What happens to collected plastic? Recycling, co-processing and landfill

Collection is only the first step. A bag of sachets picked up from a riverbank still has to go somewhere, and where it goes decides what good the work did. I want to understand the whole journey, including what happens after the plastic has been collected.

This guide follows that journey. If you are new to plastic credits, start with What is a plastic credit?.

Why the destination matters

Most plastic is never recycled. The OECD's Global Plastics Outlook found that in 2019 only 9% of the world's plastic waste was recycled. About 19% was incinerated, almost half went to sanitary landfill and 22% was dumped in uncontrolled sites, burned in the open or leaked into the environment.

That last 22% is what plastic credits are meant to reduce. Moving plastic out of a river and into a controlled facility is real progress. But "controlled" covers very different outcomes, and it is easy to assume recycling when the plastic went somewhere else.

Play video: What Happens to Collected Plastic? Recycling, Co-processing, Landfill3 min

The journey after collection

1. 01

   Collection. Waste workers, community groups or municipal crews pick plastic up from streets, beaches, dumpsites or households.

2. 02

   Sorting and aggregation. The plastic is weighed, sorted by type and colour, and baled at a local centre. Clean, single-material plastic such as PET bottles is separated from mixed and dirty material.

3. 03

   Transport. Bales move to a recycler, a cement plant, an energy-from-waste plant or a landfill.

4. 04

   End destination. The plastic is turned into new material, burned for energy or buried.

Each handover should leave a record: a weighbridge ticket, a delivery note, a receipt from the next site. Those documents are what an auditor checks. How plastic credits are verified explains that process.

The main destinations

Mechanical recycling. The plastic is shredded, washed and melted into flakes or pellets, which go into new products. Under the international standard ISO 15270, mechanical recycling processes plastic waste into secondary raw material without significantly changing its chemical structure. It works best for clean, sorted, single-material plastic.

Chemical recycling. Processes such as pyrolysis break plastic down into monomers or other raw materials. ISO 15270 counts this as recycling only when the output becomes new material. Turning plastic into fuel to be burned is energy recovery, not recycling.

Co-processing in cement kilns. Cement kilns heat raw materials to about 1450°C. Plastic that cannot be recycled can be shredded into fuel and burned in the kiln, replacing some coal or other fossil fuel, while its mineral ash ends up in the clinker. Guidelines from Holcim and GIZ say plastic that can be recycled in a closed loop should not go to co-processing, which is meant for material nobody can recycle.

Incineration with energy recovery. Waste-to-energy plants burn mixed waste and recover heat or electricity. The plastic is destroyed and its carbon is released as carbon dioxide.

Controlled landfill. A sanitary landfill contains plastic and stops it reaching rivers and the sea. The plastic stays there indefinitely.

Open burning and dumping. These are what collection aims to prevent. They release smoke and leave plastic free to wash into waterways.

What plastic credits say about destinations

Different credits cover different parts of the journey, so read the type before you read the number.

Under Verra's Plastic Program, a Waste Collection Credit stands for one tonne of plastic collected and sent to an acceptable end destination beyond the project's baseline. Verra's collection methodology accepts mechanical and chemical recycling, incineration with energy recovery and landfill, each with its own criteria. It excludes open burning, dumping on land or in water, and incineration without energy recovery. When Verra revised the methodology in June 2022, it eased its landfill criteria for regions without access to fully compliant sites and told projects to reduce their use of landfill over time as recycling becomes available.

A Waste Recycling Credit stands for one tonne of plastic recycled beyond the baseline. Verra has said that turning plastic into fuel or energy does not qualify for these credits.

So a collection credit can be accurate and still mean the plastic was burned or buried. The problem starts when someone describes it as recycling.

The co-processing debate

Supporters of co-processing, including the cement industry and development agencies, see it as the best option for plastic nobody can recycle. Holcim and GIZ argue that it reduces open burning and uncontrolled dumping, replaces fossil fuel and raw materials, and respects the waste hierarchy as long as recyclable material is kept out of the kiln.

Critics, including Break Free From Plastic and GAIA, argue that credits for burning plastic swap one kind of pollution for another and remove the pressure to make less plastic. The article Are plastic credits greenwashing? covers their research.

Which side applies depends on the plastic. By the guidelines' own logic, multilayer sachets in a place with no recycling market are a case for a well-run kiln, and PET bottles that a recycler would take are not. Either way, the credit should name the route, and nobody should call it recycling.

What I look for

From working with plastic materials in production, I know that gathering a material and turning it into something useful again are separate problems. So I follow the plastic past the collection point: how it is sorted, where it goes and what it becomes.

Honest Ocean, one of our partners in Indonesia, connects collection and sorting with recycled resin production and material traceability. That link between collection and a new material is what I want to see, because it shows where the plastic ended up.

Questions to ask about any project

1. Which destinations does the project use, and in what shares?

2. Is the credit a collection credit or a recycling credit?

3. Can you see the delivery records from each destination?

4. Is any plastic that could be recycled going to a kiln or landfill instead?

5. Does the landfill meet the standard's criteria?

6. Is the project moving more of its plastic up the hierarchy over time?

How to describe it

Say what happened. For example: "We funded the collection of 40 tonnes of plastic in Kenya in 2026. 15 tonnes were mechanically recycled and 25 tonnes were co-processed in a cement kiln." That is less tidy than "we recycled 40 tonnes", and it is true. Our guide to buying plastic credits responsibly covers wording in more detail.

Frequently asked questions

Published by Reclaimed Earth Limited (Companies House 17392812), which works with plastic recovery projects in India, Indonesia and the Philippines and has a commercial interest in plastic credits. Honest Ocean is a Reclaimed Earth partner. Edited with the Reclaimed Earth editorial team. Last updated 20 October 2026.