Plastic pollution is an oil industry ‘crime’ says lawyer as countries negotiate global plastics treaty

Saturday, 30 November 2024

Global plastic pollution is a crime, humanity is its victim, and oil companies are the criminals.

That’s the stark message from the US Centre for Climate Integrity (CCI) as the world’s nations negotiate a global plastics treaty the more ambitious among them hope could prevent an expected tripling of plastic production by 2060.

CCI lawyer Chelsea Linsley, speaking to The Post from San Francisco, says: “Microplastics are getting into the human body. They are crossing the blood brain barrier.

“According to recent studies, they've been found in our hearts, our lungs, our semen, our breast milk, every aspect of the human body. It is a serious cause for concern that scientists are only just now beginning to understand the implications of that.”

A similar message was hammered home by Luis Vayas Valdivieso, who is chairing negotiations for a global plastics treaty in Busan in South Korea, which are due to conclude on Saturday.

“The voices of the world are clear. We need healthier meals free from microplastics. We need clean air, oceans, and forests. We need safe, non-toxic plastic products. We need innovation, circularity, and collaboration to replace harmful plastics,” Valdivieso told delegates from countries, and observers from the oil industry and civil society groups.

He is chairing the fifth round of negotiations for the treaty. Agreement is proving stubbornly hard to get, with a group of powerful “low ambition” countries including China, India, oil-producing countries, and possibly now the US, not looking for a strong, binding treaty.

“Plastics are highly durable. Depending on environmental conditions they can decompose between 100 and 1000 years or even more,” Valdivieso said.

“Microplastics have been detected in various human organs raising concern about potential health risks including cancer and reproductive issues.”

He called plastics pollution an existential challenge. “Decisions we make in the next seven days will shape history. Urgency compels us to act with determination. The world is watching us, and we must not falter.”

New Zealand is at the negotiatingtable but some civil society groups, including Greenpeace, believe that since the change of government, ambitions for the treaty have weakened.

But rather than seeing plastic pollution as a global mistake, an accident of uncoordinated human activity, CCI has come to see it as a crime perpetrated on humanity by the global oil industry.

“It's not really obvious to the general public that plastics are fossil fuels, and fossil fuel companies are plastics companies,” Linsley says.

“A lot of people when they start looking at this are really kind of shocked to learn the back story behind all of this, and how plastic is or is not being recycled.”

The statistics tell a tragic story that recycling has not worked.

Plastic made from fossil fuels is not infinitely recyclable. Plastic is merely a resting place for fossil fuels on their way to being buried, burnt, or released to decay in the environment.

Estimates for how much plastic is recycled at least once is less than 10%.

Massey University environmental anthropologist Trisia Farrelly calls plastic recycling a myth.

“Even the most recyclable plastic can only be recycled a number of times before it has to be disposed of. There is no perpetual circulation,” she says.

And when even the most recyclable plastic is recycled, it loses some integrity, and needs new “virgin” plastic added to it.

“They don’t tell the public that. They don’t want the public to generally know that,” she says.

In the US, Linsley says just 5% to 6% of plastics are recycled, although, she says: “We can’t be certain that all of the plastic that is counted as recycled is actually mechanically recycled into a new product, because a lot of it is sold to recycling companies, who then ship it overseas, and we don’t really know what happens to it after that.”

That argument parallels that of New Zealander Lydia Chai, who last year petitioned Parliament to ban the export of plastic waste to already plastic-polluted developing countries.

The argument made by CCI is that the plastics and oil industry created legitimacy for plastic production by creating a false impression that recycling worked.

“We refer to it as a fraud, a deception,” Linsley says.

It’s led to landmark court cases being launched by the state of California against Exxon Mobil alleging a massive deception, she says.

“The state has investigated that they engaged in a campaign of deception to tell the public that plastic is recyclable, even though they knew internally, and they were saying internally, that this was never going to be technically or economically viable at scale.

“It's a very timely lawsuit in terms of the global focus on the International Treaty negotiations,” Linsley says.

Exxon Mobil’s response to being sued was to point the finger back at the state.

“For decades California officials have known their recycling system isn't effective. They failed to act and now they seek to blame others,” the company said.

“Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills. The first step would be to acknowledge what their counterparts across the US know: advanced recycling works.

“To date, we've processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials, keeping it out of landfills. We're bringing real solutions, recycling plastic waste that couldn't be recycled by traditional methods.”

The term “advanced recycling” is being trumpeted at the treaty negotiations, says Linsley, and it has the “fingers of the oil industry” all over it.

The industry's messaging is that “advanced recycling” is going to close the gap on recycling, Linsley says.

Talk of these technologies seems to suggest that a circular plastic economy could be created.

“It is very unlikely to happen,” she says.

“There are a lot of technical and economic challenges to making this a viable technology. This is not a technology that’s going to save us from the plastic waste crisis,” Linsley says.

The oil industry wants people to think there is a technological solution that allows us to carry on producing plastic at an increasingly huge scale.

“I think California's suit really lays out in detail how that is not the case, and the representations that they're making in these treaty negotiations are in fact false,” Linsley says.

Despite the concerns of local civil society groups, the messaging from the New Zealand government on the treaty remains strong.

“In negotiations, our country is advocating for a treaty to take a full lifecycle approach to plastic, addressing issues from the extraction of raw materials through to disposal and pollution impacts on ecosystems,” the Ministry for the Environment says.

“In November 2022, Aotearoa New Zealand also joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. Members of the High Ambition Coalition share a common vision to end plastic pollution by 2040,” it said.

Linsley said consumers never asked for plastic. They had it foisted onto them. And they are not happy.

Despite fears US president elect Donald Trump will stymie attempts to limit plastic production, Linsley says it is a bi-partisan issue in the US.

“Both Republicans and Democrats are very concerned about plastic waste.”

Global market research company Ipsos found across the world, an average of 88% of people supported a strong plastics treaty.

However, New Zealand has been slow to get on top of its own recycling failure.

Some single-use plastics have been banned including drinking straws and single-use cutlery.

But it was only in 2020 that single-use plastic packaging, including drinks bottles and the other multiple forms of plastic packaging visible in shops and supermarkets up and down the country, were made a “priority” product under the Waste Minimisation Act.

That meant a “product stewardship scheme” had to be created, putting levies on plastic packaging that could be used to fund improved management of plastic waste.

Work continues to launch such a scheme, but it’s not something the Government has on its list of quick must-dos.

While some uses of plastic are essential for maintaining a decent standard of living, there is a growing recognition that far too much plastic is being made, and production has to be scaled back.

Some think that means turning the clock back a few decades to a time when plastic was virtually absent from shops.

Wairarapa resident John Rhodes said: “Until about 1952 I had never seen a plastic bag. After school, I worked in a grocery store packing flour, sugar, biscuits, dates, raisins and potatoes into paper bags for sale at the counter.

“Our local pharmacy dispensed pills in cylindrical cardboard containers and liquid medicines in glass bottles. Today, plastic packaging is ubiquitous and inescapable, and … causes immense problems in pollution, litter and lack of disposability.

“We have fallen prey to the false notion that the answer to the problem of plastic waste is recycling.”

He said: “The only real solution is not to use plastic packaging at all.”