Plastics - From Helpful to Hazardous
Why should we care?
Plastics are a huge part of our lives - they are inexpensive and have useful applications across many industries, in our homes and in businesses. Today, plastics (especially single or limited use plastics) are being mass produced at an enormous scale. As more consumers shift from gas powered cars and appliances to electric and renewable energy sources, the oil and gas industry is using production of plastic to ensure continued growth and profit.
The utilization of single-use plastics continues to rise, due in part to our culture of convenience. This is severely impacting human and environmental health because the entire lifecycle of plastics is toxic. Plastic is fabricated from extracting and burning fossil fuels, resulting in hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Much of the pollution from plastics manufacturing has a disproportionate impact on the communities located in close proximity to the plants. People living in these communities often are of color with lower income, which further compounds the environmental, health and social equity issues they face.
Plastic pellets, also called nurdles, are the building blocks for all plastic products. These nurdles are particularly damaging because they are very tiny and have been known to spill during manufacturing as well as during transit. There are currently no hazardous waste regulations on nurdles,even though they are made of oil. When nurdles enter our environment, they negatively impact our oceans, waterways, ecosystems and wildlife.
Plastic lasts forever.
Plastics don’t decompose. Instead, they slowly break down over time into microplastics or, in the case of clothing, shed microfibers into our waterways and landfills, continuing to pollute our environment at the end of their lifecycle. To give you an idea of the impact of microplastics/microfibers on our oceans, 5 Gyres, a non-profit organization, published the world’s first Global Estimate of Marine Plastic Pollution in 2014 and estimated there were 5.25 trillion particles on the ocean’s surface. Just 9 years later, their 2023 publication named “Plastic Smog” revealed these numbers have grown to an astonishing 170 trillion plastic particles. This doesn’t even account for how plastics are impacting our land, rivers and lakes.
We cannot recycle our way out.
Plastic recycling has failed to meet expectations. The ubiquitous “chasing arrows” recycling symbol that's etched on nearly every piece of plastic is, quite simply, a lie. It’s a lie that the plastics industry continues to perpetuate by falsely claiming their products can be recycled. It’s a lie because plastic, unlike other materials such as aluminum, glass and cardboard, is not easily recyclable, nor is it economically viable. This has resulted in an abysmal recycling rate that’s estimated at less than 6%. Further, instead of focusing on researching and implementing more sustainable alternatives to create a better product design, brands that use plastic simply pop the “recycling” symbol on their items - leaving consumers confused and burdened with the waste.
5 Things to Know about Plastic
1. The economics - new plastic is cheap to produce.
It’s less expensive to produce new plastic than to sort and recycle plastic. Even though plastics are touted as widely recyclable, the majority are not recycled because it’s not profitable. Fun fact - the EPA has not published plastic recycling rates since 2018 and the highest plastic recycling rates topped out at just under 10%, but that was when the US was shipping plastic trash to other countries like China and Turkey. Also, it’s difficult to find audited proof that any of our shipped plastic was ever properly "recycled".
2. Different types of plastics create complexity & confusion.
There are 7 types of common plastics. Each tiny, hard to read number inside the iconic “recycling” symbol on a plastic container identifies the type of resin used. Often, these plastics are mixed together to make one product. Consider a typical deodorant container - it’s made of several types of plastic resin: the adhesive label, the protective cap, the body of the container and the twistable gear. Recycling this kind of product is complicated and more expensive than producing a new one, so it doesn’t happen with commercial recycling. Instead the burden is on us to figure out what to do with it. Do we put it in recycling, the trash or drop it off/send it to a third party?
3. Third party “advanced recycling” companies are not what they seem.
Many major consumer brands making complex, hard-to-recycle plastic items (think of all those plastic pouches in our supermarkets and pretty much every personal care product) have a solution for the waste their products generate. The solution is encouraging us to send their clean empties to "advanced recycling” companies, such as Renewology & Terracycle which, once again, puts the burden on the consumer. Instead, the focus needs to shift to the brands to design more environmentally responsible packaging for their products. This shift would force industry to research and develop alternative materials to plastic. Also, there is very little audited proof that any meaningful percentage of these mailed in/dropped off plastic products are ever recycled. As a result, it’s been reported that the majority of this plastic ends up in landfill anyway or, even worse, it’s burned at concrete plants to create other toxic materials, like cement. Certainly not the “recycling” we all hoped for.
4. Plastics from packaging are rarely recyclable.
Plastic bags, bubble wrap, clam shells (those lightweight containers found in nearly every grocery store storing fruits, vegetables or take out food items) often boast the “recycling” symbol. Since they are made of poor quality plastic, a small amount of these plastics can only be downcycled into lower quality products. For this reason, recyclers do not typically process them.
And drumroll…the worst culprit of them all:
5. Single-use food service items are NOT recyclable.
None of the single-use plastics (including toxic foam) used for food and beverage service are recyclable. Just think about that for a second. The huge amount of waste generated by billions of plastic cups and lids, which are discarded after only a few minutes of use. Or that fork/spoon/plate that we use briefly? Or that little plastic plug that your local coffee shop puts in your cup so your beverage doesn't spill out of the opening of the non-recyclable plastic lid.
What about bioplastics?
Cups, plates & cutlery that look like plastic advertise they are made from plants and are labeled “compostable”, “eco-friendly” or “biodegradable”. These “bioplastics” are made from a number of different renewable materials like corn & sugarcane; however, this is yet another complex solution because growing these products takes a big toll on scarce resources (land and water) and the fertilizer runoff is harmful. In addition, unless these items are placed in an appropriate refuse container and sent to a facility that can actually break them down (these are rarities in our country), then they are really nothing more than trash. Finally, since they are plant based, these bioplastics will release methane just like rotting food. We will write a separate paper to address the complexities of bioplastics because it deserves its own piece.
What can we do to have an impact on all this waste?
We must demand our local city/county/state take action to implement policies to significantly decrease plastic waste. We need our leaders to make data-driven decisions that consider not just the economics of plastic vs alternatives but, more importantly, the economics of pollution and its impact on health - of people, animals and our fragile ecosystems.
Write to your representatives. Voice your concern at your local city council meetings. Start with the biggest culprits of waste and ask for policies that ban single-use plastic food service items and ALL plastic bags - yes especially those thick ones that rarely get reused.
These bans have been proven to work, but we have to speak up. Small improvements like installing (and promoting the use of!) water filtration systems at our airports, at our workplaces and at our parks can significantly reduce plastic water bottle usage. And these changes require just a small shift in people's habits to be successful.
Ask to speak with store owners where we shop or write to senior management to let them know how important it is that they take real steps to reduce their plastic waste. Stop buying from companies who package and/or ship items with excessive waste, putting the burden on us to dispose of it. Write to or tag favorite brands on social media and ask them to share their packaging redesign plan to reduce plastic waste. Bring refillable jugs of water to sporting events and ask players to bring their own reusable bottles.
Reduce, Refuse & Reuse!
One of the largest and most important habit changing shifts we can make is to consume less and reuse more. We can ask ourselves if we really need to make that purchase and re-evaluate what we currently need vs. what we want. Imagine the impact on waste if we brought our own reusable cup/bottle when going to get our favorite beverage. And, if we forget, we can ask for a glass or a reusable cup for water (sans straw). We can look for beverages packaged in aluminum cans. At the coffee shop, we can ask the barista for a ceramic cup or, if a disposable cup is the only option, we can refuse the lid. At our farmers’ markets and grocery stores, we can bring our own bags and opt for bulk purchasing of pantry staples in reusable bags/containers instead of buying items packaged in plastic. These are just a few examples of changes we can make to have a positive impact on waste and the proliferation of plastic.
Sources
https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/plastics-market-102176
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/recycling-global-statistics-facts-plastic-paper/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/29/nurdles-plastic-pellets-environmental-ocean-spills-toxic-waste-not-classified-hazardous
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/microplastics.html
https://www.beyondplastics.org/press-releases/the-real-truth-about-plastics-recycling
https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-bioplastics-will-not-solve-the-worlds-plastics-problem
