities.
     This past Earth Day I was proud to introduce the Plastic 
Waste Reduction and Recycling Research Act, alongside my 
colleague from Ohio, Congressman Anthony Gonzalez. The bill 
called on the Federal Government to develop a strategic plan 
for plastic waste reduction, and directs the Office of Science 
and Technology Policy to establish a program to leverage the 
expertise of Federal science agencies, academia, scientific 
associations, State and local governments, and the private 
sector. This bill will support research and international 
standards development to spur innovative, sustainable solutions 
that could create a world-leading U.S. industry in plastics 
recycling. Research is absolutely needed into how to design 
plastics to be recyclable, upcycle existing plastic into high 
value products, minimize environmental impacts of plastic 
waste, and recycling on our climate, and to improve plastic 
waste management to prevent plastic from entering our air, 
soil, and oceans.
     Finally, this legislation would support the measurement 
science needed to make sorting technologies more efficient, and 
to update standards for characterizing the multi-layered 
plastic packaging materials used today. No one solution will 
completely solve plastic pollution. Rather, it will take 
multiple efforts. The research supported in this bill can drive 
innovation, and innovation is at the heart of American industry 
and manufacturing that creates jobs. I look forward to hearing 
from our distinguished witnesses as our Committee explores 
challenges and opportunities for adopting sustainable upstream 
plastic waste reduction solutions, and improvements to the 
recycling system.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Stevens follows:]

    Good morning, and thank you to all of the witnesses for 
joining us today
    Two years ago, I had the honor of chairing the first 
hearing on recycling in this committee for over a decade. Since 
then, much has changed but the problem of plastic waste and how 
to enable a circular economy of recycling continues.
    We only have to look to the past year and a half to see 
some of the important medical and safety functions of plastic. 
Face shields, face masks, and other personal protective 
equipment allowed America's essential workers to be on the 
front lines of our nation's COVID-19 response.Disposable 
syringes are helping deliver vaccine shots in arms all across 
the country.
    Plastic can be designed to be rigid enough to use in 
vehicle safety applications, durable enough to hold liquid 
products for years, and flexible enough to keep our food fresh. 
Virgin plastic is also cheap to produce.
    Unfortunately, the characteristics that make plastic 
convenient also make it difficult to recycle and to manage 
after it has been used.
    Global plastic production increased from 2 million tons per 
year in 1950 to 400 million tons annually in recent years. 
What's more, if current trends continue, plastic production is 
projected to quadruple by 2050. There is no silver bullet, but 
we do know where to start--reduce, reuse, and recycle. 
Historically, the U.S. has not done a great job at recycling. 
We recycle less than 9 percent of our plastic waste.
    For more than 20 years, the U.S. shipped our plastic waste 
to international markets to be recycled. When one of the major 
markets closed in 2018, items collected for recycling sat in 
warehouses because many cities across the nation didn't have a 
local recycler that could process these bales of plastic, which 
were too often highly contaminated. Unfortunately, communities 
faced the choice of incinerating recyclables or dumping them in 
landfills.
    While market, economic, and other factors led to the 
current plastic pollution crisis, part of the solution can be 
to invest in research to reduce plastic waste and improve 
domestic recycling infrastructure and capabilities.
    This past Earth Day, I was proud to reintroduce the Plastic 
Waste Reduction and Recycling Research Act with my colleague 
from Ohio Congressman Anthony Gonzalez. The bill calls on the 
Federal government to develop a strategic plan for plastic 
waste reduction and directs the Office of Science and 
Technology Policy to establish a program to leverage the 
expertise of federal science agencies, academia, scientific 
associations, State and local governments, and the private 
sector.
    It will support research and international standards 
development to spur innovative sustainable solutions that could 
create a world-leading U.S. industry in plastics recycling. 
Research is needed into how to design plastics to be 
recyclable, upcycle existing plastic into high-value products, 
minimize environmental impacts of plastic waste and recycling 
on our climate, and to improve plastic waste management to 
prevent plastic from entering our air, soil, and oceans.
    Finally, this legislation would support the measurement 
science needed to make sorting technologies more efficient and 
to update standards for characterizing the multilayered plastic 
packaging materials used today.
    No one solution will completely solve plastic pollution; 
rather, it will take multiple efforts. The research supported 
in this bill can drive innovation and innovation is at the 
heart of American industry and manufacturing that creates jobs.
    I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses 
as our Committee explores challenges and opportunities for 
adopting sustainable upstream plastic waste reduction solutions 
and improvements to the recycling system.

     Chairwoman Stevens. Before I yield to Mr. Waltz for his 
opening statement, I would like to enter into the record two 
letters of support for the Plastic Waste Reduction and 
Recycling Research Act from the American Chemical Society (ACS) 
and the National League of Cities. The Chair now recognizes Mr. 
Waltz for an opening statement.
     Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Madam Chair, and before I give my 
opening statement, I'd like to wish you a happy birthday. I 
share your passion for this topic. I'm an avid recycler, and my 
17-year-old daughter keeps me on track in that regard, so good 
morning. Thank you for holding today's hearing. It's good to be 
in the hearing room with you, and I look forward to examining 
emerging technologies in plastics recycling. I'd also like to 
thank our witnesses for appearing before the Subcommittee, and 
sharing their expertise with us.
     As we take a step back, I want to note that in the 20th 
century the United States was a leader in the development of 
plastics. We revolutionized the world by making material wealth 
widespread and obtainable like never before. However, the U.S. 
recycling infrastructure has failed to keep up with the booming 
plastic market. In 2018 the U.S. produced 36 million tons of 
plastic, as the Chairwoman noted. However, the domestic 
recycling industry only repurposed eight and a half percent of 
it. America has a new opportunity to lead in the development of 
a circular economy of plastics, an economy that produces, 
recycles, and reuses materials to reduce cost and waste. 
Investments in research and development (R&D) of new 
sustainable materials and recycling technologies will help the 
environment and the U.S. economy. For example, with advanced 
recycling tools and technologies, we can fully repurpose 
plastic without needing to harvest any new resources. In 
essence, we can turn waste into a marketable commodity. And the 
economic potential here truly is immense. According to a report 
by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), advanced plastics 
recycling could support over 38,000 U.S. jobs, and produce 
nearly 10 billion in U.S. economic output.
     Today plastics are integral to our daily lives, but we 
cannot ignore their impact on the environment. In my district 
in Northeast Florida, we are blessed with miles of beautiful 
coastline. It's a main focal point of our lives, and of our 
economy. Moving from plastic waste to plastic reuse ensures the 
protection of Florida's pristine beaches, which many on this 
Committee like to visit, and Floridians' economies that rely on 
healthy coastal ecosystems. I recently had the pleasure to 
visit the Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Jupiter, Florida, 
which was amazing to see the research and the marine life that 
they are helping there, but it was also very disturbing to see 
the amount of microplastics that are appearing in our ocean 
food supply. It was staggering, and it's dangerous, and we 
absolutely need to take action.
     I believe that using innovative methods to bolster and 
optimize our domestic plastics recycling will not only preserve 
this environment, preserve our environment, but also avoid 
costly regulations, and that's unlike the plastic provisions in 
the Green New Deal. Additionally, as demonstrated over the last 
year, our national security is at risk as long as we are 
dependent on foreign nations, particularly on the Chinese 
Communist Party, for essential commodities or services. 
America's clean energy future requires a reliable and stable 
supply of critical minerals. My bill, the American Critical 
Mineral Independence Act, addresses the issue of America's 
reliance on foreign nations to obtain critical minerals. I'm 
pleased that a provision of the legislation was included in the 
NSF for the Future Act that recently passed this Committee.
     When it comes to recycling, the U.S. cannot remain export 
reliant. For one, media reports regarding China's 2018 plastics 
importation restrictions highlighted that China never actually 
disposed of plastics properly. Second, we should not become 
reliant on China for yet another critical service, especially 
when there's untapped economic gain to be had here at home. The 
Science Committee's role is to look to innovation to solve 
major challenges facing our Nation, and it's just what we're 
doing here today. We have witnesses from academia and industry 
who are working on new solutions to plastics recycling, 
including chemical recycling, and applying robotics and 
artificial intelligence to material sorting. I look forward to 
having a productive, insightful conversation. Innovation in 
these areas will ensure a better world for our children and 
grandchildren. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Waltz follows:]

    Good morning Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you for holding 
today's hearing to examine emerging technologies in plastics 
recycling. I would also like to thank our witnesses for 
appearing before the subcommittee and sharing their expertise 
with us this morning.
    In the 20th Century, the U.S. was a leader in the 
development of plastics, revolutionizing the world by making 
material wealth widespread and obtainable like never before.
    However, the U.S. recycling infrastructure has failed to 
keep up with the booming plastics market. In 2018, the U.S. 
produced 36 million tons of plastic, yet the domestic recycling 
industry only repurposed 8.5 percent of it.
    The U.S. has a new opportunity to lead in the development 
of a circular economy of plastics--an economy that produces, 
recycles, and reuses materials to reduce cost and waste. 
Investments in research and development of new sustainable 
materials and recycling technologies will help the environment 
and the U.S. economy. For example, with advanced recycling 
tools and technologies, we can fully repurpose plastic without 
needing to harvest any new resources. In essence, we can turn 
waste into a marketable commodity.
    The economic potential here is immense. According to a 
report by the American Chemistry Council, advanced plastics 
recycling could support over 38,000 U.S. jobs and produce $9.9 
billion in U.S. economic output.
    Today, plastics are integral to our daily lives, but we 
cannot ignore their impact on the environment. In my District, 
we are blessed with miles of coastline, which is a main focal 
point in our economy and our way of life. Moving from plastic 
waste to plastic reuse ensures the protection of Florida's 
pristine beaches and the Floridian economies that rely on 
healthy coastal ecosystems. Using innovative methods to bolster 
and optimize our domestic plastics recycling will not only 
preserve our environment but also avoid costly regulations, 
unlike the plastic provisions in the Green New Deal.
    Additionally, as demonstrated over the last year, our 
national security is at risk as long as we are dependent on 
foreign nations, and particularly China, for essential 
commodities or services. America's clean energy future requires 
a reliable and stable supply of critical minerals. My bill, the 
American Critical Mineral Independence Act, addresses the issue 
of the United States' reliance on foreign nations to obtain 
critical minerals. I am pleased that a provision of this 
legislation was included in the ``NSF For the Future Act,'' 
that recently passed the Committee.
    When it comes to recycling, the U.S. cannot remain export 
reliant. For one, media reports regarding China's 2018 plastics 
importation restrictions highlighted that China never actually 
disposed of plastics properly. Secondly, we should not become 
reliant on China for yet another critical service, especially 
when there's an untapped economic gain to be had.
    The Science Committee's role is to look to innovation to 
solve major challenges facing our nation, and that's just what 
we are doing here today. We have witnesses from academia and 
industry who are working on new solutions to plastic recycling, 
including chemical recycling and applying robotics and 
artificial intelligence to material sorting. I look forward to 
having a productive and insightful conversation.
    Innovation in these areas will ensure a better world for 
our children and grandchildren. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield 
back.

     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. And the Chair now 
recognizes the Chairwoman of the Full Committee, Chairwoman 
Johnson, for an opening statement.
     Chairwoman Johnson. Good morning, and thank you, 
Chairwoman Stevens, for holding today's hearing, and happy 
birthday. Leaders across the globe are wrestling with the need 
to reduce plastic waste, and I appreciate the fact that you, 
Chairwoman Stevens, and Congressman Gonzalez--this bipartisan 
leadership on legislation you introduced supporting research 
and development activities to help reduce plastic waste.
     Communities across the country, including my district in 
Dallas, Texas, are trying to find solutions to deal with the 
increasing levels of plastic waste. The statistics concerning 
plastic pollution are indeed staggering. In 2018 plastic waste 
was the third largest source of municipal solid waste in the 
United States. In that year alone we generated 35.7 million 
tons of plastic waste, recycled three million tons, combusted 
5.6 million tons, and put 27 million tons of plastic in waste 
landfills. These statistics make it imperative to support 
research that can help us move forward in a sustainable way. 
Experts agree that no single solution will solve the plastic 
waste crisis. We must have an all-of-the-above approach.
     To that end, it is important to understand barriers to the 
current recycling system, the potential for upstream solutions, 
and what research, technology, and data gaps we need to fill. 
Also critical is understanding the need for standards 
development and new assessment models to help us achieve 
sustainable systems. Collaboration will be key between Federal 
agencies, State and local governments, academia, the private 
sector, and international partners. Today's hearing is very 
important, and the step we're taking with it is working toward 
achieving sustainability goals for our environment, and I look 
forward to this discussion, and I thank you and yield back.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Good morning, and thank you Chairwoman Stevens for holding 
today's hearing to discuss this important issue. Leaders across 
the globe are wrestling with the need to reduce plastic waste, 
and I appreciate Chairwoman Stevens' and Congressman Gonzalez's 
bipartisan leadership on the legislation they introduced 
supporting research and development activities to help reduce 
plastic waste.
    Communities across the country, including my district in 
Dallas, Texas, are trying to find solutions to deal with the 
increasing levels of plastic waste. The statistics concerning 
plastic pollution are indeed staggering. In 2018, plastic was 
the third largest source of municipal solid waste in the U.S. 
In that year alone, we generated 35.7 million tons of plastic 
waste, recycled 3 million tons, combusted 5.6 million tons, and 
put 27 million tons of plastic waste in landfills.
    These statistics make it an imperative to support research 
that can help us move forward in a more sustainable way. 
Experts agree that no single solution will solve the plastic 
waste crisis. We must have an all-of-the-above approach. To 
that end, it is important to understand barriers to the current 
recycling system, the potential for upstream solutions, and 
what research, technology, and data gaps we need to fill. Also 
critical is understanding the need for standards development 
and new assessment models to help us achieve sustainable 
systems.
    Collaboration will be key between federal agencies, State 
and local governments, academia, the private sector, and 
international partners. Today's hearing is an important step in 
working towards achieving sustainability goals for our 
environment, and I look forward to the discussion and our 
witnesses' testimony.
    Thank you.

     Chairwoman Stevens. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair, and 
if there are Members who wish to submit additional opening 
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 
point.
     Also at this time I'd like to introduce our witnesses. Our 
first witness is Ms. Keefe Harrison. Ms. Harrison is the Chief 
Executive Officer (CEO) of The Recycling Partnership, a 
national nonprofit dedicated to protecting the planet by fixing 
recycling and activating a circular economy throughout the 
United States. She is an international speaker, media pundit, 
and environmental author dedicated to engaging companies in 
making measurable, lasting change in communities. Under her 
leadership, The Recycling Partnership has grown significantly, 
engaging more than 70 funding partners, and reaching more than 
half of American households.
     Our next witness is Dr. Marc Hillmyer. Dr. Hillmyer is the 
Director, and Principal Investigator of the University of 
Minnesota NSF (National Science Foundation) Center for 
Sustainable Polymers. He joined the Department of Chemistry 
Faculty at the University of Minnesota in 1997, and is 
currently the McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Chemistry 
at the University, where his research focuses on the synthesis 
and self-assembly of multifunctional polymers. Dr. Hillmyer 
served as an associate editor for the ACS journal 
Macromolecules from 2018 to 2017, and he has been editor-in-
chief since 2018.
     Our third witness is Dr. Gregory Keoleian. Dr. Keoleian is 
the Peter M. Wege Professor of Sustainable Systems at the 
University of Michigan, and serves as the Director of the 
Center for Sustainable Systems. He also holds appointments as a 
Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability, and 
the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His 
research focuses on the development and application of life 
cycle models and sustainability metrics to guide the design and 
improvement of products and technology.
     Our final witness is Mr. Joshua Baca. Mr. Baca is the Vice 
President of the Plastics Division at the American Chemistry 
Council. In this role he oversees strategic programs to advance 
a science-based policy agenda, national outreach, and 
sustainability initiatives on behalf of America's leading 
plastic makers. He also leads industry initiatives and fosters 
multi-stakeholder dialog around helping end plastic waste by 
creating a more circular economy.
     As our witnesses should know, you will each have 5 minutes 
for your spoken testimony. You written testimony will be 
included in the record for the hearing. When you all have 
completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions. 
Each Member will have 5 minutes to question the panel. We will 
start with Ms. Harrison's opening testimony.

                TESTIMONY OF MS. KEEFE HARRISON,

                    CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,

                   THE RECYCLING PARTNERSHIP

     Ms. Harrison. Madam Chairwoman, and Members of the 
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you 
about this important topic. As you know, I am the CEO of The 
Recycling Partnership, and we are a national nonprofit that 
works with companies, communities, and policies to strengthen 
the U.S. recycling system. You may remember our recent campaign 
in D.C. to boost recycling. That was an example of the type of 
grant that we give, and how we partner with thousands of cities 
across the county, and across the country. The Recycling 
Partnership is designed to bring together public and private 
sectors because without coordination, recycling will never 
deliver the solutions that we all need. Recycling has been 
something old, become something new again, but we need to 
ensure that that is by plan, and not just by chance, as is the 
current case, and we're here today to talk about how to execute 
that plan, a shared vision for the future, one of a circular 
economy, moving away from a linear economy, where we take raw 
materials from the planet, make stuff out of it, just to bury 
all that value back in the ground after a single use.
     Committee Members, recycling is so much more than just 
putting things in a recycling bin. It's really about smarter 
feed stock and stronger methods for manufacturing. But there's 
a hitch. As many of you have heard, recycling faces barriers 
that it needs help in overcoming. That's why we're here today, 
and, in fact, The Recycling Partnership just wrote a report 
that you may be interested in. It's called ``Paying It Forward: 
How Investing In Recycling Will Pay Dividends'', and it 
outlines how to fix the U.S. recycling system, and deliver 
rewards to the environment and the economy.
     Now, when it comes to plastics, technology has an 
important role to play in delivering that better system. R&D 
(research and development) can help us answer important 
questions like how do we better design plastics products to 
meet the demands of the infrastructure? Things like labels, 
ink, adhesives, they make a big difference in determining if 
something is truly recyclable. Similarly, how do we make sure 
that improvements of the infrastructure are aligned with all 
the innovation of what's coming into the system, what is being 
designed? How can we develop standards to make sure that 
businesses across the country know what quality of recyclable 
feed stock that they're getting, and exactly how can we make 
sure that recycled content supply is available for U.S. 
businesses, like businesses in all of your States? There is 
Unifi in North Carolina, turning old soda and water bottles 
into recycled fiber for clothes, Polywood in Indiana, making 
indoor--or outdoor furniture out of detergent bottles. Envision 
Plastics in California, capturing ocean-bound plastics and 
producing feed stock for shampoo and soap bottles for companies 
like Method in Illinois. There's Schupan in Michigan, Indorama 
in Texas, Alpek in Pennsylvania, all turning bottles into new 
bottles.
     So why does this matter to this Committee? Three things 
should be top of mind for our discussion today, system 
solutions, scale, and speed. R&D that focuses on those three 
things matter most. Technology only helps if it's part of a 
system. What's not needed? One-off technologies, silver 
bullets, individual projects that don't add up to systems 
change. Each one of those businesses that I mentioned, and all 
the others like them, have to overcome technical barriers in 
order to become profitable and grow. We need research to turn 
those technical barriers into bridges, helping to create a 
circular economy not just by chance, but by plan. We commend 
this Committee for its attention to plastics in a circular 
economy, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to testify today. 
The Recycling Partnership looks forward to working with you on 
solutions that create jobs, protect our planet, and its people. 
Thank you.
     [The prepared statement of Ms. Harrison follows:]


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     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. And now we will hear from 
Dr. Hillmyer.

                TESTIMONY OF DR. MARC HILLMYER,

              DIRECTOR AND PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR,

                    UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

                  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

                CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE POLYMERS

     Dr. Hillmyer. Thank you. Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking 
Member Waltz, Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and 
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 
invitation to provide testimony in today's hearing. I'm quite 
honored to have this opportunity to speak with you today. I'm a 
Professor of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, and the 
Director of the National Science Foundation Center for 
Sustainable Polymers, which is a center for chemical innovation 
headquartered here at Minnesota. Polymers are the molecules of 
plastics, and I have worked in the field of polymer science 
since my time as an undergraduate researcher at the University 
of Florida. I earned my Ph.D. in Chemistry studying polymers at 
the California Institute of Technology. Since beginning as a 
Professor of Chemistry at Minnesota, I've worked in the areas 
of sustainable polymers, and much of my research today has 
connections to sustainability. As the Director of the National 
Science Foundation Center for Sustainable Polymers since its 
inception in 2009, I've led numerous research efforts and 
managed a broad research portfolio focused on sustainable 
polymers. I really have a passion for advancing sustainable 
polymers through basic research endeavors that enable a 
circular economy for future generations.
     As a society that depends on plastics every day, and in 
nearly all established, new, and emerging high and low tech 
applications, we're faced with a crisis. The comforts, 
conveniences, and efficiencies associated with the use of these 
modern materials also comes at a cost, ever-increasing, broadly 
distributed, and persistent plastic pollution. Moreover, nearly 
all the new plastic that is produced globally every year is 
derived from non-renewable fossil resources, thus contributing 
to the depletion of finite feed stocks harbored by Earth. While 
we all know about plastics recycling, and the chasing arrow 
indicators on plastics, the fact is that a very small 
percentage of plastics are effectively recycled.
     To make matters worse, most plastics are used for a short 
period of time, for example in packaging or disposable service-
ware, and then immediately disposed of, and often 
indiscriminately. The value of plastic--of that plastic 
material is lost, waste is generated, and very little is 
ultimately recycled. A staggering level of these discarded 
materials, and the microplastics derived therefrom, end up on 
our landscapes and in our waterways, causing environmental and 
ecological damage. The resulting negative impacts to the food 
chain, and ultimately to our own health, is a clear concern. 
Using oil and gas to make plastics that typically have very 
short use lifetimes, end up in the environment, and cause 
damage to our ecosystems is simply unsustainable.
     However, we all need plastic. These remarkable materials 
are so important it's difficult to imagine modern society 
without them. In fact, plastics contribute to sustainability in 
positive ways, such as in lightweight transportation, food 
preservation, and renewable energy applications. The other main 
contributing factor for our extensive use of plastic is that 
these materials are generally available at very low cost. The 
performance to price ratio of plastics is about as high as it 
gets. While I can argue that we all need plastic, we don't need 
all plastic. Certainly unnecessary plastic materials permeate 
our society, and dematerialization will unquestionable play an 
important role in a sustainable polymer future. There are some 
places where we simply use too much plastic.
     We need a major change in the way we produce, use, dispose 
of, and recycle plastics. The goal of zero plastic pollution is 
a lofty, but necessary one for a sustainable plastics future. 
To realize this vision, there are many interwoven factors and 
needs. These include policy initiatives, improved recycling 
practices, other end-of-life infrastructure, and industry 
adoption of sustainable alternatives for current plastic 
products, packaging, and processes. I'm here today to emphasize 
the fact that basic and fundamental research in sustainable 
polymers is, and will continue to be, essential to build a 
strong foundation from which new sustainable technologies can 
be built. Now, this is where government, industry, and private 
foundation support all play critically important roles. Basic 
research in sustainable polymers that aims to uncover the 
underlying principles associated with, for example, efficient 
conversion of renewable feed stocks to valuable chemical 
intermediates, green processes to incorporate those chemicals 
into advanced polymer structures, and how to design materials 
for viable and sustainable end-of-life scenarios post-use, will 
positively contribute to a sustainable polymer future.
     This important research, aimed and understanding 
fundamentals, and revealing what is possible with sustainable 
polymers, is decades behind analogous work in non-renewable, 
fossil-derived, non-degradable, and practically non-recyclable 
materials that dominate today's landscape. Significant effort, 
support, and new initiatives are imperative for future 
generations to enjoy the benefits of plastics, while 
simultaneously eliminating their negative consequences. In my 
written testimony I provide an overview of research efforts 
carried out in the National Science Foundation Center for 
Sustainable Polymers, my view on broader research needs in the 
sustainable polymer arena, and my support for the proposed 
Plastic Waste Reduction and Recycling Research Act. Thank you 
again for this opportunity to testify today. I am truly honored 
to be here to be able to share my thoughts and visions for a 
sustainable polymer future, and I look forward to answering any 
questions you may have. Thank you.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Hillmyer follows:]


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     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you, Dr. Hillmyer, the honor is 
all ours. And with that, we will hear from Dr. Keoleian.

               TESTIMONY OF DR. GREGORY KEOLEIAN,

           DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS,

        PETER M. WEGE PROFESSOR OF SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS,

           SCHOOL FOR ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY;

        PROFESSOR, CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING,

            CO-COORDINATOR, ENGINEERING SUSTAINABLE

            SYSTEMS PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

     Dr. Keoleian. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, and Ranking 
Member Waltz, and all of the other Members of this 
Subcommittee. My name is Greg Keoleian. I serve as Director of 
the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of 
Michigan, and the Professor in the School for Environment and 
Sustainability in the Department of Civil and Environmental 
Engineering. My research focuses on the development of life 
cycle models and sustainability metrics to guide the design and 
improvement of products and technology. Our center recently 
developed the first comprehensive characterization of plastics 
use by resin type across the U.S. economy. I wish to offer some 
observations and recommendations based on this and other 
plastic sustainability research with industry, ranging from 
milk packaging to building insulation.
     The plastics waste crisis is more than a packaging waste 
problem. 2/3 of the plastic put into use in the U.S. went into 
markets other than packaging, including consumer products, 
furniture, electronics, transportation, and buildings, each 
with unique challenges and opportunities. Less than 8 percent 
of the plastics retired in these products are recycled. 
Multiple technical and economic barriers limit plastics 
material recovery. In theory, most of the thermoplastics used 
in packaging have a high recyclability, but actual low 
recycling rates can be traced to inexpensive virgin feed stocks 
combined with material quality issues. Plastic content and e-
waste is estimated at 20 to 33 percent, and commercially viable 
mechanical recycling systems cannot handle the current volume 
and diversity of plastics and e-waste. Buildings are using 
increasing amounts of plastic for piping, siding, trim, plastic 
wood composites, as well as insulation. Recovery is extremely 
challenging, given that building demolition produces mixed 
waste, with low fractions of plastics.
     Plastics growth in the transportation sector has been 
primarily due to light-weighting efforts, and the specialized 
properties that engineered resins afford. Plastic recovery from 
auto-shredder residue is challenging. 39 different plastic 
types are used to make cars. Separation technologies are very 
capital intensive, and the cost to separate, clean, and collect 
often exceeds that of virgin plastic, especially with low oil 
and national gas prices.
     Systems analysis tools are necessary to overcome these 
challenges. First, research is needed to fill in gaps in 
plastics material flow. Improved characterization will 
facilitate coordination between product design, manufacturing, 
and material recovery efforts. This is needed to direct R&D and 
capital resources toward bottleneck stages in greatest need of 
innovation. Second, life cycle analysis models are needed to 
guide innovation in robust, cost-effective solutions. Life 
cycle assessments of plastic used in products can elucidate 
tradeoffs and guide improvements. They're necessary to avoid 
burden shifting and promotion of less environmentally 
sustainable alternatives. Third, emphasize interdisciplinary 
R&D to develop plastic waste solutions. At the core of the 
current plastics waste crisis is an economics problem. 
Sustainable solutions are effective when there is alignment 
between technology, markets, policy, and behavioral drivers. 
Interdisciplinary research bringing together engineers, 
industrial ecologists--economists, policy analysts, behavioral 
scientists can achieve convergence and robust solutions more 
quickly. Also, implementation could be accelerated when 
academics, industry, government, and community partners co-
create solutions.
     Fourth, R&D should target product system design system 
design solutions beyond recycling. I strongly encourage the 
broadening of the research scope to develop solutions that can 
avoid or limit generation of waste. These strategies include 
dematerialization, material substitution, service life 
extension of products, re-use, and re-manufacturing. Fifth, 
develop a road map to guide R&D coordination across agencies. 
This can help set research priorities and avoid research 
duplication, given the wide array of resin and composite types 
used for the wide range of plastic applications, each with 
varying lifetimes. Finally, plastic waste reductions solutions 
should also reduce carbon emissions. Humanity is facing a 
climate emergency. We need to prioritize technological plastic 
waste reduction innovations that could also create solutions to 
accelerate greenhouse gas emissions to zero.
     In conclusion, solutions to plastic waste crisis will 
require a major transformation to systems through technology, 
community engagement, behavior change, and policy innovations. 
Technological innovations in recycling alone will not be 
sufficient. I fully support the goals of the Committee's 
legislation, and hope my systems analysis-based recommendations 
will help strengthen programming and implementation. Appreciate 
the opportunity to share my perspectives, and welcome your 
questions. Thank you very much for your attention.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Keoleian follows:]


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     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you so much, Dr. Keoleian. And 
now we will hear from Mr. Baca.

         TESTIMONY OF MR. JOSHUA BACA, VICE PRESIDENT,

         PLASTICS DIVISION, AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL

     Mr. Baca. Good morning. Let me first start off by thanking 
the Subcommittee for holding this important hearing today. I 
want to commend the Chairwoman from Michigan for her leadership 
in this issue, her pragmatic approach in driving actions, and 
her collaborative style in bringing stakeholders together to 
solve big challenges we face as a Nation. The American 
Chemistry Council's Plastics Division is pleased to provide 
testimony to this Subcommittee. Our members are the leading 
producers of modern plastic materials used to make countless 
consumer and durable goods, used in a variety of applications, 
and innovations that improve the quality of our lives, our 
environment, and our economy.
     ACC encourages passage of the bipartisan Plastic Waste 
Reduction and Recycling Research Act. If passed, this 
legislation would direct Federal Government resources to 
improve the global competitiveness of U.S. plastics recycling, 
and ensure U.S. leadership in plastic waste reduction and 
recycling research. It would also help capture the value of 
used plastics through enhanced research and development, and 
create standards, tools, and technologies necessary to 
modernize and expand today's recycling systems. Finally, it 
will accelerate the research and development for advanced 
recycling technologies.
     Our members are deeply committed to creating a circular 
economy for plastics, and ending plastic waste in the 
environment. Plastics contribute to sustainability goals, which 
help protect the American environment for future generations. 
Plastic waste does not. Waste in the environment, including 
plastic waste, is never acceptable. We are eager in taking 
action to solve this problem. That's why, in 2018, America's 
plastic makers established two ambitious circular economy 
goals. By 2030, 100 percent of U.S. plastic packaging will be 
recyclable or recoverable, and by 2040 100 percent of U.S. 
plastic packaging will be re-used, recycled, or recovered. Last 
year we released our road map to re-use, which outlined a 
vision, and a set of actions to mobilize the entire plastics 
value chain to achieve these goals. Our industry has worked to 
grow the circular economy for all plastics by implementing our 
road map.
     Since July of 2017 our industry has invested nearly $6 
billion to grow plastics recycling in the United States, most 
of it in advanced recycling technologies. While traditional 
recycling processes will continue to play an important role in 
plastics recycling, they do face some important limitations. 
Newer, cutting edge technologies known as advanced recycling 
complement these traditional systems by picking up where they 
leave off, and enabling communities to recycle significantly 
more types, and greater quantities, of plastics. Advanced 
recycling technologies are innovative manufacturing processes 
that fundamentally transform the chemical structure of post-use 
plastic back to their basic chemical building blocks. These 
building blocks are the raw materials used for making virgin 
quality plastic and other valuable products. They enable more 
types of plastics to become resources for new manufacturing, 
conserving natural resources, and helping grow local jobs and 
economies.
     Momentum for advanced recycling is accelerating across the 
United States, and the Plastic Waste Reduction and Recycling 
Research Act will help sustain that momentum. Globally 
recognized corporations and mature recycling enterprises are 
making significant commitments, and building infrastructure at 
a commercial scale. Technology has evolved and created new 
opportunities and tremendous breakthroughs that can create 
virgin-quality packaging critical for demanding applications, 
such as food-grade and pharmaceutical packaging. There is a 
significant and growing market for recycled products driven by 
company commitments and consumer demand for using more recycled 
plastic in products. 14 States have enacted legislation to 
update their existing laws so companies are more appropriately 
regulated in their deployment of advanced recycling 
technologies, and a first wave of advanced recycling 
enterprises is achieving third party validation through 
international certification. We believe, with the right 
approaches and commitment, the challenge of plastic waste in 
the environment is solvable, and collective actions by 
government, industry, nonprofits, and NGO's (non-governmental 
organizations) will make America more sustainable.
     The stakes are high. Plastics are critical to a modern 
society, from light-weighting vehicles to reduce carbon 
emissions, to sealing and insulating our homes and buildings, 
to delivering essential health care, preserving food, and 
preventing food waste, and contributing to an overall higher 
quality of life. Again, I want to thank the Subcommittee for 
holding this important hearing today. We appreciate the 
opportunity to collaborate on this legislation, and future 
legislation, and I yield my back--my time back to the 
Chairwoman.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Baca follows:]


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     Chairwoman Stevens. Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Baca. 
And as you can all tell, we've got a great group here, and this 
is making for a--just a very exciting hearing, so at this point 
we're going to move to our first round of questions, and the 
Chair is going to recognize herself for 5 minutes of 
questioning.
     A recent Federal study found that contamination of 
recyclables is a major cross-cutting challenge to the U.S. 
recycling system. I've seen this in my own district in 
Southeastern Michigan, when I talk to my municipal leaders, or 
others in industry. Contamination of recyclables can occur when 
non-recyclables, such as plastic bags, are not sorted from 
recyclables, or when food residue on recyclable plastic 
materials makes them non-recyclable. Ms. Harrison, what steps 
can we take to ensure businesses and consumers know the quality 
of plastic feed stock that they are acquiring for making new 
products?
     Ms. Harrison. So I love this question, because it's really 
about how do we make sure that recycled content is competing 
with virgin, right? It's--recycling is all about manufacturing, 
and it has to compete on price, on quality, and on volume. 
Manufacturers need to know that they can depend on recycled 
feed stock to be there when they need it. So contamination, I 
think, can be put into two buckets. One, a misstep in the 
design of a product. I mentioned labels, adhesives. We need 
thought that goes into how packaging is designed, and I would 
encourage the Committee to look at plasticiq.com. It's a new 
tool, a free tool, that we just designed with support and--from 
Walmart to help suppliers align around common design challenges 
so that we know, as consumers, when we get something off the 
shelf, it is in prime recycling condition.
     And then the second thing--the second bucket of where 
contamination comes in is really in the household. That 
challenge is when--we can sometimes call this wish-cycling, 
when people hope that something is recyclable, and so they put 
it into the bin. They're confused, not really knowing what it's 
about, doesn't have the arrows on it. So that part--point of 
what--how do we engage the public is a really important one, 
because it's not just awareness. We know the public is aware of 
recycling. What we need to get to is how do we engage them in 
the correct behavior of what to recycle on which day?
     Education has been woefully underfunded in this country. 
Consumers are concerned and confused, and I think that if we 
marry how things are designed for the system with how we 
leverage that public will, we'll find a better outcome. We're 
doing work in communities right now. We have a program called 
Feet on the Street, where we partner with communities to make 
sure that we are addressing the key challenge to contamination 
for that city, and that program uses oops tags on carts to 
really trigger the problem that an individual household is 
making. You know, the No. 1 challenge to recycling that many 
people make is they're trying their best, and they put all 
those recyclables in a plastic bag. When they tie them up in a 
plastic bag, in most places, that renders them unrecyclable by 
the facilities. That's the No. 1 thing that we go after, 
Chairwoman. So I put it in design and consumer behavior.
     Chairwoman Stevens. All right. Well, we're educating the 
public here today. And also, you know, just wondering how 
plastics in today's waste streams changed since the development 
of the resin identification codes from 30 years ago, which are 
commonly identified on plastic packaging by a No. 1 through 
seven in a triangle. So one of the things that we're looking at 
here today is what additional research is needed for better 
plastic characterization, and how could that research yield new 
standards in identification codes? And, you know, Ms. Harrison, 
if you have anything to contribute on that, I'd love to hear 
from you, as well as Dr. Keoleian, whose research was also 
speaking to this.
     Ms. Harrison. Well, quickly, I'd say that those resin 
identification codes determine the--or indicate the material's 
past, not the material's future. They do not automatically 
determine that something is recyclable, even if it has a one. 
It doesn't automatically mean--so if--better research into how 
we communicate to the public with confidence that, yes, this 
was designed for the solution, and--for the system, and that 
the system meets it in the middle, the system can take this, I 
think would be much--a much needed solution. But I'll turn it 
over to Dr. Keoleian.
     Dr. Keoleian. Yeah, I would agree. Identification is 
critical to help with sorting, but I think that other systems 
are necessary to facilitate the sorting, and we should really 
also look at transferability of models that are successful. As 
you know, in the State of Michigan we have a bottle bill, and 
so we have very high quality in terms of our recycled 
containers due to the redemption rates that we have here 
compared to other states that don't have those bottle bills. So 
we have to really look holistically at our solutions.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yeah, which is part of what we're also 
symbolizing here today, with the great panelists. So I'm out of 
time. I now going to recognize the gentleman from the nice 
State of Florida, who is right, those beaches--you know, us 
Michiganders, not maybe this time of year we're racing to, but 
there are certainly points of time in the year where my 
constituents are either in Florida, or looking to get to 
Florida, so----
     Mr. Waltz. See you in January.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yeah. So with that, Mr. Waltz.
     Mr. Waltz. Yeah. No, thank you so much, Chairwoman. Dr. 
Hillmyer, I mentioned during my opening statement my visit to 
the Loggerhead Marine Life Center, I saw the, you know, the 
damaging impacts of microplastics in our environment and in our 
food supply. Do you think that biodegradable plastics would be 
beneficial? Seems to me, you know, it could be a bit of a game 
changer in addressing the challenge of microplastics. And if 
so, what challenges to adopting more biodegradable plastics do 
you see?
     Dr. Hillmyer. Congressman, thank you for the question. 
This is a challenging question because of definitions of 
biodegradable that are present. Biodegradable over what 
timeframe and under what conditions? I firmly believe that 
biodegradable plastics will be a piece of the plastics puzzle, 
in that development of materials that can be assimilated by 
microorganisms in either engineered environments, such as 
industrial composting, and places like that, or, if escaped 
into the environment indiscriminately, they could end up then 
biodegrading over some time frame. The issue is--how do we 
really understand the fundamental processes of biodegradation 
over what time scale, and under what conditions that 
biodegradation takes place. I think we want to be careful about 
plastics that are labeled as biodegradable as maybe 
incentivizing, you know, leaving them in the environment. 
That's one thing we have to be careful about.
     But I do think that with proper, for example, compost 
infrastructure, and proper understanding and education around 
this issue, is that biodegradable plastics will play a role in 
the future sustainable polymers. One example would be, as we 
spoke about before, in food contaminated plastics. So, for 
example, if those plastics were compostable, they could go in 
compostable food waste, provided the infrastructure was 
available. So the answer is a little more complicated and 
nuanced, but I will end by saying yes, that it is a piece of 
the plastics puzzle, and how we will solve it. Biodegradable 
polymers will play a role.
     Mr. Waltz. Yeah, thank you, and the answers always seem to 
be much more complex than most people, including this 
Committee, fully appreciates. Mr. Baca, we discussed that China 
has banned the import of plastic recycling for processing from 
the United States and many other countries. The claim is that 
it's due to the poor quality of the plastic bundles being 
imported. Do you agree? One, do you agree, and do you believe 
that China has other ambitions behind the recent ban? If so, 
what do you think they are? And I just have to ask more 
broadly, what would it mean for the U.S. if we were to 
completely cede leadership to China in advanced recycling?
     Mr. Baca. Congressman, thank you so much for that 
question, and I 100 percent agree with you. We should not be 
ceding leadership on the issue of advanced recycling to any 
country right now. I think when you get to the issue of 
contamination, the biggest challenge we have right now is 
really a fragmented system, where you have 9,000 jurisdictions 
across the United States doing 9,000 different things. I think 
there's a very appropriate role for Congress here to develop a 
set of minimum standards that work to improve recycling access, 
recycling education, recycling outreach, and recycling 
collection. That will definitely streamline the processes to 
getting more plastics, and all material, frankly, into the 
system.
     I think when it comes to the issue of advanced recycling, 
the good news that I want to share with this Committee is that 
advanced recycling is actually being built at a commercial 
scale. The fundamentals that have guided the market development 
of advanced recycling continue to change, and there have been 
tremendous breakthroughs in advanced recycling that allow us to 
capture all plastic materials, turn them into virgin quality 
plastics, and re-use them again, and again, and again. You 
know, there's a couple of examples that I would give you. You 
know, a pouch, something that you use to get your food, that's 
now recyclable because of breakthroughs in advanced recycling. 
Foam food containers is another great example of what that 
breakthrough is.
     The point is is technology is not static. It evolves over 
time, and the work that this Committee is doing in laying the 
foundation to ensure our global leadership is one I highly 
commend you work toward.
     Mr. Waltz. No, thank you for that, and I agree, I think 
that is an appropriate role for Congress, but then also that 
education piece--I can tell you, my own family we get confused 
on what is recyclable, what is not. I'm an avid recycler. I 
hate the waste, but it is difficult to figure out, even going 
back and forth from D.C. and various places in Florida, so I 
think those are absolutely appropriate roles, and I look 
forward to working with this Committee to move the ball 
forward. I yield my time.
     Chairwoman Stevens. And with that, we're going to 
recognize our next Member for 5 minutes of questioning. It 
looks like we might be moving to Mr. Beyer for 5 minutes of 
questioning. You are now recognized. OK, wait, pardon me, Mr. 
Tonko's sitting right here. Sorry, we're on the screen. We're 
going to--Don, we're going to hold on you, and we're going to 
recognize my good friend from the great State of New York, Mr. 
Paul Tonko.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Madam Chair, and, first things 
first, happy birthday, and great to see your mom in the 
audience, in the--not the virtual setting, but the real 
setting, since she had a major role to play in the celebration, 
the annual celebration. We say thank you to her for delivering 
a great Member of Congress.
     So I thank you for holding today's hearing, and for your 
efforts to advance solutions to address our growing plastic 
waste problem. Today America's recycling systems face 
exponentially greater volumes of plastic waste, with more 
complex and multi-layered plastic products than it was ever 
designed to handle. Even as the U.S. recycling market has grown 
more broadly, our plastic recycling systems have not kept pace, 
and, when these systems are overwhelmed, we risk environmental 
damage, hard to clean pollution, and, most importantly, grave 
danger to human health. We need swift and bold action at both 
ends of this problem, making investments in recycling R&D, with 
strong oversight of those programs, while also focusing 
individually as a society, and as a government, on the urgent 
need to reduce the amount of plastic waste that we do indeed 
generate in the first place.
     So when it comes to R&D, several Federal agencies carry 
out R&D and standards development programs related to plastics 
recycling, material substitutes, and data gathering. However, I 
was astonished to learn that there is currently no coordinated 
effort to facilitate multi-agency collaboration to reduce 
plastic waste and improve recycling R&D. So, Dr. Keoleian, what 
do you think the role of the Federal Government should be in 
supporting cross-cutting R&D and innovation necessary to 
address our plastic waste reduction and recycling challenges?
     Dr. Keoleian. That is an excellent question, and clearly 
there needs to be coordination, in terms of this R&D, through 
the Federal Government so that we can most efficiently use our 
R&D resources to target the most significant challenges and 
bottlenecks in our system. And I really recommend--we developed 
this first characterization--you may have seen the spaghetti 
diagram of the flow of plastics through the economy, from 
production, to use markets, to end of life, but it is--some of 
the areas are incomplete. We don't have data in certain areas 
to understand what resins are going into what systems, so I 
first recommend that we really do a more in-depth 
characterization of the different resins, and uses, and end of 
life management strategies so we understand fully the problem.
     And then the solutions really need to be looked at so that 
we can develop infrastructure that's going to deal with, you 
know, long-lived products like buildings and automobiles versus 
packaging. So I think that we, through a characterization of 
the streams, can then decide which types of materials we want 
to go after, and what end-use products. And so coordination is 
definitely key, and I think that starting out with an overall 
accounting of the problem will facilitate better use of 
resources.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And Dr. Hillmyer, I'm very concerned 
about the climate impacts of plastic production, which are 
primarily caused by the use of fossil fuel feed stocks. What 
environmental benefits, such as lower emissions from 
production, are associated with your work in developing 
alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastics?
     Dr. Hillmyer. Congressman, thank you for the question. 
It's pretty clear that turning to renewable resources for 
plastics will ultimately be the future in the long run, and the 
research associated with how to efficiently convert those 
materials from annually renewable resources like plants, that 
sequester CO2, is really of high priority. The 
bottom line is that the ability to convert sugars from plants 
to chemicals that we can ultimately use in the manufacture of 
plastics, requires fundamental research to support new 
technologies that stem from that, because you're competing with 
an industry that is very efficient, and has many efficiencies 
associated with the conversion of fossil resources. So we work 
on this in the center, in trying to understand how to use 
renewable resources, how to convert them efficiently, into 
molecules that have utility in the polymer and plastics arena. 
The basic research is coming along, and--but more effort is 
needed to make it both technologically and economically 
competitive with petrochemically derived materials.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you so much. And, with that, I say 
welcome Maria Marcotte, and thank you, Chair Stevens. I yield 
back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Well, thank you so much. You really 
are the sweetest friend, Mr. Tonko. And with that, allow me to 
recognize my colleague from Ohio, who's just been a really 
great collaborator on this work, Mr. Gonzalez.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam Chair, happy birthday. And 
thank you to our witnesses for being here today, and for your 
expertise. I agree, Congress must get to work on ways to 
accelerate innovation in plastics and battery recycling, reduce 
the environmental impact of their consumption, and increase the 
economic value and security of domestic resources and supply 
chains. Recycling, and innovations in recycling, need to be a 
key part of addressing the climate challenge, as Mr. Hillmyer 
just discussed. It is of critical importance that we consider a 
comprehensive government approach to spur innovations through 
R&D and coordination across relevant Federal agencies on the 
work. That's why I was proud to join the Chairwoman in 
introducing the Plastics Waste Reduction and Recycling Research 
Act this Congress, and applaud her leadership on this issue. 
It's also importance to recognize the unique role of the 
Department of Energy (DOE), and its National Labs, in enabling 
next generation research in plastics optimization and advanced 
recycling.
     Mr. Baca, I want to start with you. In your prepared 
remarks you describe ACC's work with DOE and its National Labs. 
So my question is, how is the Department of Energy's Office of 
Science uniquely positioned to conduct research to solve 
challenges in this space?
     Mr. Baca. Congressman, thank you so much for that 
question. Let me start off by saying this, all in regard to the 
comments about the climate challenge, first off. Plastics 
overall have a much lower carbon footprint than any other 
material. They've been critical, as I mentioned in my 
statement, to light-weighting vehicles and insulating our 
homes, and some of the work that we're doing with the 
Department of Energy and our National Labs is really focused on 
that ability to understand the lifecycle of plastic materials, 
and ensure that we understand its impact on the environment. 
That work is currently happening. We've been working with a 
variety of the National Laboratories, Argonne National 
Laboratory, for instance. We work with the Department of Energy 
on their Plastics Innovation Challenge.
     The key thing is that this work is happening right now. 
We're working with some of the leading scientists in the world 
to examine and research the best ways to recover, reuse, and 
recycle more of our plastic materials. So I commend the work 
the Committee is doing. Our industry is happy to be working 
with this. There's a critical role for the Department of 
Energy. There's also a critical role for the National Labs to 
ensuring that we study the best uses for plastic recycling 
going forward.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. And then, as a follow-up, is 
there anything that should be done to facilitate more effective 
use of DOE's work by other stakeholders or other agencies, and 
are there mechanisms needed to promote more public/private 
partnerships through these programs?
     Mr. Baca. Absolutely. We could always be doing more to 
promote more public/private partnerships. Many of us on this 
meeting today, our organization collaborates very often with 
groups like The Recycling Partnership, The Alliance to End 
Plastic Waste, Closed Loop Partners, to name a few, to create a 
circular system here. That private/public partnership is an 
excellent model, in the sense that we are able to capture more 
plastic and collaborate on a solution. The work being done by 
the DOE and the National Labs, for instance, those findings 
should further inform the work we're doing. So, yes, I think 
we--part of the work I think this Committee can do is connect 
those dots to bring the stakeholders together.
     To solve the problem of plastic waste, it's going to 
require a tremendous amount of collaboration. Not one industry 
is going to solve it. It's going require collaboration across 
the entire plastics value chain. It's going to require 
collaboration with scientists and engineers, the National Labs, 
government, NGO's. And so, yes, connecting those dots I think 
would be a very critical first step for that work.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Great. And then my final question for you, 
so there's sometimes some false narratives about advanced 
recycling. Could you discuss how important advanced recycling 
and innovative technologies will be to addressing the climate 
challenge?
     Mr. Baca. 100 percent. Advanced recycling is a critical 
component to solving the plastic waste challenge. We are 
developing advanced recycling technology at a commercial scale. 
One of our member companies, Eastman Chemical, is building a 
plastic to plastic facility in Tennessee that's going to cost 
about $250 million. It's critical because what advanced 
recycling does is it takes very difficult, hard to recycle 
plastic--think, for instance, a pouch that is manufactured 
today to keep your food fresh. That is light, it requires less 
water produced, it's easy to transport from a carbon 
perspective, but is very difficult to recycle from a mechanical 
perspective. Advanced recycling takes those types of items, 
breaks them down to their chemical building blocks, and creates 
virgin quality plastic that allows it to go into very demanding 
applications, like food contact, pharmaceutical, and medical. 
And advanced recycling is going to be key as part of that 
comprehensive strategy that the Congresswoman from Texas 
mentioned, that all of the above strategy we need to solve the 
plastic waste problem.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Fantastic. Well, thank you for that. Thank 
you to our witnesses again, and to Madam Chair, and I yield 
back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. And with that we'll now recognize Mr. 
Beyer, from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
     Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much, and I want 
to thank your mother for doing the hard work 29 years ago and 
giving birth to you, so I'm glad she's here with you today on 
your birthday.
     I want to say that I am very supportive of this Act, and 
I'm all in on more research and development, and I do believe 
that there's better living through chemistry, but I also think 
the elephant in the room is why not less plastics? We seem to 
spend an awful lot of time talking about recycling, and putting 
plastics together, but our colleague Alan Lowenthal from Long 
Beach has a banning single use plastics bill. There are now 69 
countries that have banned plastic bags. There are at least 
dozen that banned microbeads, including the United States and 
the U.K. Dr. Keoleian, I know you're all about sustainability. 
Is there not--are we not missing a big piece of this just by 
thinking about better ways to use less plastics?
     Dr. Keoleian. Yes. You make a very good point and 
observation. We really need to look holistically at solving our 
problems, in terms of providing goods and services economically 
and sustainably. And yes, plastics do afford benefits of light-
weighting and safety, you know, protecting products, but there 
is--you know, we really do need to look at--what we do in life 
cycle assessment is look at the impacts in production, use, and 
retirement, and evaluate the total energy, greenhouse gas 
emissions, and waste. And there are definitely opportunities 
today where we could substitute materials, use more durable 
solutions, and reduce, you know, the use of plastics.
     Plastics clearly have a critical role in our society, but 
I think we could be smarter with substitutions, and--because if 
we just focus on recycling, we could actually increase the 
proliferation of plastics, and actually make recycling more 
challenging, and the volumes could go up, which means more 
resources. So, as you know, we are in a climate crisis. We need 
a different calculus about how we look at sustainable systems 
and solutions, and so I think it's really critical that, when 
we evaluate innovations in recycling infrastructure, we look 
from a life cycle lens.
     And, you know, plastics are carbon intensive. There are 
other materials that are less carbon intensive, but they are--
you know, they do offer advantages. But you get these tradeoffs 
that occur, and it's important to use a systems approach to 
address it.
     Mr. Beyer. Yeah, sometimes even just little things--like, 
you see on Capitol Hill, many Members will carry around the 
big, you know, 32 ounce or 64 ounce water bottles, which is a 
huge improvement over buying yet another water bottle, you 
know, a dozen at a time.
     Ms. Harrison, you have a background in ocean plastics, 
among other things, and--which is--just scares the dickens out 
of me. You know, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the 
size of Texas, and that's one of only five major garbage 
patches in the world. I mean, I just read we have up to two 
million tons of plastics per year entering the ocean through 
our rivers. What are we going to do to address this?
     Ms. Harrison. Well, I think it gets back to your first 
question. I agree that recycling will not solve this. Recycling 
is part of a circular economy, but it is not the solution. 
Recycling is a reaction. Recycling only happens when there's a 
big enough pile that someone can turn into something new. If we 
wait for that pile to accumulate in the ocean, we have missed 
our opportunity to prevent it from happening in the first 
place.
     Yeah, I started off by studying turtles, and a couple 
years ago I was on a research ship that took corporate execs 
and, actually, my biologist--my lead biologist instructor from 
college, she joined me on this trip, because I said, don't you 
want to join corporate executives in the middle of the ocean to 
see the plastics up front in the Sargasso Sea? And we jumped in 
the middle of the water. We jumped in the Atlantic Ocean 50 
kilometers east of Bermuda, and we saw the microplastics, but 
we also macro. We saw fishing gear, we saw toilet seats, we saw 
sporks. If we wait for sporks to be in the middle of the 
Sargasso Sea, we have waited too long. We have to talk about a 
system solution that takes into concepts--that takes R&D 
concepts and marries them to economics. I love this 
conversation about cross-agency collaboration. We must think 
about it from a system point of view so we prevent the problem, 
not just cleanup the problem.
     Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much, and I yield back, Madam 
Chair.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Great. And, with that, allow me to 
recognize my friend and colleague Dr. Baird for 5 minutes of 
questioning.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you, Madam Chair, and, again, happy 
birthday. Ranking Member Waltz and our witnesses, we really 
appreciate all of you being here. And I really appreciate Ms. 
Harrison mentioning Polywood of Indiana, that makes outdoor 
furnitures out of detergent bottles. And then just last week I 
spoke to the ERI, which is the Electronic Recyclers 
International, a company located in my district which 
specializes in electronics recycling. And while, yes, this 
hearing pertains to and focuses on the plastics recycling, I 
believe that some of the themes remain the same when we view 
recycling at a global level. And this is an issue that you 
mentioned in your testimony, Dr. Keoleian.
     The United States exports waste to developing countries, 
which includes both plastics and electronics waste. I'd discuss 
the national security and the counterfeiting which occurs from 
exporting electronics waste, but that is but one issue. And as 
such countries also present severe environmental harm by 
improperly disposing of these materials, that being plastics as 
well as the electronics. Realistically what's happening when 
such countries import these plastics, and is there anything 
that we can be doing to help in the disposal and make sure it's 
handled properly? Dr. Keoleian?
     Dr. Keoleian. Yeah. So one thing--just focusing on 
electronic waste, I know the GAO (Government Accountability 
Office) did a study and showed that there is a lot of illegal 
activity of exporting waste, hazardous waste, and so one 
activity that the Congress could do is strengthen the auditing 
and, you know, crack down more on this illegal activity, 
because that is posing problems in terms of, you know, 
hazardous waste, and how they're managed improperly in 
developing countries. So--and then we've talked about, you 
know, setting up the infrastructure here so we're not 
exporting. I think we need to take responsibility--total 
producer responsibility in terms of how our products are 
managed at end of life, and we can't rely on exporting. And I 
think that there's a recognition that we also want to have 
leadership in setting up a system to be able to properly manage 
products like electronics to reduce risk. So I think, one, 
accountability in terms of enforcement of the current 
regulations that we have on electronics waste would go a long 
ways.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you for that. Dr. Hillmyer, in your 
testimony you suggest bio-based fuels--I'm changing direction 
here a little bit. You suggest that bio-based products would 
make for promising materials to use in place of some of the 
traditional manufacturing materials, and so, with my ag 
background, I'm interested in how agriculture might play a role 
in solving some of these issues, and provide the raw materials 
for making alternative materials that would function for the 
same purpose. So do you have any comments in that regard?
     Dr. Hillmyer. Congressman, thank you, absolutely. There's 
really--I spoke about in my testimony bio-based products, the 
idea that you would use annually renewable crops to generate 
not only new chemicals, Congressman, but actually incumbent 
chemicals that could be drop-in replacements for petroleum-
based materials I think is an active and important area of 
research. One area that is, I think, important now is the 
ability to use non-nutritive biomass, you know, you can imagine 
grasses and woody biomass, so that there's no disruption of the 
food chain. But, of course, it turns out that it's a lot easier 
to process things like corn, and sugar beets, and other 
materials that have sugars that are more readily accessible to 
fermentation processes, for example. That basic research, and 
that fundamental understanding of how to convert those bio-
based resources, into both new chemicals and drop-in 
replacements is in need of more effort and more research to 
make these processes technologically viable. In the fullness of 
time, using, like I said, non-nutritive biomass I think is a 
really important goal for the industry.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you, and I see I'm out of time, so I 
yield back, Madam Chair.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Perfectly on time. And, with that, the 
Chair is going to recognize Dr. Bill Foster for 5 minutes of 
questioning.
     Mr. Foster. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, Mr. Baca, first 
off, thank you for your shoutout to Argonne National Lab, not 
only because I represent Argonne, but it's really a perfect 
example, you know, the research you cited, of why this 
Committee is committed on a bipartisan basis to doubling DOE's 
budget across the full range of its mission. It's just one 
small but important part.
     So my question to anyone that wants to try, what do you do 
with high performance plastics? You know, how do you deal with 
plastics that have, you know, glass fibers for structural 
strength, or colorance, or carbon-black? You know, are there 
classes of really high performance plastics, you know, high 
temperature thermosets, like, you know, polyimides, like 
Kapton, the epoxies and so on, for which there really is not 
going to be a realistic recycling scenario, or--maybe short of 
pyrolyzing them? You know, what fraction of the current and 
potential market is this? Should we just focus on the generic 
plastics, and acknowledge that there's a--some classes of 
hopefully low volume plastics that are just going to be really 
tough, and we should, at least for now, give up on them? Anyone 
want to take a stab at----
     Dr. Hillmyer. Congressman, I don't mind taking at stab, at 
least at the--some aspect of it. I think you have an important 
point, in that high performance materials, for example, 
composite materials, certainly have challenges associated with 
how to recycle them, but the contemporary research in this 
arena, in the thermoset arena, let me just address one of them, 
is actually going on at the Center for Sustainable Polymers, is 
that--how do you--able to reprocess these materials? 
Thermosets, as you may know, are typically viewed as 
unreprocessable, but current research in dynamic exchange of 
covalent bonds allows for these materials to be reprocessed in 
ways that were not available before. So while recycling, 
biodegradation, and other aspects of solving this plastic waste 
dilemma are important, I do think reuse, and repurposing, and 
reprocessing of materials could play a role, and they may very 
well come along with composite materials, and, as you say, 
fiberglass that's in there.
     I'll end by saying that, yes, these are a smaller portion 
of our plastics waste dilemma. I do not think we should ignore 
it, but I think there are more pressing issues in, for example, 
the more common and ubiquitous plastic packaging.
     Mr. Foster. Does anyone want to say--yeah, how do you view 
of the future of this? Is it going--are we going to go more and 
more to solvent-type recycling, or, you know, what are the 
future technologies? Or just do a really good job with 
mechanical separation with robotics and--you know, what are the 
technologies that are going to end up being important to this? 
Anyone?
     Mr. Baca. Well, Congressman, I'll take a shot at that. I 
mean, I think some of the work that I talked about, in regards 
to advanced recycling, right now is largely focused on plastic 
packaging, but there's no doubt that we can learn from some of 
those breakthroughs to see how we scale it across a variety of 
other industries. We, as a plastics industry, represent a 
variety of companies that do a variety of things in this space. 
One key area that our companies are really focused in on is 
helping create a low carbon future by light-weighting vehicles 
and making them more energy efficient.
     We have been working--we've already outlined a roadmap 
that deals with the issue of circularity in the automotive 
space, and it's going to require a lot more effort by work on 
this Committee, and by government agencies, to really think 
about that R&D aspect of that, because what we're doing right 
now is we're solving an issue from a carbon perspective, but we 
now need to think about how we make these materials more 
sustainable, and reutilize them over and over and over again.
     I was speaking to a sustainability fellow at Ford, and, 
you know, even thinking about their vision a little bit, with 
the electrification of cars and autonomous vehicles, for 
instance, you know, those parts are valuable. They have high 
value that could be used again and again, so there's no doubt 
that more work needs to be done. My hope would be that some of 
the work and the breakthroughs on things like advanced 
recycling could eventually extend into some of these other 
applications.
     Mr. Foster. You know, so it's--I think it's in Germany 
where they're--actually have very serious requirements on 
recyclability for cars they're manufacturing. Is that a correct 
remembrance of some story I've seen? You know, I guess, you 
know, you're talking about the dream of having, you know, cars 
that are assembled by robots at the factories, and then at the 
end of their life they drive back to the factory, then the same 
robots that put them together take them apart, and separate 
them--melt down the plastic parts and cast them into new 
pieces, you know, that--sort of as an ultimate endpoint. But 
the Germans I thought were actually making some requirements 
already on cars.
     Mr. Baca. I don't know off the top of my head, 
Congressman. We could definitely get that submitted for the 
record. But I think your point is spot on, just what you said. 
If you think of a futuristic world here, and the manufacturing 
of vehicles, that vision you outlined is one that I think we 
wholeheartedly subscribe to. The material is super valuable. It 
adds tremendous value. It's not waste. And if we could capture 
that material, break it down to its building blocks and re-use 
it again, that's not just good for the environment. It's a 
sustainable product, it reduces our reliance on natural 
resources, and it's going to create circularity and 
sustainability across a variety of industries.
     Mr. Foster. Yeah. And all the leftover parts won't have 
motor oil sprayed all over it. I guess my time is up, so I'll 
yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. OK.
     Mr. Baca. Thank you, Congressman.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thanks. And now the Chair will 
recognize the Congressman from Michigan, Peter Meijer, for 5 
minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and once again, on 
behalf of a fellow Member of the Michigan delegation, happy 
birthday. Just wanted to again thank both our Ranking Member 
and our Chair for hosting this Subcommittee hearing, and I 
think it's an incredibly important topic, and one that, in West 
Michigan, we care deeply about. We have two landfills in our 
largest county, Kent County, one of which is nearing the end of 
its lifecycle, and I'm proud to say that our county and local 
officials are looking at ways of turning it into a sustainable 
business park in order to recapture the value stream that right 
now is being disposed of. And I want to also appreciate the 
Ranking Member's remarks on the idea of a circular economy, and 
what we can do to really close down some of those waste 
streams. And obviously single use plastics is a main one. The 
plastics that are not getting recycled that are recyclable are 
also incredibly significant, but ever since the 2018 National 
Sword policy by China, we lost one of our most valuable output 
mechanisms and sorting mechanisms for dealing with that 
comingled, but recyclable, waste.
     We also have a very strong plastics industry in our Third 
District that supports thousands of jobs, and the chemical 
industry, and auto manufacturing, and even in the packaging of 
breakfast cereals. I have Battle Creek in my district, Cereal 
City U.S.A., so plastics plays a vital role. I guess one of my 
questions, first for Mr. Baca, as we're thinking about single 
use plastics and compostable plastics coming on board, and I 
know we've spoken about some of the difficulties of-- or just 
the contamination that can occur when compostable or 
biodegradable plastics are introduced into a recyclable plastic 
stream, what are the opportunities to be shifting those single 
use applications into a biodegradable or compostable 
alternative?
     Mr. Baca. Well, Congressman, thank you for that question, 
and I think both of those are part of that all of the above 
solution that the Congresswoman from Texas mentioned here. I 
think the key point that I would mention regarding this, and 
this kind of cuts across a variety of comments that were 
already made today, innovation is going to be what wins the day 
on solving this problem, not bans, and not more regulation. 
Innovation on how we deal with compostability, innovation on 
how we deal with deal with biodegradability, innovation on how 
we create a circular economy for plastics, where we're using 
valuable material over and over again, that is what circularity 
is. What that will ultimately create is a low carbon future 
that all of us want, because it would require us using less 
natural resources to create these products.
     So to your--to the specific point of your question, I 
think this goes back to the overarching theme of what this 
Committee is talking about today. More work is needed. We need 
to think and leverage the best of what we have, whether it's 
the Department of Energy, whether it's our National Labs, 
whether it's the Commerce Department. All of these agencies 
play a very critical role in connecting the research dots to 
ensure that science guides the expansion of things like 
biodegradability, research guides the things like 
compostability, and collaboration continues to guide the work 
around circularity.
     Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Baca. And, Dr. Keoleian, I 
really enjoyed reading your testimony, and it's good to welcome 
a witness from the Great Lakes State. I should note that your 
professorship at the University of Michigan is named for Peter 
Wege, who is a son of West Michigan, and directed much of his 
energy and philanthropy into environmental causes. He coined 
the term economicology, combining economy and ecology, so very 
much a believer that we need to be caring for the environment, 
but doing so in a way that is economically ultimately 
beneficial, which I believe conservatism--or, sorry, 
conservationism, but also conservatism, are. You know, using 
Peter Wege's lens, how should Congress be approaching that life 
cycle of plastic materials to have maximum benefit for the 
economy?
     Dr. Keoleian. Well, in addition to looking at life cycle 
assessment of energy and greenhouse gas emissions, we also look 
at life cycle cost. And, you know, one example, we did a study 
on--for the State of Oregon on bottled water versus reusable 
systems. And clearly there's--you know, using tap water and 
filling a container is going to be much more economical than 
using a disposable bottle. And, you know, this--and the energy 
savings, and the waste is significantly different. So we need 
to be smart and really look at--when we look at solutions, we 
do need to look at the economics, and I believe we also need to 
look at certain regulations and standards, because it's not 
just going to be innovation. I think it's critical that we take 
an interdisciplinary approach, and bring together the 
economics, policy, technology, and behavior.
     Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Madam Chair. My time has expired, 
and I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Great questions. And, with that, the 
Chair is now going to recognize the Congresswoman from the nice 
State of North Carolina, Congresswoman Ross.
     Ms. Ross. Well, thank you very much, Chairwoman Stevens, 
and I hope this is a very, very happy birthday for you. I also 
want to thank our witnesses for joining us today on this 
extremely important issue that affects people's everyday lives. 
In my home State of North Carolina, we're one of the top 
plastic producers in the country. As of 2019 we were ranked in 
the top 10 in the country in terms of number of employees in 
the plastics industry, with over 38,000 employees.
     But we've also played an important role in plastic waste 
reduction and recycling innovation. In 2009, when I served in 
the North Carolina State Legislature, we were facing serious 
issues with litter and sea turtle deaths along the Outer Banks, 
one of the most pristine parts of our State. In response we 
passed a law that banned single use plastic bags in six 
counties along the Outer Banks. While this law was generally 
supported in those communities, it was repealed in 2017. In 
addition, we have researchers at North Carolina State 
University in my district who have been involved in plastic 
waste reduction and recycling research. In addition to the 
company previously mentioned, one graduate of NC State's 
College of Textiles, Bill Johnston, went on to found a 
sustainable clothing company that converts plastic bottles into 
fiber that is spun into yarn, knitted into fabric, and sewn 
into clothing. And I focus a lot in my questions about the next 
generation because we're such a STEM- (science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics-) focused area of the country.
     And so, to all the witnesses, I want to ask you how we 
inspire the next generation to get involved in STEM fields, to 
be excited about recycling, and not using plastics in the first 
place. We've seen so much leadership from the next generation 
about climate issues, and about things like recycling. Beyond 
teaching kids in schools, how can we better encourage them to 
pursue education and careers like you all have?
     Ms. Harrison. I would be happy to jump in, and, as a 
graduate of a North Carolina university, UNCG ( University of 
North Carolina--Greensboro), I'm happy to practice this 
research. I--my degree was in Human Ecology and Natural 
Resources, how we put this all together, and what's what I want 
to look for as I'm inspiring young people, and young diverse 
people, to be involved.
     When we think of how we engage kids into this space, I 
think we often think about campaigns. We've all seen those. 
What we really need is to spark the innovation of our youth 
into looking to the system solution that we keep talking about. 
We can't just R&D our way. We can't just look for a singular 
technology. We have to really think about pivoting from how do 
we respond to the problem to how do we prevent it from the 
first place? How do we know, from the very concept of design, 
whether it's an advanced plastic material, like we were just 
talking about, or packaging? We know whether it's going to be 
linear, a landfill, or circular, that it can become something 
else. That is the work that The Recycling Partnership is doing 
to advance diversity in this space to bring young minds to 
think about it holistically.
     Ms. Ross. I think I'm going to move on to my next question 
so that I can get another one in, but somebody wants to 
amplify, please do so. So this one's for Dr. Hillmyer. Last 
month the Department of Energy announced investments of up to 
14.5 million dollars for R&D to cut waste and reduce energy use 
to recycle single use plastics. How does your research group, 
and others working on chemical recycling technology, integrate 
a sustainable chemistry or green approach with your research in 
order to design ways to minimize or neutralize any potential 
harmful byproducts of the chemical recycling process?
     Dr. Hillmyer. Thank you, Congresswoman. We work hard on 
this--we'll call it advanced recycling in the subset of 
chemical recycling, and really trying to understand the 
fundamentals of how you can take established plastics and ones 
that we design on purpose to be efficiently chemically recycled 
in--let's--and we commented on--about use of solvent or in 
green chemistry ways that don't require solvent, that require 
stimuli such as temperature or light, that allow you to turn 
plastics that are useful in their everyday application 
efficiently back to the molecules from which they came using 
the principles of green chemistry. If we can do that, those 
molecules can then be--can generate virgin plastic that has the 
same benefit.
     Ms. Ross. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Great. And, with that, we're going to 
recognize Mr. Conor Lamb, Congressman from the nice State of 
Pennsylvania, for 5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we are nice. So 
nice, in fact, that we, on behalf of the whole State, we'd like 
to wish you a happy birthday today as well. To our witnesses, 
thank you for hanging on this long. Dr. Hillmyer, I kind of 
wanted to pick up where I think you were leaving off, which 
is--of course, our jurisdiction on this Committee really is to 
try to move forward the Nation's research agenda, and help 
answer kind of unanswered questions, particularly ones of a 
longer term nature that individual businesses might find 
profitable to answer on their own. So would you mind just kind 
of summarizing, or commenting on, the state of knowledge about 
where we're going in composting, and the breakdown of, you 
know, so-called biodegradable recyclables and plastics, and 
maybe give me a little bit more specific insight into, you 
know, if there's two or three big questions that we can really 
help answer, say, in the next decade, what are they?
     Dr. Hillmyer. Thank you, Congressman. This is an area that 
I'm quite passionate about, and very interested in, and I'll 
reiterate what I said earlier is this word biodegradation, over 
what timeframe, and under what conditions? And I think this is 
where the basic research plays a key role, is understanding 
exactly what happens, let's say in industrial compost, at high 
temperature and high humidity, as opposed to maybe backyard 
compost, or in the environment? And how to differentiate the 
chemistries, and differentiate the fundamental processes that 
go on in those different environments so you can understand and 
predict the lifetimes of these materials in the environment.
     The second piece that's important, I think, is what do 
they break down to, and how do we understand we're not just 
generating, for example, smaller shards of plastic that are 
recalcitrant? And so, following it all the way through the 
breakdown process, and understanding both the physical 
phenomena and the chemical phenomena are critically important, 
and we have research in the center on this, really trying to 
understand those fundamental processes. How do microorganisms 
break down what ultimately results from, let's say, the 
hydrolysis or biodegradation of compostable plastics?
     I view this, again, as a piece of the solution to plastic 
waste, but it will come with infrastructure and clear education 
and understanding of what is meant by compostable, and how the 
processes actually take place. I think this is a really 
important contemporary area of research. More research is 
needed to understand the design factors, what you might build 
into the plastic to have it break down under certain conditions 
in efficient ways. And I love the idea of a systems approach, 
where it's design of molecules, evaluate performance, and 
understanding end of life scenarios that allow a complete 
lifecycle to be understood at a very fundamental level.
     Mr. Lamb. Well, I very much appreciate that, and I think 
the Chairwoman's bill will certainly help us advance toward 
that goal. Do any of our other witnesses want to answer my 
question in the minute 50 I have remaining, just kind of 
clarifying the specific question that you would like to see us 
help answer in the next decade or so?
     Ms. Harrison. I'll say quickly that I would encourage this 
Committee to--when they think about composting, I very often 
hear people thinking about composting because recycling--the 
to-do list for recycling seems hard. When we get--when we begin 
to pivot to what else, we have to ask ourselves, is the to-do 
list for making plastics compostable even longer? Currently 4 
percent of the U.S. population has access to that commercial 
composting. That's significantly less than who has access to 
traditional recycling, so I want to make sure that we're not 
pivoting to something because the current problem seems hard, 
but instead pulling back and saying, how do we, from the very 
concept of the idea, make sure that we have a good solution? 
Dr. Keoleian?
     Dr. Keoleian. Yeah, I would just add that, you know, we 
think of composting as very positive. You know, backyard 
compost--or I compost at my house, I put that compost into my 
garden. It's a soil amendment. But what we're talking about 
here is really dealing with litter, avoiding the litter, and 
it's really a lost resource. You know, this is plastic that 
has, you know, embodied energy in it, and we're just 
dissipating it into the environment to deal with a litter 
problem. So I really think we've got to look critically at what 
we want to make compostable. Again, it's back to holistic 
solutions.
     Mr. Lamb. OK. Well, I really appreciate the [inaudible] we 
can get the Chairwoman's bill passed, it will certainly move us 
down the road to answering some of that. So, appreciate your 
presence and your insights, and, Madam Chairwoman, I yield 
back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Well, thank you, and what a nice note 
to begin to close the hearing out on, because it's true, we've 
got a tremendous piece of legislation, and this hearing was the 
kickoff for this legislative session to really make sure that 
we're on the right track. And, hearing from stakeholders from 
across the spectrum, you know, with Mr. Baca being from the 
American Chemistry Council, that, if you heard in his 
testimony, and I'll repeat it again, is very dedicated to the, 
you know, all hands on deck approach, and also bringing in the 
expertise that we need to hear from, to Keefe Harrison, who, 
you know, just has her finger on the pulse of what's going on 
across the country, and Dr. Marc Hillmyer, who I feel like I 
could--you know, along with Dr. Keoleian, your just wealth of 
knowledge and dedication, both with Dr. Keoleian with the Wege 
Professorship, who, as Mr. Meijer referenced, is, you know, 
just was an American hero, and so dedicated to our State of 
Michigan, both sides of the State of Michigan. And, you know, 
Dr. Hillmyer, sometimes people confuse Michigan and Minnesota, 
but we know you're on the other side of the lake, you know, a 
couple of other sides of the lake, so--and then we can debate 
who really is the land of many, many lakes. But we really are 
grateful for your dedicated research, and your time today.
     And where we find ourselves in this legislative session, 
is, you know, really at I think the tipping point of something 
tremendous. We call today's hearing moving from staggering 
statistics, if you recall hearing me share that just 9 percent 
of our recycling, it--nine percent of our plastics is recycled. 
How do we increase that? I mean, how do we even begin to think 
about doubling to sustainable systems? And the systems 
component, right, moving from staggering statistics to 
sustainable systems, is so important because we hear about, you 
know, the individual enthusiasm, and the consumer enthusiasm. 
And even as Ms. Ross was referencing in her questions, and what 
she's seeing in her district in North Carolina with individual 
entrepreneurs and business leaders, but we really do need a 
systems approach, and this also comes as a unique time as the 
United States is charting a path forward on our broader 
infrastructure as well.
     And--OK, it does look like, as I was filibustering here, a 
colleague from--another colleague from the nice State of 
Pennsylvania, Congresswoman Susan Wild has come in for 
questions, so allow me to pause on my preamble, and recognize 
her for 5 minutes of questioning.
     Ms. Wild. Well, thank----
     Chairwoman Stevens. Ms. Wild?
     Ms. Wild. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'm sorry to come in 
late. I'm juggling three Committees this morning, so we all 
know how that goes, and so I'm just going to keep it short. But 
I've been listening to as much of this hearing as I possibly 
could because it's an interest of great--it's a topic of great 
personal interest to me. And so what I'd really just--I'll just 
throw this out there to Dr. Keoleian. A recent study concluded 
that large amounts of plastic would accumulate in the 
environment even if we used every currently feasible effort to 
achieve an 80 percent reduction in plastic pollution by 2040. 
You and other experts agree that designing materials for 
recyclability will be key to sustainable plastic waste 
reduction. What steps do we need to take to ensure coordination 
between product design and options for end of life plastic 
management? And that's going to be my only question, because I 
know it's kind of a big, far-ranging question.
     Dr. Keoleian. So one of the things I recommended that we 
emphasize, in terms of the R&D, in terms of the investment 
there, and the research, is that we have industry participate 
with the scientists, with government, to look at what kinds of 
policies could help make innovations more implementable, or 
accelerate the implementation, and also to work with community 
partners. So we really need to look at co-creation of 
solutions. I think that will be really beneficial in terms of 
ensuring that we're going to coordinate between product design 
and end of life. So we need to bring the OEM (original 
equipment manufacturer) to make automobiles in with Marc's 
group, and also involve, you know, those that are responsible 
for end of life recycling infrastructure. So I think that 
interdisciplinary approach, and co-creation of solutions is 
important.
     And then the other is we really need to look at--you know, 
Europe really helped push, you know, reducing the amount of 
waste in automobiles with their guideline. It was mentioned 
about Germany. Well, Europe--the--Europe set guidelines on 
automobiles to reduce the amount of auto shredder residue, the 
amount of waste. And those kinds of policies can also help 
accelerate, you know, solutions that are technological, and so 
I think that's important as well.
     Ms. Wild. Thank you. I have to say, and I--this comes 
somewhat from--well, this--I had a personal experience not too 
long ago where I was on an island in the Caribbean--I know, 
that--right--play me a violin, right? That sounds so sad. But 
anyway, one of the things--and it was a very rustic island, and 
one of the things that really struck me--of course, there are a 
lot of places in the world that just have a tremendous amount 
of trouble moving their trash, quite honestly, because of being 
ocean-locked, and I understand those concerns. As a result, I 
saw little to no effort to recycle, because they're--they just 
had trouble getting plain old trash off the island, let alone 
dealing with plastics recycling. But it was tragic because here 
I was, in a beautiful place with just an abundance of plastic 
waste all over the place.
     And so I think we're going to have to get to a point where 
the manufacturers are looking at that end of life solution, 
that end of plastic life management, where, you know, there's 
some way other than just--because this is such a global 
problem. And if we don't look at global solutions, we're just 
never going to solve it. So thank you very much for your input. 
Thank you all. This has been really very helpful. For--the 
parts that I was able to participate in and listen to, I really 
enjoyed. Thank you. Madam Chair, I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent. Well, congratulations to my 
colleague for her three hearings, and managing to make it in 
for this one, because your voice and viewpoints are very 
important to us. And, look, we are going to bring the hearing 
to a close. We don't have any more questions. I do want to 
thank our Science Committee staff on both sides of the aisle 
here in the Committee Room, and it is absolutely set up 
expertly, with great professionalism. We were able to do this 
in a hybrid format, as we, you know, start to kind of come back 
to the way things were, and that's never a light switch, as 
we've been learning in this pandemic, but we were able to 
achieve the success and goal of this hearing. And, frankly, 
we're in a nice springboard, as I was saying, to what's next, 
and we're going to continue to leave the record open for 2 
weeks for additional statements from Members, or additional 
questions that the--that Members may have of the witnesses. I 
know we are going to continue to draw down on the expertise of 
this just great panel of witnesses. And so, at this time, the 
witnesses are going to be virtually excused. They're going to 
be excused, and the hearing is now adjourned.
     [Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

                                Appendix

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                   Additional Material for the Record




           Letters submitted by Representative Haley Stevens


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