By Larry Danos
July 6, 2024
We Need to Pay Attention to the Plastic Crisis!
The plastic industry has taken consumers to the back alley of environmental pollution and is making larger profits while we are duped into thinking their products are being recycled. Forty million tons (about 40%) of all the plastic produced every year in the United States goes into our environment. Plastic has become the alarming environmental issue that, while not on the same scale as climate change, ranks close in resolution complexity. We are blinded by the ease of our throw-away, single-use culture and not given good alternatives. Plastic products such as plastic bags are manufactured for our fleeting convenience and thrown away to then exist in the environment for several hundreds of years. This is another way that petroleum is taking us to the cleaners because we’re left with the effects of decaying plastic and the price of cleaning it up. Like with climate change, the oil industry has perpetuated a myth about their products.
The CCI Report: A recent report (in February) by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) revealed an eye-opening fact that most plastics are not being recycled and were never intended to be recycled. In fact, the “chasing arrows triangle” symbol imprinted on most of our plastic items was treated as nothing more than an industrial conspiracy trick to make us think plastics were recyclable. The number in the center was meant to guide us in our well-meaning recycle habits. The CCI report (summarized on DeSmog, February, 15, 2024 ) spells out how plastic manufacturers and oil companies collaborated to use the symbol to placate the public demand to recycle and feel good about buying plastic products. The CCI report tells what the industrial partners knew and when they knew it. It’s about the delay tactics regarding the numbers to be used in the recycle symbol and how they couldn’t or wouldn’t make it work for the public. It’s now blossomed into a global crisis and we’re stuck with that reality.
The Infamous Triangle of Arrows:
The triangle of arrows enclosing a simple integer was developed by the plastic industry, supposedly to guide us, the public, to shop for environmentally sustainable packaging. The symbol was produced in 1988 by the Plastic Industry Association and has become our universal symbol for reliable product purchasing. The number usually placed in the center of the arrows indicates the Resin Identification Code (RIC) for the plastic stamped on the product. Most of us recognize these little triangles stamped somewhere on plastic containers:
1. PETE (or PET or PETG) – polyethylene terephthalate, used in plastic drink and cooking oil containers and recycled into polar fleece,
fiber, tote bags, furniture, carpet, paneling, straps, bottles and food containers.
2. HDPE – high density polyethylene, used in milk jugs and some other types of containers and recycled to make laundry detergent and oil bottles, pens, recycling containers, floor tiles, drainage pipes, plastic lumber, outdoor furniture, various bottles and toys. The rest of them, #3 - #7, have highly dubious recyclability claims and steer the consumer into products that are not recyclable. Most plastics are made from thousands of different chemicals, some very dangerous, and can’t be recycled.
Some History:
The truth about recycling plastics in the U.S. is that in 2021, 40 million tons of plastic waste was generated, 5% to 6% was recycled, and 85% went to landfills. About 10% was incinerated. Globally about 8.3 billion tons of plastic was produced the same year and only 9% was recycled. There is a world crisis regarding plastics in the environment, including the oceans, rivers, lakes, and almost everywhere on land. In the 1950s and into the 1960s, the plastic industry convinced the world that plastic is meant to end up in the trash, thus into landfills. It meant a steady stream of plastic manufacturing that was good for the industry but not for landfills. Later in the 60s and 70s, plastic was already becoming a blight on the environment and the industry suffered some criticism. They, however, managed to convince the world that plastics were good and easily discarded to landfills, especially single-use plastic bags. Proper discarding was touted and the burden placed on the consumer.
Schools have been regularly visited by industry-backed groups to advocate for plastics. These are sponsored by Chevron, DuPont, and the Plastic Industry Association that claim they are educating the community about the positive side to plastic production. Landfill space was beginning to get scarce and expensive.
Later in the 1970s, the industry again came into scrutiny and touted waste-to-energy (WtE) facilities that incinerate municipal solid waste. WtE seemed like a good idea to those who weren’t thinking about the pollution that it created. However, recycling blossomed in the 1980s and seemed to solve many issues.
What followed was thirty years of the U.S. sending large quantities of our trash, not only plastic, to other countries like China, India, other Asian countries and to several countries in Africa. According to Forbes Newsletter (Nov. 29, 2020) , about half of our plastic waste was shipped in 429 large shipping containers per
day to China and to other countries. The other half was packed into bales and
largely stored or sent to landfills. To be fair, about 70% of the world’s plastic went to China shipped by many countries. During that time the burden of dealing with recycling plastic was shifted away from the U.S. The recycle chasing arrow scheme made us all feel good. China declared an end to that in 2017 and
now those other Asian countries like Vietnam and Malaysia have taken up some of that slack of the trash-exporting countries.
It does leave a gap in what to do with all this plastic that was purchased by consumers and is now stashed in warehouses in the U.S. Those smaller countries that have taken in more plastic than they can handle end up sending it to local landfills where it is openly burned or it’s just dumped.
Looking Forward:
The images we are confronted with are horrifying and the evidence is before our eyes in all the wrong places in our environment. The rate of plastic going into the oceans is equivalent to a large-sized garbage truck-full per minute! And plastic will outweigh the fish in the ocean by the year 2050. Half of all plastics ever made were made in the last twenty years. In 1950, 2.3 million tons were manufactured and in 2015, it increased to 448 million tons. This exponential increase is slated to double by 2050. According to the United Nations, of the 430 million tons produced per year, 280 million tons of plastic find its way into our environment.
Is there a good side to Plastics? :
Of course there’s a good side to this product. Its durability and light weight made space travel possible and gave us flexible tools of all kinds. It helped to revolutionize medicinal devices. It’s hard to imagine humanity without these
devices, made possible by plastic and the conveniences offered to us. The flexibility range of plastic make it more useable than metal or wood for so many purposes. It’s cheaper and more durable than rubber and can’t be easily replaced in medical, home, and in industrial-manufacturing facilities.
An add from Plastics Technology lets us know that plastics can be: “reformed, glued, drilled, cut, frozen, cooled, twisted, bent, melted and even recycled. It can withstand many ranges temperature when prepared into other purposeful products. It can be made available into(sic) customers in desired colors or specifications.” How can you beat that!!
Microplastics:
There are a number of types of microplastic particles floating in the oceans and other eco-systems. Two basic forms: 1) Primary microplastics – tiny pieces, in the form of beads, pellets, or fibers released directly into the waterways or into the air. The cosmetics industry is the source of much of this bead-type of microplastic. 2) Secondary microplastics – the break-down of larger pieces of plastic through
weathering and wave action. Like all plastics the chemical make up consists of long polymer chains of Carbon and Hydrogen, often with connected dangerous additive chemicals that can cause a number of ailments in people, including cancer. Particles of plastic are showing up in the air, in drinking water and in human blood. Micro-plastic shards also contain hazardous chemicals that were part of the plastic chemical mixture that were necessary to produce the discarded items thrown into trash systems and find their way into the Environment.
The UN Agreement:
The United Nations has been having regular meetings with at least 175 nations participating and have agreed to have a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution by 2024. It’s called the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution and many of the participants want a “Paris Agreement-style” accord. They last met for the fourth time on April 30, 2024 and are due to meet again in the Fall this year. So far, the agreement is in sight, but there are still issues to resolve for a workable plan. The U.S. is disappointingly uninterested in such a plan or to supply leadership toward a solution.
According to The Guardian, June 6, 2023 ,The United Nations Environment Programme has been meeting regularly regarding the ubiquity of plastics in the Environment. In June, last year delegates from 180 nations met and finally were able to come up with an agreement that will help produce a legally binding treaty to regulate plastic. It’s been a long haul that was attended by stakeholders like the plastic councils and plastic industries of both the U.S. and Europe. Fourteen million tons of plastic find its way into the ocean each year. Waste plastic on land and waterways intensifies floods and starves wildlife. And the manufacturing/producing of plastic worsens air pollution.
Conclusion:
Is it possible to come to terms with plastics? The source of this pollution is really the plastic industry supported by the petroleum companies. Someone or something must rein them in to show some responsibility for a huge share of the problem. The corporate profit motive and a corporate sense of integrity are needed to stop many pollution issues and this is one that is so out-of-hand that many generations (as with climate change) will be needed to bring this to some sense of sanity. Keeping pressure on these corporations is going to be necessary. The Plastic Pollution Coalition announced a contest, last month, for the best independent film about a plastic-free future. And now, they have a winner already.
If you are looking for a way to help out, feel free to join the many cleanup groups that patrol the shorelines and other locations. Also, you might consider using your own trash picker tool to monitor your local neighborhood. It could happen on a very
nice day of your choosing, and it’s always possible someone will join you.
Sources of Events:
Friends of the Earth - located at the David Brower Center, Berkeley.
350Bay Area - Includes other 350.org branches in the Bay Area.
Planet Drum - San Francisco bioregion awareness center.
Ecology Center - Berkeley sustainability center.
David Brower Center - The environmental center in Berkeley.
Sunflower Alliance - Bay Area umbrella organization for activism.
Sierra Club San Francisco - Bay Area website.
The End
#The_UN_Goals #protecttheland #apart
