Sharon Lerner heeft op The Interecept een uitgebreid artikel geschreven over de enorme plasticberg waar de wereld in dreigt te verstikken en de pogingen van o.a. de oliemaffia om verboden tegen gebruik van eenmalig plastic en andere plasticproducten tegen te gaan…
De manier waarop deze bedrijven e.e.a. doen is ernstige volksverlakkerij, zo bestaat er een initiatief van bedrijven die bij de productie van plastic zijn betrokken, waarmee men het volk wil laten geloven dat men er alles aan doet om plastic uit het milieu te krijgen……
Zo is er een organisatie met de naam ‘A Bag’s Life’, die een studentenproject tot winnaar heeft uitgeroepen voor een doos waarop tanden te zien zijn in de vorm van driehoeken met de woorden ‘Feed Me’ De studenten die het project wonnen kregen ieder $ 100.00 en de goegemeente gelooft dat ‘A Bag’s Life’, een onderdeel van de American Progressive Bag Allience, werkelijk een organisatie is die zich inzet tegen het gebruik van plastic…… Terwijl de American Progressive Bag Allience een organisatie is die in het leven werd geroepen door de Plastic Industry Association, een lobbyorganisatie van: Shell Polymers, LyondellBasell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Phillips, DowDuPont en Novolex…. En beste bezoeker deze organisatie is redelijk succesvol in de VS…..
Ook hier doen bedrijven als Shell, DSM en Unilever alsof ze ‘op het rechte groene pad zijn’, echter in werkelijkheid doet men het tegenovergestelde, terwijl de wereld zoals gezegd bijna letterlijk stikt in plastic….. Zo werd een aantal maanden geleden bekend gemaakt dat bijna iedere aardbewoner microplastics in het lichaam heeft……..
Lerner geeft verder een inkijk in de recyclingsindustrie en geeft met cijfers aan dat er maar zeer weinig werkelijk wordt gerecycled (lelijk anglicisme) en als klap op de vuurpijl blijken veel gerecyclede producten zwaar gif te bevatten, stoffen die o.a. vrijkomen bij het recyclen van plastic…….
Ook aandacht voor het verschepen van miljoenen tonnen aan westers consumentenplastic, dat zogenaamd wordt gerecycled in landen als China en de Filipijnen, waar het ‘recyclen’ bestaat uit plastic verbranden, begraven of het openlijk op divers plekken te storten……. Uiteraard gebeurt dit in de buurt waar arme mensen wonen, ofwel die betalen het gelag in de vorm van een slechte gezondheid en een vroegtijdige akelige dood……..
Lees het ontluisterende artikel van Lerner en geeft het door, tijd dat ook onze politici stoppen met liegen en eindelijk wat doen, zoals hare D66 leeghoofdigheid Stientje van Veldhoven, die tot 3 keer toe werd gekozen tot groenste politicus van het jaar, maar die zo gauw ze aan het bewind kwam de ‘terminologie van haar voorgangers’ (‘waar ze zo tegen heeft gevochten…’) overnam en stelde dat de industrie het zelf wel kan regelen….. Welnu van Veldhoven, ook in het hieronder opgenomen artikel kan jij lezen hoe geweldig e.e.a. verloopt, smerige oplichter! Van Veldhoven wilde al jaren statiegeld op kleine petflesjes en blik, iets waar de VVD mordicus tegen is, en zoals gezegd: net aangetreden kwam van Veldhoven met het platgetreden cliché van haar voorgangers………
Tot slot wat betreft mijn schrijven hier: iedereen die meewerkt aan het oplichten van het volk wat betreft plastic (en luchtvervuiling) zou strafrechtelijk moeten worden vervolgd en voor jaren de bak in moeten draaien en dan meteen via de ‘Pluk-ze’-wetgeving alle kapitaal van deze figuren confisceren en gebruiken voor (echte) milieumaatregelen…… Wat een godvergeten geteisem, gadver!!! (vergeet niet dat Exxon en Shell respectievelijk in de 70er en 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw uit eigen wetenschappelijk onderzoek al wisten dat de verbranding van fossiele brandstoffen de klimaatverandering heeft veroorzaakt, waar deze bedrijven dit niet alleen onder de pet hielden, maar zelfs wetenschappers inhuurden om dit te ontkennen……. Strafrechtelijke vervolging meer dan waard!!)
A portion of plastic bottle found on Mothecombe Beach at the mouth of the Erme Estuary in South Devon, England, on May 30, 2019. Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
THE STUDENTS AT Westmeade Elementary School worked hard on their dragon. And it paid off. The plastic bag receptacle that the kids painted green and outfitted with triangular white teeth and a “feed me” sign won the students from the Nashville suburb first place in a recycling box decorating contest. The idea, as Westmeade’s proud principal told a local TV news show, was to help the environment. But the real story behind the dragon — as with much of the escalating war over plastic waste — is more complicated.
The contest was sponsored by A Bag’s Life, a recycling promotion and education effort of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a lobbying group that fights restrictions on plastic. That organization is part of the Plastics Industry Association, a trade group that includes Shell Polymers, LyondellBasell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Phillips, DowDuPont, and Novolex — all of which profit hugely from the continued production of plastics. And even as A Bag’s Life was encouraging kids to spread the uplifting message of cleaning up plastic waste, its parent organization, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, was backing a state bill that would strip Tennesseans of their ability to address the plastics crisis. The legislation would make it illegal for local governments to ban or restrict bags and other single-use plastic products — one of the few things shownto actually reduce plastic waste.
A week after Westmeade’s dragon won the contest, the APBA got its own reward: The plastic preemption bill passed the Tennessee state legislature. Weeks later, the governor signed it into law, throwing a wrench into an effort underway in Memphis to charge a fee for plastic bags. Meanwhile, A Bag’s Life gave the Westmeade kids who worked on the bag monster a $100 gift card to use “as they please.” And with that, a minuscule fraction of its vast wealth, the plastics industry applied a green veneer to its increasingly bitter and desperate fight to keep profiting from a product that is polluting the world.
A Bag’s Life is just one small part of a massive, industry-led effort now underway to suppress meaningful efforts to reduce plastic waste while keeping the idea of recycling alive. The reality of plastics recycling? It’s pretty much already dead. In 2015, the U.S. recycled about 9 percent of its plastic waste, and since then the number has dropped even lower. The vast majority of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic ever produced — 79 percent — has ended up in landfills or scattered all around the world. And as for those plastic shopping bags the kids were hoping to contain: Less than 1 percent of the tens of billions of plastic bags used in the U.S. each year are recycled.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t try to properly dispose of the array of toys, single-use clamshells, bottles, bags, takeout containers, iced coffee cups, straws, sachets, yogurt tubs, pouches, candy bar wrappers, utensils, chip bags, toiletry tubes, electronics, and lids for everything that passes through our lives daily. We have to. But we are well past the point where the heartfelt efforts of schoolchildren or anyone else on the consumer end can solve the plastics problem. It no longer matters how many hoots we give. There is already way too much plastic that won’t decompose and ultimately has nowhere to go, whether it’s mashed into a dragon container or not.
A Chinese worker walks past piles of plastic bottles at a plastic bottle recycling station in Ji’nan city, in east China’s Shandong province, on May 4, 2017.Photo: Imaginechina via AP Images
China’s National Sword
China’s decision in 2017 to stop receiving the vast majority of plastic waste from other countries blew the flimsy lid off our dysfunctional recycling system. That year, when the Chinese government announced the National Sword policy, as it’s called, the U.S. sent 931 million kilograms of plastic waste to China and Hong Kong. The U.S. has been offloading vast bundles of scrap this way since at least 1994, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began tracking plastics exports. The practice has served to both mask the mounting crisis and absolve U.S. consumers of guilt. But in fact, much of the “recycled” plastic scrap that the U.S. sent to China appears to have been burned or buried instead of being refashioned into new products.
Although China’s turnabout made the failure of the plastics recycling system suddenly and undeniably obvious, in truth the plastics problem has been with us as long as plastic has. Over the decades, as production has grown exponentially, we’ve never managed to repurpose even one-tenth of our plastic waste. Since the EPA began tracking plastics recycling in 1994, when the U.S. recycled less than 5 percent, the rate went up only about 5 percent, peaking at 9.5 percent in 2014.
Although there is no data before 1994, the rate was almost certainly even lower then. Some of that failure can be blamed on careless consumers, but much of the waste that is dutifully put into recycling bins and bags also gets landfilled and burned because there’s no market for it.
The plastics problem has been growing exponentially for decades. In 1967, when Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was being advised to go into plastics, less than 25 million tons were produced each year. Even back then, the companies that made the plastic were already aware of the growing waste problem. Yet by 1980, production had doubled. Ten years later, it doubled again to 100 million tons, surpassing the amount of steel produced globally. Today, the plastics industry, estimated to be worth more than $4 trillion, generates more than 300 million tons of plastic a year according to the most recent records — nearly half of which is for single-use items, meaning that it will almost instantly become trash.
With the institution of China’s new policy in January 2018, the extent of the plastic waste crisis became dramatically more visible. Around the world, bales of used plastic that just a year earlier would have been destined for China began piling up. In the U.S., some cities have stopped their plastics recycling programs altogether.
Without good alternatives, the U.S. is now burning six times the amount of plastic it’s recycling — even though the incineration process releases cancer-causing pollutants into the air and creates toxic ash, which also needs to be disposed of somewhere. And poor people are stuck with the worst consequences of the plastics crisis. Eight out of 10 incinerators in the U.S. are in communities that are either poorer or have fewer white people than the rest of the country, and residents living near them are exposed to the toxic air pollution their combustion produces.
Globally, too, the problem is being dumped on the less fortunate and less powerful. Because the U.S. can no longer ship its plastic waste to China, much of that waste is going to Turkey, Senegal, and other countries that are ill-equipped to deal with it. In May, the most recent month for which data is available, the U.S. sent 64.9 million kilograms of plastic scrap to 58 countries. Thailand, India, and Indonesia — where more than 80 percent of waste is mismanaged, according to data published in Science — are among the countries that now find themselves besieged with U.S. plastic that’s being illegally dumped and burned.
A reservoir contaminated with plastic waste in Lhokseumawe, Indonesia, on March 22, 2019. Photo: Zikri Maulana/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
All the Plastics in the Seas
The terrifying news about plastic seems to be as inescapable as the plastic itself, tiny bits of which are now almost everywhere. One study found these “microplastics” in the Pyrenees mountain air 100 miles from the nearest city. Another found that microplastics are being turned into sewage sludge and spread on fields that grow food. And, as we know from the plastic-filled whales that regularly wash up dead, the oceans are awash in plastic waste and now contain some 150 million tons of the stuff — a mass expected soon to surpass the weight of all the fish in the seas.
We humans also have plastic lodged in our bodies. The substance often sold to us as protection from contamination is in both food and water.
Bottled water, sales of which are increasing in part because people are seeking alternatives to contaminated local water supplies, now contains plastic as well. A 2018 study found that 93 percent of bottled water samples contained microplastics. While all the big brands tested positive for microplastics, the worst was Nestlé Pure Life, which claims that its water “goes through a 12-step quality process, so you can trust every drop.”
It’s worth noting that in both 2017 and 2018, Nestlé ranked in the top three among brands whose plastic trash was most often collected in global cleanup efforts conducted by the environmental group Break Free From Plastic.
The confluence of terrible news has taken public outrage over plastic to a new level. Once regarded mostly as an eyesore or a nuisance, plastic waste is now widely understood to be a cause of species extinction, ecological devastation, and human health problems. And because more than 99 percent of plastic is derived from oil, natural gas, and coal — and because its destruction also uses fossil fuels — environmental groups now recognize plastic as a major contributor to climate change. Naturalist David Attenborough has likened the shift in public opinion over plastics to the process through which the public reached a consensus on the harms of slavery.
Between extraction, refining, and waste management, the production and incineration of plastics will add more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere this year alone — an amount equal to the emissions from 189 500-megawatt coal power plants, according to a report from the Center for International Environmental Law.
Recycled plastics — once seen as a sign of environmental virtue — is increasingly recognized as posing threats to our health. Plastics contain additives that determine its properties, including stability, color, and flexibility. Most of the thousands of these chemicals aren’t regulated, but it’s clear that some of those additives, which end up in recycled plastics, are dangerous. One studyfound that half of recycled plastics in India contained a flame retardant associated with neurological, reproductive, and developmental harms.
Black plastic, used in everything from children’s toys to kitchen utensils, food packaging, cellphone cases, and thermoses, appears to be particularly dangerous. The plastic is often sourced from recycled electronics that contain phthalates, flame retardants, and heavy metals, such as cadmium, lead, and mercury. Even at very low levels, these chemicals can cause serious reproductive and developmental problems.
But most of the additives aren’t tracked or well studied. “The industry has no idea what they’re putting in the plastic and who’s putting it in,” said Andrew Turner, a British chemist who recently found toxic chemicals in 40 percent of the black plastic toys, thermoses, cocktail stirrers, and utensils he tested. In some plastic, he found the chemicals present at 30 times safety standards set by governments.
Even chemicals that are regulated often have limits set for electronics but not for recycled products. “You’ve got something that wouldn’t be compliant with the regulations as an electric item because its levels are too high, but because it’s turned into a fork, there’s nothing to stop it from being used,” Turner said. Antimony, which Turner found in food containers, toys, and office supplies, “is restricted in drinking water, but not in electrical waste.” Turner and Zhanyun Wang, another scientist I spoke with who studies chemical additives to plastics, told me that they no longer use black plastic utensils. “Given the option, I’d prefer something white or clear,” said Turner, adding that he tries to avoid utensils made of any kind of plastic.
The solution to this global mess clearly has to be much bigger than personal cutlery choices. Among the organizations demanding that we push past the idea of recycling and require corporations to limit plastics production are Greenpeace, the Surfrider Foundation, As You Sow, the Rainforest Alliance and 5Gyres, an organization started by a couple who sailed across the Pacific Ocean on a raft made out of discarded bottles. Fueled by a spike in consumer frustration with products that make them complicit in the problem, plastic-free restaurants and grocery stores are now emerging.
Taxes, bans, and fees on plastic products have been catching on around the world. In March, the European Union voted to ban single-use plastics by 2021. In June, Canada followed suit, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowing to not just ban single-use plastics such as bags, straws, and cutlery, but also to hold plastics manufacturers responsible for their waste. One hundred and forty-one countries, including China, Bangladesh, India, and 34 African countries, have implemented taxes or partial bans on plastics.
In the U.S., the Trump administration has worked against international efforts to crack down on plastic waste, so cities and towns are leading the way. While only eight states have enacted plastic restrictions, more than 330 local plastic bag ordinances have passed in 24 states. Some federal lawmakers have also recognized that federal action is necessary to beat back the mounting tide of plastic. “Plastics recycling is not a realistic solution to the plastic pollution crisis. Most consumer plastics are economically impractical to recycle based on market conditions alone,” Rep. Alan Lowenthal and Sen. Tom Udall wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump in June, noting that the “spread of single-use plastic products has led to widespread pollution of plastic in the U.S. and has caused a growing financial burden on state agencies, local governments and taxpayers for remediation.”
Bottles of Pepsi Max travel along the production line at the Britvic PLC factory and warehouse in Leeds, U.K., on Jan. 23, 2017. Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Big Plastic Fights Back
Even the executives at a recent plastics industry conference admit how bad the crisis is — at least to one another. All we hear is “you’ve got to get rid of plastics,” Garry Kohl, of PepsiCo, said to his fellow members of the Plastics Industry Association at a conference in April. Gathered in the gilded ballroom of a Dallas hotel, the representatives of big plastics manufacturers, recyclers, raw materials providers, extruders, brand owners, and others in the plastics business grappled aloud about their role in the crisis. Especially difficult, said Kohl, who directs packaging innovation of PepsiCo’s snacks and foods, was the widely circulated picture of a dead plastic-filled albatross. “This is very emotional for our senior leaders,” Kohl said, as the now iconic picture of the albatross — really just a few feathers and a decaying beak arranged around an assortment of bottle caps, lighter parts, and plastic bits — flashed above him. “They’re all talking about the albatross.”
Patty Long, interim president and chief executive officer of the Plastics Industry Association, the group that convened the Texas meeting, also acknowledged the pain of being the public face of an industry held responsible for the devastation of the natural world. Long admitted that she squirmed her way through another social media phenomenon that, along with the albatross, has changed the course of the war over plastics: the video of the sea turtle with a plastic straw jammed in its nostril. Long isn’t the only one. Since it was posted in 2015, the eight excruciating minutes in which marine biologists yank at the plastic straw with pliers while the creature squirms and bleeds, has been viewed 36 million times.
In this photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a black footed albatross chick with plastics in its stomach lies dead on Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands on Nov. 2, 2014. Photo: Dan Clark/USFWS via AP
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