By Egbodo Queen
Plastics were introduced as alternative to bottles and paper bags.
Until recently, it was thought that plastics save producers cost until they became nuisance to the environment.
Plastics take decades to decay, even when burnt, there are always still traces from the melted remains. When not recycled, these plastic waste cause serious harm to water bodies they dind themselves into rivers, creeks, lakes and even the oceans.
They cause serious ecological damage to the ecosystem by blocking air spaces that makes healthy living for marine life.
According to the Department of Energy, the United States generates over 48 million tons of plastic waste annually, of which only 5 to 6 percent are recycled. The remainder gets burned or winds up in landfills.
Reports have it that there were early warnings of the negative impacts of plastic pollution, but they were ignored by producing companies.
With plastic identified as contributing to climate change and environmental pollution, the sector have now come under heavy criticism with scientists accusing the producers of insensitivity.
A.former chemical engineer, Jan Dell has spent years disclosing an uncomfortable truth about plastics. She said people easily recycle plastic labels than the bottle.
“So many people, they see the recyclable label, and they put it in the recycle bin. But the vast majority of plastics are not recycled,” she stated.
To combat plastic pollution, Dell on its part established The Last Beach Cleanup, a nonprofit organization.
“There are many plastic items with those little arrows that lead us to believe they can be recycled inside her garage in Southern California.
The emergence of the so-called “chasing arrows” on plastic products dates back to 1988, when efforts were made to persuade the public that plastic trash wasn’t a concern because it could be recycled.
According to Davis Allen, an investigative researcher with the Center for Climate Integrity, recycling was not necessary for the company to function. “They needed people to believe that it was working,” he stated.
The plastics industry is accused in a recent report titled “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling” of a decades-long campaign “…to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling,” despite the industry’s widespread knowledge of the “technical and economic limitations that make plastics unrecyclable.”
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“Allen asserted, “They could never deny the prevalence of plastic garbage. “But they created a lie about how we could solve it, and that was recycling.”
Tracy responded, “If plastic recycling is technically difficult, if it doesn’t make a whole lot of economic sense, why has the plastics industry pushed it?”
The plastics industry knows that selling recycled plastic makes plastic, and they will say just about anything to keep selling that kind of product, Allen said. “That’s how they make money.”
There are thousands of different types of plastic, most of which cannot be recycled with other plastics. Plastic is derived from oil and gas. But the business started pushing recycling as a remedy in the 1980s when some communities decided to outlaw plastic products.
Allen gave us meeting minutes and materials they had received from a former American Plastics Council employee as well as from public archives. “What we see in here is a widespread knowledge that plastics recycling was not working,” he explained.
At a trade conference in Florida in 1989, an industry leader told attendees, “Recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem.”
In 1994 an Exxon executive told the staff of the plastics council that when it comes to recycling, “We are committed to the activities but not committed to the results.”
Allen said, “They always kind of viewed recycling not as a real technical problem that they needed to solve but as a public relations problem.”
The industry just launched a new ad campaign, called “Recycling is real,” and says it’s investing in what it calls advanced recycling technology.
The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, responded to “CBS Sunday Morning” in a statement, calling the Center for Climate Integrity’s report “flawed” and “outdated,” and says “plastic makers are working hard to change the way that plastics are made and recycled.”
Jan Dell doesn’t believe plastic will ever be truly recyclable: “It’s the same process they were trying 30 years ago, and my response to that is, it’s science fiction,” she said.
Plastic production is set to triple by 2050, and with so much plastic waste piling up on land and sea, more than 170 countries are working on a United Nations treaty to end plastic pollution.
U.N. taking first step toward “historic” treaty on pollution from plastics, including “epidemic” of plastic trash.
In a letter to President Biden about the negotiations, the plastics industry says it opposes any bans on plastic production, but supports more recycling.
To which Dell says, “The only thing the plastics industry has actually recycled is their lies over and over again.”
