The real costs of plastics

It’s quite a number, wherever within the range your take falls.

From our coffee cups and cutting boards to toys and synthetic clothing, plastic may feel convenient—even cheap. But a new report from Duke University reveals that the true cost of plastic is staggering.

The report entitled “The Social Cost of Plastic to the United States” estimates that Americans face $436 billion to $1.1 trillion in annual social costs associated with plastics. This is the most comprehensive analysis to date, examining the full lifecycle of plastics—from fossil fuel extraction and production to use, disposal, and mismanagement. To put the scale of this cost into perspective, you would need to spend $33.8 million every single day for 81 years to reach $1 trillion! - Surfrider

Talks on a plastics treaty keep going nowhere

This was predictable, these days. Big Plastics is a powerful entity, and like all the Bigs is ethically bereft in every way.

Diplomats from around the world concluded nine days of talks in Geneva — plus a marathon overnight session that lasted into the early hours of (August 15) — with no agreement on a global plastics treaty…

Signs of a logjam were apparent even within the first few days of the talks, however, as countries hewed to the same red lines they’d stuck to during previous negotiations. A so-called “like-minded group” of oil-producing countries said it would not accept legally binding obligations and opposed a wide range of provisions that other nations said were essential, including controls on new plastic production, as well as mandatory disclosures and phaseouts of hazardous chemicals used in plastics. - Grist

The corporate "bigs," climate denial, and social media

Many of us didn't need a study to know full well this is happening. But it's good to have it documented and proved.

From 2008 to 2023, nine of the nation’s largest oil, agrichemical, and plastics trade groups and corporations posted thousands of tweets on the social media platform X, and their messaging on environmental issues was strikingly “obstructive” for climate policy and action, a study published (in January) in the journal PLOS Climate concludes.

The study found that all of the organizations, including the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), were mentioned by at least four of the other groups – helping to essentially create an echo chamber for similar messages. The groups also frequently tagged regulators and the media in their posts, with researchers finding the Environmental Protection Agency was tagged 795 times and the Wall Street Journal, the most mentioned media organization, tagged 517 times out of more than 125,000 X posts.

“Our study suggests that climate obstruction in different industries is more coordinated than is generally recognized,” said co-author Jennie Stephens, professor of Sustainability Science and Policy at Northeastern University and of Climate Justice at the National University of Ireland Maynooth.

“Combined with the high engagement of the petrochemical derivative and fuel sectors with government regulatory, policy, and political entities in the energy and environmental in particular, this suggests strategic attempts to undermine and subvert climate policy through social media,” the authors wrote. - DeSmog

Plastics industry seeks approval for another con

Actually, a lot of people still don’t know about the realities of plastics recycling in general.

Is there anything more pathetic than a used plastic bag?

They rip and tear. They float away in the slightest breeze. Left in the wild, their mangled remains entangle birds and choke sea turtles that mistake them for edible jellyfish. It takes 1,000 years for the bags to disintegrate, shedding hormone-disrupting chemicals as they do. And that outcome is all but inevitable, because no system exists to routinely recycle them. It’s no wonder some states have banned them and stores give discounts to customers with reusable bags.

But the plastics industry is working to make the public feel OK about using them again.

Companies whose futures depend on plastic production, including oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on bags and other plastic items virtually guaranteed to end up in landfills and incinerators. - ProPublica

Big Plastics goes for ultra-greenwashing

A lot of people don't know that most plastics don't get recycled. Nor is the technology there to really change that, any time soon. And based on long experience I certainly know who I'm going to believe, between industry and environmentalists, in any context.

The newest flashpoint in a political battle between environmental groups and the plastics industry over “chemical” or “advanced” recycling has to do with the kinds of claims that can be made and still be truthful with American consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission is weighing its first changes in 10 years to its Green Guides, which establish guidelines for companies’ environmental advertising and labeling claims. The FTC’s review goes far beyond plastic recycling and includes concepts such as “net zero” related to greenhouse gas emissions, biodegradability, sustainability, and organic products...

The industry says that through advanced recycling a “circular” plastics economy can be created that reduces the need to tap virgin fossil fuels to make its products. Environmentalists say advanced recycling is in many cases tantamount to “greenwashing”—an energy-intensive process with a high carbon footprint that essentially incinerates much of the waste and turns a small percentage into feedstocks for new plastics, or more fossil fuels. - Mother Jones

Put responsibility for plastics pollution where it belongs

The misinformation, and outright propaganda, fomented by the greedheads on this issue is ubiquitous.

In the midst of a mounting plastic crisis, the biggest plastic polluters keep pushing better consumer recycling behaviors as the solution. The plastic waste problem is not going to be solved by doubling down on our efforts to educate the public to recycle better. It can be solved by policies that prevent hard-to-recycle items from ever being created and requiring producers to take responsibility for the waste their products become...

These companies have been shifting responsibility for their waste onto consumers since the 1970s by publicly blaming litterbugs and emphasizing personal responsibility to recycle while quietly squashing legislation that could actually help reduce waste, like bottle bills that would require companies to collect, reuse, or otherwise process the containers they sold. Public outcry over waste in public spaces is also not new. The mounting accumulation of packaging and disposable goods prompted more than 1,000 legislative attempts to ban, tax, or incentivize the return of disposable items in the 1970s. The beverage and packaging industry successfully spent millions of dollars fighting these regulatory efforts, saddling us with the problem of dealing with the waste their products inevitably become. If this sounds familiar, it’s because these companies have simply taken a line out of Big Tobacco and Big Oil’s playbook: addict, deny, obfuscate. - Earther