plastic pollution

Time is running out for a treaty to end plastic pollution – here’s why it matters

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Steve Fletcher, University of Portsmouth

On March 2 2022, delegates to the UN environment assembly adopted an ambitious resolution to develop the text of a new treaty by the end of 2024 to end plastic pollution. With 24 days of formal negotiation between almost 200 countries completed, spread over meetings in Peru, France, Kenya and Canada, the fifth and final negotiation meeting is about to take place in Busan, South Korea. This is crunch time. Agreement must be found or the opportunity to take global action to tackle plastic pollution might be lost.

I have studied international action to tackle plastic pollution for the past decade. During this time, I have witnessed remarkable growth in plastic waste – an estimated 400 million tonnes is thrown away every year. Plastic pollution is now ubiquitous.

The issue of plastic pollution has moved up the public and political agenda in a way few could have predicted. Global action has always been the missing piece of the picture, as the plastics economy transcends national boundaries, and actions in one jurisdiction, while locally beneficial, tend not to address global pollution patterns.

To tackle plastic pollution, a shift in the entire plastics economy is needed. This should focus on reuse and refill schemes, which reduce the need for new plastic products and the substitution of plastics with other materials that are less polluting or harmful.

close up of woman's hands refilling bottle in zero waste shop
Refill schemes need to be scaled up to phase out single-use plastic. Daisy Daisy/Shutterstock

With my team of policy researchers, I have attended the last three plastics treaty negotiation meetings as an observer to gauge progress towards a global treaty. For the most part, progress has been slow, largely because of delaying and blocking tactics by a few countries that depend on fossil fuel industries. Lobbying from the petrochemical industry frustrates progress further. Given the tight timescale to agree the treaty, I worry that no agreement will be reached.

Three priorities

Final negotiations must include three things.

An immediate priority is to agree on the rules governing how decisions are taken in the negotiations between member states, known as the “rules of procedure”. At present, decisions are taken by consensus, meaning all delegations must agree before a decision is reached.

Given the entrenched positions of some countries, consensus-based decision-making is unlikely to yield rapid agreement because the positions of some nations are so far apart. The rules of procedure needs to include a voting mechanism so that when there is decisive agreement between most nations a decisions can be taken and progress can be made, when consensus cannot be reached.

The second critical issue is finance. Plastic pollution is a challenge most acutely faced by low- and middle-income countries. The plastics treaty is only likely to be effective if there’s adequate funding for countries most affected by plastic pollution to take action.

As witnessed in the climate debate, finance is incredibly contentious and raises critical questions. That includes who will pay for the problems plastic pollution has already caused and the new measures to tackle plastic pollution, plus how supporting countries can best provide necessary technology and training.

The role of the private sector is also significant in the plastics economy, and discussions are underway about innovative options for private finance to support treaty implementation. For the treaty to be credible, agreement on the broad terms of a finance mechanism for treaty implementation is essential.

The treaty must also focus on actions most likely to reduce plastic pollution. There is clear evidence that reducing the production of primary plastic polymers reduces plastic pollution most efficiently and effectively.

Plastic is made at such a rate that it is impossible for waste management systems to keep up. So a treaty that focuses on waste management will not reduce plastic pollution significantly enough. Only putting the brake on plastic production will stop the inundation of plastic waste.

There are, of course, many other important elements to agree on during negotiations. Criteria must be set to identify problematic, unnecessary and avoidable plastics that companies should stop making. Problematic plastics have harmful effects on human health or the environment, so any chemicals of concern must be removed from plastic materials and products. Unnecessary plastics are those with a function that is deemed non-essential, while avoidable plastics have an essential function but could be replaced by a non-plastic alternative.

Subsidies on virgin plastics that make single-use products so financially attractive need to be stripped away. Any changes in the plastics economy that this treaty create need to benefit workers in the informal waste sector too.

This week is critical for the world’s relationship with plastics. People and planet depend on it.

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Steve Fletcher, Professor of Ocean Policy and Economy, University of Portsmouth

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingTime is running out for a treaty to end plastic pollution – here’s why it matters

ExxonMobil Plans to Keep an Entire Generation on the Hook for Its Climate Destruction

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Original article by Allie Lindstrom republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods sits during testimony before the U.S House Committee on Oversight and Reform on October 28, 2021.  (Photo: Screenshot/C-SPAN)

Public pensions must exit Exxon to protect workers’ savings and retirement.

It is no secret that ExxonMobil poses some of the most powerful opposition to climate action at every level of government. Environmentalists have long pointed out that Exxon Knew about climate change, and instead of pivoting their business model to a more sustainable energy future, buried the evidence and began a decades-long disinformation campaign.

Leaders across the country have wisened up to the oil major’s dirty politics, which is why the House Oversight Committee has been investigating Exxon and its peers, and state attorneys general have sued the company for damages. Most recently, California AG Rob Bonta, alongside environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, sued the company for lying to the public about the recyclability of plastics.

If the tide is turning against Exxon, why haven’t investors caught on?

Unrestricted funding for companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion threatens workers’ right to dignified retirement safety, a right that unions have fought hard to win.

ExxonMobil sparked headlines and investor outrage this spring when the company sued its own shareholders over a climate-related shareholder resolution. Public pensions representing trillions in worker savings across the country pushed back and mounted a vote-no effort against CEO Darren Woods and Director Joseph Hooley, but Wall Street asset managers watered down their efforts instead offering unwavering support of Exxon.

To add insult to injury, Woods made an appearance at the Council of Institutional Investors—a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for the investor rights of public, union, and private employee benefit funds—in September. There, he promised to continue to crack down on “extreme” investors who are concerned that the company’s business model has loaded the economy with systemic financial risks and instability. Never mind that such a definition of extreme would describe many of the institutions present, which represent over 15 million workers and $5 trillion in assets under management.

But perhaps most indicative of ExxonMobil’s commitment to business-as-usual pollution is the bonds they’ve issued this fall, with a maturity date of 2074.

These long-dated bonds represent unrestricted funds for ExxonMobil to continue to pursue fossil fuel expansion and plastic pollution well past most of the world’s—and investors’—Net Zero by 2050 goals. This is an especially risky gamble for investors with long-term obligations, including public pension funds that manage millions of workers’ retirement savings.

Not only is the future of oil and gas uncertain, but prolonged pollution wrought by disinformation and investor cash increases economy-wide systemic risks. Investors—and the everyday people who rely on institutions to manage their savings—will be left holding the purse strings as climate change wreaks havoc. Moreover, bond ownership does not come with the shareholder rights investors hope to use to influence company behavior. This gives Exxon complete freedom to use the funds however it wishes, even if that’s out of alignment with investor interests.

This increasing risk is why we joined California Common Good and pension beneficiaries to testify during a recent CalPERS Board meeting to ask CalPERS to issue a moratorium on purchasing Exxon bonds.

The Sierra Club represents millions of members, many of whom are saving for retirement in the face of an uncertain future and working tirelessly to protect the communities and places they love. Whether relying on a public pension plan or a private asset manager, our members rely on investment professionals to keep their futures in mind. Unrestricted funding for companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion threatens workers’ right to dignified retirement safety, a right that unions have fought hard to win. That’s why we call on investors, particularly public pension funds, to refuse to participate in Exxon’s bond issuances.

Original article by Allie Lindstrom republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. Second version, corrected text.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. Second version, corrected text.
Continue ReadingExxonMobil Plans to Keep an Entire Generation on the Hook for Its Climate Destruction

Study Reveals Up to 11 Million Tons of Plastic Polluting Ocean Floors

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A diver removes plastic waste from the sea floor in Hatay, Turkey on December 2, 2022.
 (Photo: Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“Every minute, a garbage truck’s worth of plastic enters the ocean,” researchers said.

The amount of plastic waste littering the Earth’s ocean floors could be up to 100 times the quantity floating on the surface, according to a study published this week.

Researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO)—an Australian government agency—and the University of Toronto in Canada found that up to 11 million tons of plastic are polluting the planet’s ocean floors, including microplastics and larger objects like fishing nets, cups, and bags.

“We know that millions of tons of plastic waste enter our oceans every year but what we didn’t know is how much of this pollution ends up on our ocean floor,” CSIRO senior research scientist and study co-author Denise Hardesty said in a statement. “We discovered that the ocean floor has become a resting place, or reservoir, for most plastic pollution, with between 3 to 11 million tons of plastic estimated to be sinking to the ocean floor.”

Study leader Alice Zhu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, said that “the ocean surface is a temporary resting place of plastic so it is expected that if we can stop plastic entering our oceans, the amount would be reduced.”

“However, our research found that plastic will continue to end up in the deep ocean,” Zhu stated. “These findings help to fill a longstanding knowledge gap on the behavior of plastic in the marine environment.”

“Understanding the driving forces behind the transport and accumulation of plastic in the deep ocean will help to inform source reduction and environmental remediation efforts, thereby reducing the risks that plastic pollution may pose to marine life,” she added.

The study is part of CSIRO’s Ending Plastic Waste program, whose goal is “an 80% reduction in plastic waste entering the Australian environment by 2030.”

Humans produce approximately 440 million tons of plastics annually, or roughly the combined weight of every person on the planet. Plastic pollution harms not only the environment and ecosystems, but also human health and economies.

Plastic use is expected to double by 2040. Negotiations on a global plastics treaty have made little progress amid lobbying by the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingStudy Reveals Up to 11 Million Tons of Plastic Polluting Ocean Floors

Five hotspots where floating plastic litter poses the greatest risk to North Atlantic marine life – new study

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So much ocean plastic originates from sources on land, but once floating in the sea it poses a risk to marine wildlife and habitats.
Rich Carey/Shutterstock

Samantha Garrard, Plymouth Marine Laboratory

Plastic has been found in every single part of the ocean, from the surface to the seafloor and from the tropics to the poles. Land-based sources of plastic account for the majority of this pollution, with plastic bags, bottles, wrappers, food containers and cutlery among the most common items found.

These items are often buoyant and float on the sea surface. As they travel long distances, they get pushed by the wind, waves and currents. This means they have the potential to cause harm far beyond the country from which they originated. For example, land-based plastic waste from Indonesia has been shown to travel over 4,000km to the Seychelles.

As it travels, plastic litter can cause harm to wildlife. Megafauna (large marine animals) can eat or become entangled in it. Consuming plastic litter can block or damage the gastrointestinal tract of animals, causing significant health impacts or death.

While ghost fishing gear (lost fishing nets that float freely) is the most common entanglement threat to marine megafauna, they can also become entangled in land-sourced plastics such as plastic bags, frisbees, potato nets, elastic bands and other circular plastics. This can cause severe trauma to the animal, and in some cases entanglement causes death.

If plastic is transported towards the shore, it can get caught or lodged in shallow environments where it can entangle or cover plant or animal habitats, causing damage. Plastic entanglement can cause breakage, and if it covers a habitat it will restrict access to food or light.

At Plymouth Marine Laboratory, our team of marine researchers have developed a risk assessment approach to understand where this plastic litter could cause the most harm in the North Atlantic, and which countries that plastic originated from. Our research highlighted five areas of high risk – the US Atlantic, the US Gulf of Mexico, the UK, French Atlantic and Portuguese Azores.

Reducing risk

In our new study, we assessed the risk of land-sourced plastic litter to marine megafauna. That includes seabirds, whales and dolphins, seals and sea lions, manatees and dugongs, sharks and rays, tuna and billfish. We also assessed the risk to shallow water habitats including coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, saltmarsh and kelp seaweed beds.

Using a particle tracking model, we tracked the flow of buoyant plastic litter released from the rivers of 16 countries bordering the North Atlantic between 2000 and 2015 using the most recent data available. Billions of virtual particles were released at the mouths of the rivers each month, with surface currents and wind used to drive their movement. After 15 years of tracking, our model showed us where plastic was likely to accumulate.

We also assessed the vulnerability of each of the megafauna groups and shallow water habitats to this plastic. For marine megafauna, we developed vulnerability scores by quantifying the amount of scientific evidence of ingestion or entanglement in land-sourced plastic. For habitats, we developed vulnerability scores by quantifying the scientific evidence available for this plastic causing harm by entanglement or smothering.

Blue sea, green turtle swimming with fishing net attached behind it
Marine wildlife such as this green sea turtle can become entangled in ghost fishing gear that is left floating in the sea.
Mohamed Abdulraheem/Shutterstock

To assess risk, we mapped the vulnerability and distribution of each megafauna group or habitat against the abundance of plastic. Each point within the map was given a risk score from zero to five. The greatest risk occurred in areas where high numbers of vulnerable megafauna or habitats overlapped with high concentrations of plastic.

Managing the plastic problem

We found that much of the modelled plastic litter causing risk in the UK originated from UK rivers. In other high-risk zones such as the Azores and the US Gulf of Mexico, plastic primarily originated from other regions. More than 99% of plastic litter in the Azores was estimated to come from the other countries, mainly Caribbean islands and the US.

The potential of this plastic to travel vast distances across the ocean makes management of this pollutant particularly difficult. More than 90% of plastic waste in the Dominican Republic and Haiti are estimated to be mismanaged. This waste has the potential to cause ecological harm across both sides of the Atlantic.

UN member nations have agreed to forge an international legally binding agreement to tackle plastic pollution, called the Global Plastics Treaty, with negotiations expected to be completed by the end of this year. This study highlights the importance of the treaty in ensuring international cooperation to reduce plastic consumption and waste, including the provision of financial support to help lower-income nations such as the Caribbean islands implement measures. Identification of high-risk zones will also help prioritise areas where interventions and monitoring should be targeted.

Even if all plastic intervention measures are implemented, it is likely that substantial amounts of plastic will still enter our oceans. The production, sale and distribution of many of single-use items are likely to be phased out under the Global Plastics Treaty, as nations move to restrict avoidable plastic products.

While global measures are hugely important in the fight against plastic, the choices of consumers also play a significant role. Reducing, re-using and recycling plastic are powerful ways to cut your plastic footprint. At both ends of the spectrum, the choices made at international and household level can be good news for marine wildlife.

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Samantha Garrard, Senior Marine Ecosystem Services Researcher, Plymouth Marine Laboratory

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingFive hotspots where floating plastic litter poses the greatest risk to North Atlantic marine life – new study

Who is Jim Ratcliffe, the pro-Brexit billionaire promised €700m from UK government to build ‘carbon bomb’ in Europe?

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/who-is-jim-ratcliffe-the-pro-brexit-billionaire-promised-e700m-from-uk-government-to-build-carbon-bomb-in-europe/

Environmental campaigners warn that Ratcliffe’s controversial ‘Project One’ will bring ‘US-scale plastic production to Europe.’

Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s pro-Brexit billionaire, hit the headlines this week with news that the government is providing a €700m guarantee for him to build the biggest petrochemical plant in Europe in 30 years. The plant will turbocharge the production of plastic.

Left Foot Forward takes a look at who Ratcliffe is, and how his controversial ‘Project One’ that will bring ‘US-scale plastic production to Europe’ is recieving significant financial guarantees from the Tory government.

Ratcliffe’s story is one of capitalist meritocracy, of someone who grew up on a council estate in Failsworth, Manchester, and went on to become the wealthiest man in Britain. He studied chemical engineering at Birmingham University and gained an MBA from London Business School in 1980. Having worked as a chemical engineer, in May 1998 he founded Ineos. The multinational is one of the largest chemical producers in the world and plays a significant role in the oil and gas market.  According to the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, the company’s owner, Ratlcliffe, is worth £27.9bn.

…

This week, it was announced that the government is providing a €700m guarantee for Ratcliffe to build a huge petrochemical plant in Europe. The site will import fracked shale gas from the US to provide the ethane which will produce 1450 kilotons of ethylene – the building block of plastic – a year.

The plant is being constructed by Ineos in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Environmental campaigners have described the petrochemical plant as a ‘carbon bomb,’ warning that it will turbocharge plastic production on a scale not seen before in Europe, at a time when countries are hoping to negotiate a binding global treaty to tackle plastic pollution. The ‘Project One’ plant has faced a long-running legal battle by environmental groups. In the summer of 2023, the building of Ratcliffe’s €3bn plant was halted after a landmark court victory by the NGOs. A new legal challenge argues that the true impact of the development on people, nature and the climate has not been considered.

“There is a huge problem of plastic pollution from nurdles already in Antwerp and the Netherlands. This plant will bring US-scale plastic production to Europe,” said Jeroen Dagevos, of the Plastic Soup Foundation, one of the NGOs challenging Project One.

…

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/who-is-jim-ratcliffe-the-pro-brexit-billionaire-promised-e700m-from-uk-government-to-build-carbon-bomb-in-europe/

Continue ReadingWho is Jim Ratcliffe, the pro-Brexit billionaire promised €700m from UK government to build ‘carbon bomb’ in Europe?