How the Plastic Industry Misleads Consumers: Paid TikTok Influencers, Shady Facebook Ads, and Questionable Math

Industry documents obtained by Fieldnotes and first reported on by the New York Times detail a covert, multiyear effort led by some of the largest petrochemical and plastic companies in the world to mislead the public into believing disposable water bottles and other single-use containers are far more likely to be recycled than they actually are. Central to the coordinated effort, which began in earnest in 2018 and has become even more aggressive in recent years: obscuring, and even outright hiding, that the corporations are behind the effort to begin with.

The deceptive practices—which include paying TikTok influencers to parrot industry talking points, running Facebook ads that violate Meta ad standards, attempting to “newsjack” Olympic coverage, and hiring an aged Hollywood actor to host an infomercial designed to pass as PBS programming—are detailed in internal strategy memos, confidential PowerPoint presentations, and other communications from the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) and its allies dating back more than a half decade. Together, the material depicts a campaign that was drawn up to combat what the industry saw as a rising “tide of anti-plastic sentiment” and has since become central to its attempts to influence negotiations over a UN treaty to end plastic pollution.

Founded nearly 40 years ago, NAPCOR represents companies up and down the plastic packaging chain that deal in polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, as the plastic used to make soda bottles and takeout clamshell containers is more commonly known. Among the nearly 70 corporations that pay dues for the right to have a say in the group’s strategy:

• INEOS, a multinational conglomerate that acquired BP’s petchem business several years ago;

• Amcor, a global supplier of food and beverage packaging for everything from soda to sauce;

• Dart Container Corporation, maker of the Solo cups ubiquitous on American college campuses;

• And other corporate members, including the Eastman Chemical Company, Husky, and Sidel.

While NAPCOR focuses on promoting the use of PET packaging specifically, its efforts often overlap and align with a host of similar groups representing other petrochemical and plastic companies with their own vested interests in selling consumers on the benefits of recycling. Among those NAPCOR boasts internally of having developed “industry relationships” with, for example, are the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS), which is lobbying to vastly expand the definition of what is “recyclable,” and the Recycling Partnership, which is funded in part by ExxonMobil—the target of a lawsuit from California alleging a “decades-long campaign of deception” about the effectiveness of recycling.

Between May and July 2024, NAPCOR paid a half-dozen TikTok and Instagram Influencers to post videos featuring industry-approved talking points. As part of the deal—arranged by marketing firm Viral Nation—NAPCOR gave the influencers “required PET plastics messaging,” along with “additional messaging to help them respond to questions and comments specific to PET plastic,” internal documents show. But in order to make the content appear “authentic and from the creators' viewpoints,” NAPCOR explicitly told corporate members: “do not engage with it.”

While the paid posts included “sponsored by” disclaimers in their descriptions—though not in the videos themselves—instead of naming NAPCOR, the influencers cited “Positively PET,” a branded campaign launched by the trade group in 2019 and designed explicitly to make it more difficult for consumers to realize its connection to NAPCOR when engaging with its content on social media.

The videos include a number of deceptive or inaccurate statements. All six paid influencers, for instance, offer some version of NAPCOR’s misleading claim that a PET bottle is “100% recyclable and can be made with 100% recyclable content.” That hypothetical doesn’t align with reality: NAPCOR’s most recent annual report, published in December 2023 and covering 2022, found that just 29 percent of PET bottles are collected for recycling in the United States annually, a rate that has remained largely unchanged for the past decade.

Even that figure is misleading. While NAPCOR touts it as the “PET recycling rate,” in reality it does not account for bottles that are collected for recycling but never actually get recycled. A 2024 academic study estimated that when such losses in the processing chain are factored in, the PET bottle recycling rate is 24 percent. Neither estimate, meanwhile, accounts for PET plastics used for packaging other than bottles. (Nonetheless, NAPCOR is trying to convince the UN negotiators drawing up a global plastics treaty that PET plastic is not “single-use because it can be endlessly recycled,” according to a briefing the group prepared ahead of INC-5 in Busan, South Korea.)

Several other claims made by the influencers also go beyond the sales pitch they’d been given by NAPCOR. For example, in one of his videos, Chris Stocks, an influencer with 1.5 million followers on TikTok, claims 1.8 billion “tons of PET plastic are recycled in the U.S. each year.” The provided NAPCOR talking point, however, was more careful in its wording, allowing it to once again ignore bottles that are lost in the recycling chain: “1.8 billion pounds of PET are collected in the USA each year for recycling and used as raw material for new packaging and other products.” Other paid influencers make broader yet no more accurate statements. The Everywhere Family, for instance, declares confidently that “PET bottles are a closed-loop, zero-waste system,” which they are not now and likely never will be.

Still others offer vague statements that exaggerate PET as a climate solution. The user Cash Commute, for one, says that “PET plastics help ensure a greener and more sustainable future,” without considering non-packaged alternatives like tap water, while the account Dr. Brittany—whose personal blog describes herself as “a retired pharmacist”—offers the inaccurate superlative that “Recycling PET is the best and easiest way to help the environment.”

Not all influencer ad-libs work in favor of those paying for them, however. In one of her paid videos, Serena Stadler, an influencer with 6.9 million followers on TikTok who describes herself as a "full-time dog mom,” declares she “always opt[s] for PET plastics” — a statement she makes as she pours water from a PET bottle into what appears to be a (non-PET) polypropylene container for her dogs. (Notably, at least two of the influencers feature their pets in their posts, no doubt confusing at least some viewers about what PET stands for. )

The influencer campaign, which ran for three months, “surpassed [NAPCOR’s] expectations,” both in terms of reach and impact. The posts made 12.2 million impressions (more than doubling expectations) and a survey conducted alongside the effort showed the campaign “led to a significant increase for every brand health metric.” The campaign, NAPCOR’s comms director told members in September 2024, “proves that that educational, entertaining, authentic content about PET plastic can, and does, shape perspectives among target audiences.”

NAPCOR originally commissioned the “Positively PET” campaign in 2019 to stem what the group described internally as a rising “tide of anti-plastic sentiment.” A key part of the original pitch from the PR firm that designed the campaign, Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C), was the creation of social media channels under the “Positively PET” brand explicitly to make the NAPCOR name less prominent in the effort—“a strategy that is important to make sure consumers don’t feel that they’re being preached to,” as a NAPCOR summary of the AB&C pitch presented at a member meeting the previous year reads.

AB&C was ultimately selected to run the PET campaign in 2019 by a subcommittee that included oil major BP, chemical maker Indorama, and packaging giant Amcor, among other petrochemical and plastics heavyweights. (BP was an active member of NAPCOR from 1993 through 2021, at which point the company sold its petrochemical business to INEOS.)

Neither the Positively PET Facebook page nor its Twitter account list NAPCOR in their bios, a decision that aligns with the original approach proposed by AB&C. According to the Meta Ad Library, NAPCOR has never paid to run an ad campaign on Facebook. However, between 2020 and 2022, a total of 9 ads appeared on Facebook under the “Positively PET” brand. All 9 ads were removed for violating the platform's advertising standards—specifically for failing to include the “verified ‘Paid for by’ disclaimer” that is required for any ad about social issues, elections, or politics, according to the ad library database.

AB&C's proposal included an initial three-year budget for the campaign of $1.5 million. It is unclear whether the firm is still under contract with NAPCOR, though it presented to members as recently as 2022, and the “Positively PET” campaign remains active today. According to NAPCOR’s tax filings, the group spent a total of $1.8 million on the PET campaign between 2019 and 2023, the most recent year for which the tax records are publicly available. The campaign accounted for nearly one third (28 percent) of the group’s total spending during that period. When NAPCOR polled members in 2024, the campaign received the second most favorable marks of any of the group’s programs, trailing only its annual recycling report.

NAPCOR’s deceptive tactics have not been limited to social media. In 2023, the group partnered with other industry players, including the Plastics Industry Associations (PLASTICS), to commission an infomercial hosted by Hollywood actor Dennis Quaid that appears to have been designed to pass as PBS programming.

Viewpoint With Dennis Quaid (alternatively called Viewpoint Project With Dennis Quaid) describes itself as the maker of “meaningful documentaries” for “Public Television” (capitalization theirs)—and NAPCOR has even referred to it as “PBS Viewpoint” internally. But while the company’s website blurs the line between PBS programming and advertisements placed on public television—and likewise suggests subjects need to either “apply” or be “invited” to be featured on the program—in reality it is a for-profit production company that charges clients five-figures to make glossy promotional videos.

A Viewpoint document that details how the process works—including “project deliverables"—shows clients are required to pay a "Pre-Production Fee" within two weeks of hiring the company. The same document explains that “Segments are Edited based on Approved Script and Shot List” and that "Segments are Approved by Participant." Other clients have publicly disclosed the paid-content business model, including the city of Kingsport, Tenn., which told a local news station it paid Viewpoint $28,900 in 2023 to be featured on the show.

The industry-commissioned Viewpoint video, which hails PET bottles as "arguably one of mankind's greatest inventions," features interviews solely with industry representatives, with one exception: Matt Daum, the director of the Michigan State University’s School of Packaging. Notably, the MSU School of Packaging received a $10.8 million donation in 2021—described as a "transformative gift" at the time by the university—from NAPCOR corporate member Amcor, which NAPCOR communications show took the lead in commissioning the Viewpoint video.

NAPCOR and its members have been concerned about what they see as “anti-plastic sentiment” since at least the summer of 2018, and as recently as 2023 the group discussed ways to directly counter NGOs that have raised alarm over the health and environmental dangers of plastics.

In November 2023, the group heard from Andrew Moyer, a “top client crisis counselor” at the public-relations firm Reputation Partners who was listed as the media contact on the press release for the Viewpoint PET video. Moyer recommended NAPCOR and its members “combat environmental NGOs” and “their constant cadence of plastics aren’t recyclable," according to notes saved with his PowerPoint slides. He also listed Beyond Plastics president Judith Enck (misspelled “Enk”) as a specific concern. (This was not the only time the industry has struggled to correctly spell Enck’s name; a May 2022 presentation by AB&C misspelled it “Ench.”)

Since Moyer’s presentation, NAPCOR has made at least two targeted attempts to counter efforts aimed at reducing plastic use. The group waged a coordinated social media campaign in July 2024 in response to the Plastic Free July movement. The group shared a “tool kit” with corporate members and encouraged them to share pre-written messages; “feel free to copy and paste any/all into your favorite channels,” wrote the NAPCOR comms director. And NAPCOR waged a second coordinated social media campaign that same month to “newsjack” press coverage of the ban on single-use plastics at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. That effort likewise involved a NAPCOR-authored “tool kit,” but one that came with additional instructions: “To ensure all messages are inserted into the existing trending conversation (aka "newsjacking,") common hashtags including #Olympics, #Paris2024, and #TeamUSA will also be included.”