Undermine puzzle rooms
While voluntary corporate commitments to end plastic waste have flooded in, the plastics crisis has kept getting worse. Photograph: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images Gary Stokes, founder of Oceans Asia, poses with discarded face masks found on a beach in Hong Kong. Looking at the consequences of one’s own actions, from a privileged standpoint, multiplied and intensified across the planet, invites a kind of vertigo. By contrast, the global average of plastic consumption is 45kg per person per year, and as little as 4kg per person per year in India. Supermarkets with over-packaged food are one of the main problems. The plastics crisis is a systemic problem, however, and most people are locked into supply chains and infrastructures, unable to simply opt out of plastics consumption.Īccording to a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, the United Kingdom is second only to the United States in terms of the amount of plastic waste generated per person, at 99kg and 105kg per person per year respectively. Many environmental activists and researchers have pointed out that one of the key tactics of industry is to blame the consumer for plastic waste, which diverts attention from corporate responsibility. Hearing these glowing industry reports about single-use plastics growth, I couldn’t help feeling guilty about the plastics that have entered my home in the UK during the pandemic. Covid-19 didn’t change our long-term view on the fundamentals.” A key tactic of industry is to blame consumers for plastic waste, which diverts attention from corporate responsibility All of this is really driven by the world’s growing global middle class, and that’s going to drive demand for the products we produce. We saw record sales and record volumes for our products throughout the pandemic… over the long term we can continue to see that kind of growth, and we’re going to see that accelerate as economies reopen around the world. At the virtual World Petrochemical Conference in March 2021, industry analysts identified four key “Covid demand drivers”: food packaging, bag ban delays, online shopping, and hygiene and medical.Īs one petrochemical industry executive enthused: “The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted how essential all our products are to everyone in society around the globe. By the end of 2020, industry leaders had fully embraced the new pandemic narrative about the essential role of plastics in society and many expressed optimism about their future growth. As far as industry was concerned, this was enough: it had regained its social licence to operate. Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Imagesĭuring the pandemic, plastic was restored to its original paradoxical status as both a miracle and a menace for society. Plastic-derived PPE is essential for ensuring the safety of medical staff. And polyethylene may even be gaining some public favour as it plays a high-profile role in combating the greatest health risk to our planet in modern history.” At the virtual World Petrochemical Conference in April 2020, an industry analyst commented on this unexpected shift: “Ironically, sustainability, the issue that was dominating the conversation until just a few weeks ago, seems to be fading into the background, at least for the moment. However, it did highlight in a very real and urgent way the importance of many plastic products for healthcare and hygiene. Otherwise, we could lose our social licence to operate.” Of course, the pandemic did not take the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind.
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As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: “We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind.
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In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders. Each of these crises has led to new laws and regulations, despite corporate efforts to undermine them. Corporations along the plastics value chain have faced a number of environmental and health crises, from toxic scandals to marine plastic waste and the climate emergency. T here are only two reasons that the plastics industry will change, a polymer scientist once told me: war or legislation.