Plastic is the new coal
That’s the FF's plan anyway...(a listicle of gassy BBQ stoppers)
I’m not sure why I’ve set out to write this post, except that it’s been sitting in drafts for over a year and just as I’m about to delete it (my favourite procrastinatory sport is cleaning out files) another dire bit of plastic news hits.
And I add another grim tidbit.
And then I think, this all needs to be presented in one hit.
So here I go, presenting It All as an old-fashioned factlet listicle (remember them halcyon Buzzfeed days?).
(tl;dr: We are about to be hit with a “Plastic is fine if you recycle it” con-campaign because Big Oil needs to make money somehow…and you should not believe a word of it! Upshot = consume less. Of everything.)
“I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics.”
Big Oil is working to increase plastic production.
Plastic is a subsidiary of fossil fuel production. ExxonMobil, for instance, is the largest producer of virgin polymers.
The big petrochemical companies like ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, and Shell have put more than $US200 billion into several hundred plastic and chemical facilities since 2010, according to the American Chemistry Council.
In the US (alone) plastic will produce more greenhouse gas emissions than coal power by 2030.
The World Economic Forum is projecting global plastics production to quadruple by 2050.
Big Oil falsified research during Covid (claiming plastic was the most pandemic-safe surface, when the reverse is true) to get US municipalities to reverse plastic bag bans. Serious!
They flood Africa with plastic, targeting countries like Kenya that worked hard to bring in single-use plastic bans.
In March, 2022, 175 nations tried to implement a global treaty to “end plastic pollution”. According to the environmental group Greenpeace, lobbyists for the “major fossil fuel companies were out in force” at the session. The upshot? It was shot down by the major oil-producing nations (Australia, mercifully, was not among them). The second meeting was here in Paris (where I’m now based) in May and it barely got any further. They all meet again in November. Stay tuned and active!
Now why would they do this 🤔?
The fossil fuel industry is dying. You and I are all swapping to renewable energy and electric cars at an exponential and exciting rate. Banks aren’t funding oil and gas projects. The FFI is freaking out and fighting back by flooding us with plastic as a new revenue model for their wares.
So here’s what to expect from the Fossil Fuel Overlords going forward (be warned):
They will dump campaigns around the joint claiming that plastic waste is fine (so keep buying it, friends!) because it gets recycled. It’s already happening and it’s false news. See below.
As plastic continues to take over our lives (and kill us, also see below), they will put all the onus on us, the consumers. As per the usuals. I’m holding my breath for community billboards and TV ads cheerily telling us we can save the planet if we consume plastic and recycle it. Just as BP was behind the “count your carbon footprint” furphy. And CocaCola was behind the “calories in, calories out” (ie sugar is fine, if you run it off) lie.
Earlier this year Exxon proudly announced it had built “one of the largest advanced recycling facilities in North America, capable of processing more than 80 million pounds of plastic waste per year”. Shall we put this in context? Exxon also produces 13.2 billion pounds, of polymers used to make plastic each year.
How does this fit in with these companies’ carbon neutral promises?
Well, funny that. The FFI has - FFS - conveniently carved out plastics from their ridiculous quasi-commitments (and, yes, they have carbon neutral policies!).
And by ridiculous, let’s use an example. Shell has spruiked they’re going carbon-neutral by 2050, not be reducing emissions, but by planting trees. But, wait…they’ll need 40% of all arable land on the planet to do this…hmmm…guess we’ll have to go without food.
Besides, plastic recycling = myth
I’ve been quoting this figure for years: Only 9 per cent of plastic is ever recycled on average each year. The rest goes to landfill or is incinerated.
However a report published by the Minderoo Foundation, set up by the Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest puts the figure at 2 per cent.
And, yes, it’s intriguing a mining magnate funded the study…
Less than 2 per cent of plastic today is produced from recycled plastic waste.
At best, plastic can only ever be recycled a couple of times.
“If the public thinks recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment.” - Larry Thomas, former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry.
Plastics are pollutants…and fuel climate warming.
By 2050 the ocean is expected to contain, by weight, more plastic than fish. We know many of these pollutant factoids, but plastic waste is more than a local environmental pollutant; it is also a climate pollutant.
Fossil fuels are burned to make plastic. A shit-tonne are required to maintain the high temperatures for refining and manufacturing it (cracking). Plus, methane (80 times more potent than CO2)) is released during the drilling, transport, and refining of the stuff.
Single-use plastics alone (which make up 40 per cent of plastic on the planet) is responsible for 3.4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, or just below the annual emissions of Britain.
They are also interfering with the ability of the oceans to capture carbon.
Also, when plastic starts to break down it releases greenhouse gases.
When it winds up in oceans, it then interferes with the tiny algae plants that play an essential role in helping the oceans absorb excess carbon.
The big chunk of that 91 per cent of plastic (or 98 per cent, per Minderoo’s work) is burned at an incinerator. And so more CO2.
Though emissions from the energy sector are projected to decline by 2050, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that will be offset by demand for fossil fuel-based plastics, which are projected to drive half of oil demand growth by 2050.
Plastics are killing us (and making us fat)
We currently ingest a credit-card size amount of (micro)plastic each week.
Which is shrinking penises and reducing sperm. Research shows sperm counts could reach zero by 2045. From microplastics.
Drinking from plastic leaches chemicals into our bodies….especially when it’s hot liquid (eg coffee in a disposable cup) and even when it doesn’t contain BPAs. A study published a few years ago in the journal Nature Food found that preparing infant formula (heated) in a plastic bottle sees babies end up drinking a “sort of plastic soup”. Kids eating microplastics before they can eat solids.
Recycled plastic bottles leach even more chemicals into drinks. Sigh.
Plastics are made from by-products of oil and gas refining; many of the chemicals involved, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are carcinogens. Phthalates, common in plastics, have been linked to cancer in kids.
Studies show one plastic bag leaches more than 15,000 compounds.
Microplastics, meanwhile, don’t just leach nasty chemicals; they attract them. “In effect, plastics are like magnets for PBTs” is how the Environmental Protection Agency has put it. Consuming microplastics is thus a good way to swallow old poisons.
Australia is the worst single-user in the world.
Australians generate more single-use1 plastic waste per capita than any other country in the world – about 60 kilograms a year – followed closely by the US, according to research from Minderoo. In contrast, the average person in China – the largest producer of single-use plastic by volume – generates 18 kilograms, while in India, that figure is only four kilograms a year. The global average is about 15 kilograms a year.
Alternatives? Hmm, grim news I’m afraid
A 2018 study by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency found that, to have a lower environmental impact than a plastic bag, a paper bag would have to be used 43 times and a cotton tote would have to be used 7100 times (due to the deforestation and pesticides use etc.). Although another study suggests paper and cotton bags need to be reused three and 131 times respectively to ensure their global warming potential is lower than a typical plastic grocery bag. Also, the Danish study certainly has flaws…this helpful person crunches the data and finds…it’s still better to use a reusable tote.
Plastic bag bans seem to lead to an increase in plastic trash bags …for reasons I probably don’t have to spell out.
What to do?
I can only say, consume less. Especially single-use anything.
Continue to recycle, sure. We have to. But don’t kid yourself that it absolves you from buying the single-use thing. Or the thing wrapped in plastic.
Support plastic bans.
And did I mention, consume less?
All of which invites sharing this George Carlin skit…
It’s one of my favourite moments in comedy. Please enjoy (if you can, after reading the above).
Sarah xx
Which accounts for about 30 per cent of all plastic waste.
Omg :( :( I thought I was informed on this topic but it’s so much worse than I realised.
I agree with all you've said. Sadly though, plastic is here to stay until it suffocates us. No way you can put that genie back in the bottle. As demonstrated by how humans behaved during the peak of the pandemic, too many peeps just don't care (western world) & others are just too poor to be able to care (developing countries). I avoid plastic wherever I can, but a glance down any aisle at a supermarket will illustrate just how futile my (& your) efforts are.