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Ahead of Plastics Treaty Summit, Studies Make Case for Stopping Pollution at the Source
"Whether the treaty includes plastic production cuts is not just a policy debate," said one expert. "It's a matter of survival."
Apr 19, 2024
As worldwide government officials, civil society groups, and activists prepare to head to Ottawa, Canada for the fourth session of global plastics treaty negotiations, climate advocates urged attendees to keep in mind the new findings of scientists who showed Thursday that plastic production—not waste—is the main driver of the synthetic substances' planet-heating emissions.
The federally funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California released a paper showing that the greenhouse gas emissions of the plastics industry are equivalent to those of about 600 coal-fired power plants and are four times higher than those of the airline sector.
Lobbyists for the plastics industry, along with countries that are home to the world's biggest fossil fuel polluters, have pushed for a plastics treaty that centers waste management and a "circular economy" in which waste plastic is used indefinitely to produce new synthetic products.
But the Lawrence Berkeley scientists found that 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by plastics are released before the plastic compounds are even created by the polymerization process.
"Plastics' impact on the climate starts with extraction," said the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) in a policy brief on the lab's findings. "To fully capture, measure, evaluate, and address the impacts of plastic pollution, assessment, and regulatory controls must consider the complete lifecycle, beginning with extraction."
According to Lawrence Berkeley's research, if plastic production remains at its current level, it could burn through roughly one-fifth the planet's remaining carbon budget, pushing the Earth closer to planetary heating that exceeds 1.5°C.
"To avoid breaching the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris [climate] agreement," said GAIA, "primary plastic production must decrease by at least 12% to 17% per year, starting in 2024."
To achieve that goal, said the Center for Financial Accountability on Thursday, fossil fuel-producing countries must stop treating the global plastics treaty "as a waste management treaty."
"While global leaders are trying to negotiate a solution to the plastic crisis, the petrochemical industry is investing billions of dollars in making the problem rapidly worse," said GAIA science and policy director Neil Tangri, a senior fellow at University of California, Berkeley. "We need a global agreement to stop this cancerous growth, bring down plastic production, and usher in a world with less plastic and less pollution."
At the third session of the the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) last year, 143 plastics industry lobbyists registered to attend, prompting advocates to call for their exclusion from future summits.
On Sunday, ahead of the meetings set to take place from April 23-29, the Break Free From Plastic movement is planning to march through Ottawa, to demand "strong conflict of interest policies that protect the treaty negotiations and its implementation from the vested interests of industries that are profiting" from the growing plastic pollution crisis.
The campaigners will also demand a negotiation process that respects the rights of Indigenous people, a treaty that supports "non-toxic reuse systems" and rejects a "circular economy" model, and limiting and reducing plastic production a "non-negotiable requirement to end plastic pollution."
Dr. Jorge Emmanuel, a co-author of GAIA's policy brief and a research fellow at Siliman University in the Philippines, said the climate impacts that have already hit his country illustrate the need for a strong global plastics treaty.
"The Philippines is on the frontlines of both climate change and plastic pollution," said Emmanuel. "Heatwaves, powerful typhoons, and flooding are getting worse, and the petrochemical industry has displaced our traditional systems with mountains of plastic that poison our communities."
"Whether the treaty includes plastic production cuts is not just a policy debate," he added. "It's a matter of survival."
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UN Provides Blueprint for 80% Cut to Global Plastic Pollution by 2040
"If we follow this roadmap, including in negotiations on the plastic pollution deal, we can deliver major economic, social, and environmental wins," said the director of the U.N. Environment Program.
May 16, 2023
Global plastic pollution can be reduced by 80% by 2040 if countries and companies make far-reaching changes using existing technologies, according to a report published Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Program.
Turning Off the Tap: How the World Can End Plastic Pollution and Create a Circular Economy comes less than two weeks before the start of a second round of negotiations in Paris on a legally binding global plastics treaty. While the required shifts outlined in the report are significant, UNEP stresses that they are practical, relatively inexpensive, and would yield benefits valued at more than $4.5 trillion.
Research has shown that plastic pollution is a life-threatening crisis poised to grow worse unless governments intervene to prevent fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations from expanding the production of single-use items.
"The way we produce, use, and dispose of plastics is polluting ecosystems, creating risks for human health, and destabilizing the climate," UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said in a statement. "This UNEP report lays out a roadmap to dramatically reduce these risks through adopting a circular approach that keeps plastics out of ecosystems, out of our bodies, and in the economy."
"If we follow this roadmap, including in negotiations on the plastic pollution deal," said Andersen, "we can deliver major economic, social, and environmental wins."
The report proposes a four-fold "systems change" to address "the causes of plastic pollution, rather than just the symptoms." As UNEP summarizes, it consists of the following:
- Reduce: By first eliminating problematic and unnecessary plastics, policymakers can reduce the size of the problem.
- Reuse: Promoting reuse options—including refillable bottles, bulk dispensers, deposit-return schemes, packaging take-back schemes, etc.—can reduce 30% of plastic pollution by 2040. To realize its potential, governments must help build a stronger business case for reusable items.
- Recycle: Reducing plastic pollution by an additional 20% by 2040 can be achieved if recycling becomes a more stable and profitable venture. Removing fossil fuels subsidies, enforcing design guidelines to enhance recyclability, and other measures would increase the share of economically recyclable plastics from 21 to 50%.
- Reorient and Diversify: Careful replacement of products such as plastic wrappers, sachets, and takeaway items with products made from alternative materials (such as paper or compostable materials) can deliver an additional 17% decrease in plastic pollution.
"Even with the measures above, 100 million metric tons of plastics from single-use and short-lived products will still need to be safely dealt with annually by 2040—together with a significant legacy of existing plastic pollution," UNEP explains. "This can be addressed by setting and implementing design and safety standards for disposing of non-recyclable plastic waste, and by making manufacturers responsible for products shedding microplastics, among others."
According to the agency: "The shift to a circular economy would result in $1.27 trillion in savings, considering costs and recycling revenues. A further $3.25 trillion would be saved from avoided externalities such as health, climate, air pollution, marine ecosystem degradation, and litigation-related costs. This shift could also result in a net increase of 700,000 jobs by 2040, mostly in low-income countries, significantly improving the livelihoods of millions of workers in informal settings."
Although UNEP's recommendations necessitate a substantial investment, it is "below the spending without this systemic change: $65 billion per year as opposed to $113 billion per year," the agency notes. "Much of this can be mobilized by shifting planned investments for new production facilities—no longer needed through reduction in material needs—or a levy on virgin plastic production into the necessary circular infrastructure. Yet time is of the essence: a five-year delay may lead to an increase of 80 million metric tons of plastic pollution by 2040."
While many progressive advocacy groups are likely to welcome UNEP's overall message that readily available solutions, backed by strong regulatory instruments, can help bring about a transformation from a "throwaway" society to a "reuse" society, the agency is facing criticism for its promotion of burning plastic waste in cement kilns.
"Burning plastic waste in cement kilns is a 'get out of jail free card' for the plastic industry to keep ramping up plastic production by claiming that the plastic problem can be simply burned away," Neil Tangri, science and policy director at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), said in a statement. "Not only does this pose a grave climate and public health threat, it also undermines the primary goal of the global plastic treaty—putting a cap on plastic production."
Larisa de Orbe of the Mexican environmental justice groups Red de Acción Ecológica and Colectiva Malditos Plásticos echoed Tangri's argument.
"To tackle the plastic crisis, waste should not be burned, but its production should be drastically reduced, and single-use plastics should be banned," said Orbe. "Environmental authorities in Mexico and the [U.N.] Human Rights Rapporteur on Toxic Substances have recognized that the burning of waste in cement kilns has caused environmental disaster and the violation of human rights in the territories and communities near these activities."
Imports of plastic waste into Mexico grew by 121% between 2018 and 2021. As GAIA noted, a large portion of that "is suspected to be burned in cement kilns, which operate with few controls or emissions monitoring systems."
Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program, called the U.N.'s promotion of burning of plastic waste in cement kilns "an irresponsible choice that has significant health implications for the communities living nearby."
"Burning plastic waste releases dioxins that stay in the environment forever, and are linked to cancers, reproductive, and developmental impairments," said Birnbaum. "These are the very same chemicals that are threatening the residents of East Palestine, Ohio."
Ahead of the first round of global plastic treaty negotiations in December, civil society organizations, scientists, and other advocates demanded robust rules to confront the full lifecycle impacts of the plastic pollution crisis.
After talks opened, the Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) alliance, comprised of more than 100 groups, emphasized the need to limit the ever-growing production and consumption of plastic and hold corporations accountable for the ecological and public health harms caused by manufacturing an endless stream of toxic single-use items.
The coalition launched a petition outlining what it described as the "essential elements" of a multilateral environmental agreement capable of "reversing the tide of plastic pollution and contributing to the end of the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution." According to experts associated with BFFP, an effective pact must include:
- Significant, progressive, and mandatory targets to cap and dramatically reduce virgin plastic production;
- Legally binding, time-bound, and ambitious targets to implement and scale up reuse, refill, and alternative product delivery systems;
- A just transition to safer and more sustainable livelihoods for workers and communities across the plastics supply chain; and
- Provisions that hold polluting corporations and plastic-producing countries accountable.
While the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meetings in December (INC-1) and those scheduled to begin later this month (INC-2) mark the first time that governments have met to develop global regulations to restrict plastic production, the United States and the United Kingdom—the world's biggest per-capita plastic polluters—have so far refused to join a worldwide treaty aimed at curbing the amount of plastic waste destined for landfills and habitats, though both countries are reportedly now open to the idea.
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New Report: Giants Like Coca-Cola Are Trashing the Planet With Plastics While Pushing 'False Solutions'
"Only by highlighting the real culprits can we push them to change their packaging and destructive throwaway business model."
Oct 23, 2019
A new report out Wednesday from a global environmental coalition named the corporate giants responsible for the most global plastic pollution in a recent tally--with Coca-Cola and Nestle topping the list--even as those same companies engage in greenwash efforts to continue "the plastic pollution crisis."
"This report provides more evidence that corporations urgently need to do more to address the plastic pollution crisis they've created," said Von Hernandez, global coordinator of the Break Free From Plastic movement, in statement.
\u201cBREAKING: @CocaCola, @Nestle and @PepsiCo named top plastic polluters for SECOND year in a row. \n\nIt's time we held them to account. \n\nRead the full #BreakFreeFromPlastic #BrandAudit2019 report: https://t.co/TVptCFUDAQ\u201d— breakfreefromplastic (@breakfreefromplastic) 1571796226
For its analysis, the coalition engaged in a "brand audit." That means "identifying, counting, and documenting the brands found on plastic and other collected packaging waste to help identify the corporations responsible for pollution," in other words, finding "the companies polluting the most places with the most plastics."
The tally took place last month on World Cleanup Day, and involved over 70,000 volunteers in 51 countries across six continents. They gathered and assessed "476,423 pieces of plastic waste, 43 percent of which was marked with a clear consumer brand," the report said.
The top 10 most frequently identified companies were Coca-Cola, Nestle, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Unilever, Mars, P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, Phillip Morris, and Perfetti Van Mille.
What did it take for Coca-Cola to take top spot--a dubious honor it takes for the second year in a row?
"A total of 11,732 branded Coca-Cola plastics were recorded in 37 countries across four continents," the report said, "more than the next three top global polluters combined."
Nestle and PepsiCo, meanwhile, still claim spots two and three, respectively, swapping the positions they held in the coalition's 2018 audit.
"We must continue to expose these real culprits of our plastic and recycling crisis."
--Denise Patel, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)Break Free From Plastic's name-and-shame effort has a clear goal: "Only by highlighting the real culprits can we push them to change their packaging and destructive throwaway business model." In addition, said the group, it's "a powerful tool to challenge the corporate narrative that plastic pollution is a waste management issue caused by individual consumers."
Companies may tout that their plastic products are recyclable, but that's an incomplete description, said the report. Labeling a product recyclable provides no guarantee that it will actually get recycled. The report noted that "since the 1950's, only 9 percent has actually been recycled globally."
Even if the product is recycled, that's no "magic solution."
This is because plastic polymer chains get shorter when they are recycled, which means the quality deteriorates. A plastic bottle can only be recycled a few times and in reality most recycled plastic is made into clothing, construction materials, or other products that will not get recycled again.
What's more, the production of plastic generally relies on climate-wrecking fossil fuels and causes air pollution, while the use of it can threaten consumers who face potentially leaching chemicals. All of these problems, the report said, "disproportionately impact the world's poorest communities," who are often the dumping ground for wealthier nations' plastic waste.
"The products and packaging that brands like Coca-Cola, Nestle, and PepsiCo are churning out is turning our recycling system into garbage," said Denise Patel, U.S. Coordinator for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). "China has effectively banned the import of the U.S. and other exporting countries' 'recycling,' and other countries are following suit. Plastic is being burned in incinerators across the world, exposing communities to toxic pollution. We must continue to expose these real culprits of our plastic and recycling crisis."
The industry response to the crisis is of no help.
"In the face of the undeniable evidence provided by the global brand audits, top industry polluters have been quick to acknowledge their role in perpetuating the plastic pollution crisis, but have been equally aggressive in promoting false solutions to address the problem," said the report, noting that they do so as they "reap billions of dollars while avoiding paying the full cost of their design and production choices."
These "false solutions, such as switching to paper or 'bioplastics' or embracing chemical recycling, are failing to move society away from single-use packaging and only continue to perpetuate the throwaway culture."
From the report:
Nestle for example has committed to making all of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025, but has no clear plans for reducing the total amount of single-use plastic it puts into the world, and the company sells over a billion products a day in single-use packaging. Coca Cola has recently unveiled a single-use plastic bottle using plastic collected from the oceans, and in 2009 they promoted a plastic bottle made from plants. None of these products will stop or reduce Coke's growing plastic pollution, and reinforce the myth that single-use plastic can be sustainable. And finally, PepsiCo has joined the Alliance to End Plastic Waste that brings together plastic producers, oil companies and other consumer goods companies to promote beach cleanups and improving recycling as a way to ensure future demand for petrochemicals to make more plastic. Efforts like these, and others focused on making packaging recyclable or compostable, do not get to the heart of the problem and all but guarantee the plastic pollution crisis will grow worse.
"Real solutions," said the report, "must change systems and power structures."
That means looking at examples set by so-called "zero waste" communities, who boost waste reduction, recycling, and composting. Business must also get on board with "the one true solution: reduction and reuse."
That's because, according to Hernandez, "Recycling is not going to solve this problem."
"Break Free From Plastic's nearly 1,800 member organizations are calling on corporations to urgently reduce their production of single-use plastic," said Hernandez, "and find innovative solutions focused on alternative delivery systems that do not create pollution."
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