The Trump administration recently removed a major roadblock for chemical recycling, an unproven set of technologies that the oil and plastic industries are pitching as a panacea to the world’s plastic pollution crisis. Now, amid an unprecedented lobbying push and with corporate allies ensconced in key regulatory agencies, the industries are clamoring for a nationwide buildout of chemical recycling facilities that experts say are highly polluting, disastrous for climate change, and almost entirely ineffective.

In promotional videos and policy fact sheets, often accompanied by professed commitments to a “circular economy” for plastic waste, these industries claim that sustainable recycling technologies — not limits on production — will solve the world’s plastic pollution crisis.

For decades, oil and gas companies have known that the majority of plastics — made from fossil fuel–derived chemicals — could not be recycled using traditional methods. But even as the industry faces state and class action lawsuits alleging deception, it’s now doubling down on a campaign to persuade lawmakers and regulators to embrace “advanced recycling,” or chemical recycling.