Friday, September 04, 2020
We Are
Living in a Plastic World
The
longer we delay phasing out fossil fuels and their byproducts, the more
difficult change becomes. It’s time for new ideas.
commondreams.org/views/2020/09/04/we-are-living-plastic-world
"Plastics don’t decompose like organic substances,"
write the authors, "Instead, they break down into smaller and smaller
pieces, much of which ends up in oceans, where it is consumed by marine life
and birds. (Photo: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP via Getty Images)
Almost every product and material we refer to as “plastic” is
made from fossil fuels. Most of it hasn’t been around for long—a little over 70
years for the most common products. North American grocery stores didn’t start
offering plastic bags until the late 1970s.
Over that short time, plastics have become ubiquitous. A Center for
International Environmental Law report says
global plastic production exploded 200-fold between 1950 and 2015—from two
million to 380 million tonnes. Plastic is everywhere, from the ocean depths to
mountaintops, from Antarctica to the Arctic—even in our own bodies.
As the report points out, almost every piece of plastic begins
as a fossil fuel. This creates greenhouse gas emissions throughout its life
cycle, from extraction and transport to refining and manufacturing to managing
waste and impacts. The report projects these emissions could reach 1.34
gigatons per year by 2030—“equivalent to the emissions released by more than
295 new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants.”
There are good reasons for plastic’s popularity. It’s
lightweight, durable, inexpensive, easily shaped and can be used to safely
store many materials, from water to chemicals. That it’s long-lasting is part
of the problem.
Plastics don’t decompose like organic substances. Instead, they
break down into smaller and smaller pieces, much of which ends up in oceans,
where it is consumed by marine life and birds. These “microplastics” work their
way through the food web and eventually to humans.
There’s still much to learn about microplastic’s health effects,
but exposure in animals has been linked to liver and cell damage, infertility,
inflammation, cancer and starvation. The 50,000 plastic particles that each of
us breathes and eats every year and the microplastic pollution falling on some
cities undoubtedly have an impact, especially as many of the chemicals in
plastics are known to cause a range of health problems.
A recent study also shows the ocean plastics problem is worse than thought—although with tonnes of plastic debris and particles swirling
in massive ocean gyres, it’s hard to imagine it could be. The study, from the
U.K.’s National Oceanography Centre, found the Atlantic has 10 times more
plastic than had been estimated. Researchers previously calculated the amount
entering the Atlantic between 1950 and 2015 to be from 17 million to 47 million
tonnes. New measurements show it’s closer to 200 million.
Another report, from the World Economic Forum, Ellen MacArthur
Foundation and McKinsey and Company, estimated the oceans could hold more plastic by weight than fish by 2050 if trends continue. Because most plastic doesn’t
get recycled, researchers also estimated that 95 per cent of plastic packaging
value—worth $80 to $120 billion annually—is lost.
It also found that by 2050, the entire plastics industry will
consume 20 per cent of total oil production, and 15 per cent of the world’s
annual carbon budget.
The study, “The New Plastics Economy,” outlines steps
whereby circular economy principles
could resolve many issues around plastics in the environment. These require
eliminating all problematic and unnecessary plastic items, innovating to ensure
the plastics are reusable, recyclable or compostable, and circulating all
plastic items to keep them in the economy and out of the environment.
And while individual efforts are helpful, they don’t go far
enough. As Carroll Muffett, lead author of the CIEL report, argues, we can’t “recycle our way out of the plastics crisis.”
Instead, we must stop producing fossil fuels and unnecessary disposable plastic
items. Reducing use is key, but shifting to plant-based plastics and other
products is also crucial.
As we’ve written before, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed flaws in our outdated
economic systems, but it’s also provided an opportunity to pause and figure out
how to build back better. Our constant rush to exploit resources, burn fossil
fuels, and create disposable plastic products for the sake of short-term
profits is putting all life and health at risk.
We should have started phasing out fossil fuels and their
byproducts decades ago when we realized they were creating massive amounts of
air, water, and land pollution and heating the planet to temperatures that put
our health and survival at risk. The longer we delay, the more difficult change
becomes. It’s time for new ideas. It’s time for a just, green recovery.
David Suzuki , an award-winning geneticist
and broadcaster, co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990. He was a faculty member at the University of
British Columbia, and is currently professor emeritus. Suzuki is widely
recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology and has received numerous
awards for his work, including a UNESCO prize for science and a United Nations
Environment Program medal.
Ian Hanington is a senior editor at
the David Suzuki Foundation.
© 2019 David Suzuki Foundation
Donations can be sent
to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The
master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class
has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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