Dive Brief:
- The U.S. EPA is seeking comments on its intent to clarify that certain pyrolysis technologies used for chemical recycling purposes “are not forms of incineration” under the Clean Air Act. Public comments will help the agency develop future chemical recycling regulations, EPA said.
- The proposed update would remove the reference to “pyrolysis/combustion units” in the EPA’s definition of a municipal waste combustion unit under its Other Solid Waste Incinerators category to clarify that the OSWI rule doesn’t regulate such units. The comment period closes on May 4.
- The EPA had previously proposed dropping pyrolysis from this category in 2020, but the agency under the Biden administration reversed that carve-out proposal in 2023. However, the EPA left the door open for future changes by saying it planned to continue developing pyrolysis regulations later on.
Dive Insight:
The EPA’s intent to update the OSWI rule is the latest step in an ongoing debate over how the federal government should categorize pyrolysis under air emissions regulations that currently cover small MSW combustors and certain institutional waste incinerators.
The agency announced the proposed update last week as part of a larger proposal to roll back rules related to air curtain incinerators under the Clean Air Act.
Chemical recycling supporters, including some plastic industry groups like the American Chemistry Council, have long advocated for certain pyrolysis processes to be classified as manufacturing, not as a form of incineration or waste management.
ACC applauded the EPA’s latest request for public comments, saying it paves the way for making chemical recycling facility permitting and regulatory processes more consistent across the country. It also “helps address the current state of regulatory uncertainty that has been a headwind to scaling advanced recycling technologies,” said Ross Eisenberg, president of ACC’s plastics division, in a statement.
ACC and other groups like the Plastics Industry Association see a reclassification as an important part of being able to boost chemical recycling infrastructure projects to align with the Trump administration’s U.S.-centered manufacturing goals.
But environmental groups have fought against the reclassification — and the advancement of the chemical recycling sector at large. Groups like Beyond Plastics, Earthjustice, Greenpeace and Moms Clean Air Force say a reclassification would allow the industry to bypass important, and more stringent, air regulations. These groups have also said the chemical recycling industry’s scale and potential benefits are overexaggerated.
Congress is also mulling a federal bill that could align with EPA’s pyrolysis proposal. The Recycling Technology Innovation Act, introduced in December, seeks to amend the Clean Air Act to allow certain chemical recyclers to petition for their operations to be “excluded from the definition of solid waste incineration unit.”
According to the bill, also backed by ACC, certain chemical recyclers would be able to petition the U.S. EPA administrator to request their operations be “excluded from the definition of solid waste incineration unit.” These chemical recyclers would be defined as “an owner or operator of a unit that converts or transforms plastic or post-use polymers.”
If passed, the law would apply to certain units that make “products” through processes such as “pyrolysis, gasification, depolymerization, catalytic cracking, solvolysis, or chemolysis.”
Congress has spent more time weighing chemical recycling’s potential environmental and economic impacts in recent months.
At a congressional hearing in July 2025, chemical recycling industry groups framed chemical recycling as a key economic driver and urged lawmakers to reclassify the processes as manufacturing instead of waste management. During that meeting, the Flexible Packaging Association also voiced support for chemical recycling as a tool to increase recycling rates for some films and flexible packaging.
