The planet is choking on plastic waste as companies continue to irrationally produce goods that are designed to be thrown away and yet are made from materials that never disappear. So far plastic pollution has killed millions of people and made the oceans deadly for their inhabitants. We are nearing an irreversible tipping point, scientists warn. BJORK LIND reports.
Plastic production took off in the 1930s after the chemical industry introduced a range of new materials made from the by-products of oil refining. Vast profits could be made from these materials, prompting fossil fuel companies to develop a close alliance with chemical companies. Today the largest players in the industry – DowDuPont, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and BP – are integrated companies that produce both fossil fuels and plastics. Initially, the substances were used to make durable products, allowing for advances in medicine, food preservation, hygiene and much more. Yet the industry has found its biggest success with throwaways, ie consumer products specifically designed to be used once and discarded. This has led to a dramatic increase in non-biodegradable plastic waste. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste generated worldwide since 1950, a mere 9% has been recycled, and just 12% has been incinerated. Most of it will remain on earth indefinitely.
As capitalism fails to break from its reliance on oil and gas, it continues to be highly profitable to use their waste products to make more and more plastic. Recently, the so-called shale revolution in the US has further fuelled the industry. Fracked natural gas is rich in ethane, a key ingredient for making plastic. Its low cost has prompted a massive expansion of plastic production in the US; nearly 350 fracking-enabled petrochemical projects have been planned or completed since 2010, according to the American Chemistry Council. However, much more ethane is extracted than those plants can use, prompting fracking firms to sell increasing amounts to European plastic makers at bargain prices.
Plastic ocean
This expansion of plastic production has severe consequences for the environment. A paper published on 2 July in Science argues that current rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse. As of 2016, estimates of global emissions of plastic in the world’s lakes, rivers and oceans ranged from 9 to 23 million metric tons per year, with a similar amount emitted onto land. These estimates are expected to almost double by 2025. The large amount of plastic in the oceans poses a global threat to ecosystems: the delivery of important nutrients to deep sea environments is hampered; birds, fish and mammals are at risk of choking and poisoning; the sinking of plastic carbon harms the ocean’s natural ability to sequester carbon; the hindrance of access to sunlight affects the ability of organisms like cyanobacteria and phytoplankton to absorb carbon.
With oceans warming and plastic accumulating, the stresses on ocean life are becoming so significant that scientists warn we are heading towards a catastrophe. If we continue with business-as-usual, plastic pollution will exacerbate climate change and cause irreversible environmental damage.
Waste imperialism
Aside from a potential ecological tipping point, plastic pollution has already caused irreversible damage to millions of people living in underdeveloped countries. Britain, along with other imperialist powers, has long been meeting its recycling targets by simply shipping plastic waste – often unsorted and contaminated – overseas, effectively using poor countries as a dumping ground. Many of these countries lack adequate facilities to store or dispose of plastic, so most of it is either burned in the open air, fly-tipped or just piled up. The uncontrolled burning of plastics and their degradation over time release toxic substances, resulting in respiratory illnesses, cancer, contaminated water and crop death. It is estimated that between 400,000 and one million people are dying every year from illnesses caused by living near plastic pollution.
According to Greenpeace, nearly two-thirds of Britain’s total plastic waste exports went to China between 2012 and 2017. Most of it was hazardous, contaminated or mislabeled. Faced with growing pressure from environmental groups and activists, in 2017 the Chinese state notified the World Trade Organisation that it would stop imports of ‘foreign garbage’. Consequently, the British government raced to find other countries willing to fill the gap, with private waste companies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Turkey and Poland stepping up to the task. However, unable to cope with the influx of waste imports, some of these nations have started to fight back. In 2019, Malaysia’s environment minister Yeo Bee Yin said she had ordered the closure of more than 148 factories processing or storing plastic waste, and she announced that Malaysia would return 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste to its countries of origin: the US, Japan, France, Canada, Australia and Britain. The Philippines gave Canada the ultimatum to take back its 69 containers of waste or have them dumped in its waters. Indonesia also arranged for the return of contaminated plastic waste. As a result, the 2019 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal passed an amendment which requires consent from the receiving state before the shipping of contaminated, mixed or non-recyclable plastic waste. This has done little to solve the problem. For example, in the first seven months of 2020, Malaysia received over 33,000 tonnes of plastic waste from Britain alone, 81% more than in 2019. As a consequence, the fight against waste imperialism continues. In early 2020, Malaysia returned at least 4,000 tonnes of imported plastic waste to the 20 countries that had shipped it, while Indonesia sent back 19 containers of waste. However, in order to truly shift the waste crisis back to the imperialist countries, all governments must be pressured to follow the example of China, banning trade in garbage.
What’s next?
It is possible to imagine a world with less or even no synthetic plastic production, but it would be a mistake to think that capitalists will give up producing something so profitable. Companies have successfully diverted attention away from the production of plastics to individual consumer behaviour. The solution, they argue, is to recycle their products. However, this will not be effective unless recycled plastics replace newly manufactured ones. In reality, recycling is a costly process because the sorting of materials requires either high-tech equipment or a large workforce. In most cases, businesses find it cheaper to use new plastic and appease consumers by plastering their products with recycling symbols.
We urgently need to break from capitalism so that rational decisions can be made about how to produce, use and recycle durable substances. In theory, all plastics can be recycled and new plastics can be made from plants. However, this requires collective ownership of production and socialist planning.
