Plastic Unlimited. Alice Mah
is crisis fatigue, a state of exhaustion, which has deepened through the waves of the pandemic. It is both literal, for the great number of people who have struggled every day to cope and to survive, and psychological, for those who have observed the unfolding disasters from a distance, full of feelings of anxiety and powerlessness.
Yet the reality, injustice, and urgency of crisis cannot be avoided. We must tackle the source of the plastics crisis in order to mitigate the worst impacts of the ecological catastrophe. The plastics crisis, and public responses to it, did not simply arrive in the world over the last few years. Since the 1970s, a number of social and environmental movements have tried to limit harmful plastics production and pollution. Global media attention to the plastics crisis has raised levels of anti-plastic activism around the world. Some of this momentum has continued through the pandemic, with calls for a new global treaty on plastic pollution.85 Yet in spite of the surge of legislation and activism, the plastics crisis is only getting worse. The rate of plastics growth is exponential, and it appears to be unstoppable. The obstacle is not one of inaction, but one of entanglement.
For all of the toxicity and pollution associated with plastic, it is difficult to imagine living without it. Plastic is essential to modern life, from computers to washing machines to food supplies and medical equipment. COVID-19 has been an important reminder of this fact. Yet most plastic is not essential. Nor does it have to be. To disentangle ourselves from toxic and wasteful plastics, we need to retrace the steps of our entanglement, starting with the corporations.
This book examines how corporations across the plastics value chain have fought to secure and grow toxic, wasteful, and carbon-intensive processes and markets despite a series of crises: plastic toxicity (chapter 2), marine plastic waste (chapter 3), the climate emergency (chapter 4), the COVID-19 pandemic (chapter 5), and the cumulative plastics crisis (chapter 6). Drawing on publicly available corporate materials, observations at industry events, and interviews with industry representatives,86 in addition to a range of scholarly, media, NGO, and policy sources, the book focuses on the dominant corporate players and alliances that have mobilized in each case, which differ depending on which markets have been threatened. For example, the noxious petrochemical industry has covered up plastics toxicity, the leading plastics bag producers have actively opposed plastic bag bans, oil majors have funded climate change denial, and multinational beverage brands have opposed bottle deposit schemes. On a systemic level, the relentless corporate drive to expand petrochemical production and to seek out new plastics markets has been underpinned by a reliance on shifting the toxic burdens of pollution and waste disposal onto the most vulnerable populations. Rather than seeing crisis as a means for elites to stabilize the status quo, this book argues that we need to confront the corporate roots of the crisis to bring about systemic change.
Notes
1 1 Pew Charitable Trusts and SYSTEMIQ, Breaking the Plastic Wave: A Comprehensive Assessment of Pathways Towards Stopping Ocean Pollution (2020).
2 2 Estimates vary depending on different sources. See: Laura Parker, ‘Fast Facts About Plastic Pollution’, National Geographic, 20 December 2018, at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastics-facts-infographics-ocean-pollution.
3 3 International Energy Agency, The Future of Petrochemicals (2018), at https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-petrochemicals.
4 4 Andrew Inkpen and Kannan Ramaswamy, ‘Breaking Up Global Value Chains: Evidence from the Oil and Gas Industry’, Advances in International Management, 30 (2017): 55–80.
5 5 Mark Eramo, ‘Global Chemical Industry Outlook: Assessing Today’s Strong Markets and Preparing for the 2020s’, IHS Markit, 3 August 2018, at https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/global-chemical-industry-outlook-2020.html.
6 6 Divy Malik, Parth Manchanda, Theo Jan Simons, and Jeremy Wallach, ‘The Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Petrochemical Industry’, McKinsey, 28 October 2020, at https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/chemicals/our-insights/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-global-petrochemical-industry.
7 7 Zhou Peng, Theo Jan Simons, Jeremy Wallach, and Adam Youngman, ‘Petrochemicals 2020: A Year of Resilience and the Road to Recovery’, McKinsey, 21 May 2021, at https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/chemicals/our-insights/petrochemicals-2020-a-year-of-resilience-and-the-road-to-recovery.
8 8 Author’s field notes, virtual World Petrochemical Conference, 8–12 March 2021.
9 9 Parker, ‘Fast Facts About Plastic Pollution’.
10 10 Plastic Soup Foundation, Facts & Figures, at https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/plastic-facts-and-figures; Sarah Zhang, ‘Half of All Plastic Was Made in the Past 13 Years’, The Atlantic, 19 July 2017, at https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/plastic-age/533955.
11 11 See Ian Tiseo, ‘Cumulative Plastic Production Volume Worldwide from 1950 to 2050’, Statista, 27 January 2021, at https://www.statista.com/statistics/1019758/plastics-production-volume-worldwide; Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with the support of the World Economic Forum, The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics & Catalysing Action (2017), at https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/the-new-plastics-economy-rethinking-the-future-of-plastics-catalysing-action.
12 12 Lisa A. Hamilton, Steven Feit, Carroll Muffett, et al., Plastic and Climate: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet (Center for International Environmental Law, 2019). Other estimates put this figure at 98%: see Dominic Charles, Laurent Kimman, and Nakul Saran, The Plastic Waste Makers Index (Minderoo Foundation, 2021), at https://www.minderoo.org/plastic-waste-makers-index/findings/executive-summary/.
13 13 Other petrochemical products include pesticides, adhesives, synthetic textiles, rubbers, dyes, fertilizers, and synthetic paints and coatings. Eren Cetinkaya, Nathan Liu, Theo Jan Simons, and Jeremy Wallach, ‘Petrochemicals 2030: Reinventing the Way to Win in a Changing Industry’, Chemicals: Our Insights, 21 February 2018, at https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/chemicals/our-insights/petrochemicals-2030-reinventing-the-way-to-win-in-a-changing-industry.
14 14 Charles et al., The Plastic Waste Makers Index.
15 15 David Azoulay, Priscilla Villa, Yvette Arellano, et al., Plastic and Health: The Hidden Cost of a Plastic Planet (Center for International Environmental Law, 2019).
16 16 Pierpaolo Mudu, Benedetto Terracini, and Marco Martuzzi, Human Health in Areas with Industrial Contamination (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2014).
17 17 See Sara M. Wiebe, Everyday