The recent Typhoon Yagi, the strongest storm to strike Vietnam in the past 70 years, caused heavy damage across many fronts. During such events, protecting human life is justifiably paramount. So few people pay attention to the amount of plastic packaging used in emergency relief operations, nor do many people care about the amount of plastic waste that leaks into the environment during storms.
Where will all the plastic bags and other plastic items flying in the storm wind or floating in the water end up? We do not know, but they will certainly exist in the natural environment for hundreds or thousands of years.
It’s challenging to stop the tide of plastic waste. Consumers have adapted to use plastics as big companies use these in the name of convenience and affordability, facilitated by government subsidies, credit schemes, and an enabling free market system that discounts negative externalities in the form of plastic pollution. Meanwhile, manufacturers and consumer brands bring products to market claiming to meet consumer needs. And so, year after year, plastic production grows, and plastic waste continually pollutes the environment, unintentionally and intentionally, until we reach the point where we are now in a global plastic pollution crisis.
Plastic waste is a mounting and complex environmental problem impacting land, water, air, and therefore human health, but it also contributes to worsening the climate crisis. Scientists in many countries worldwide have found that plastics are responsible for 3-4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions with 75 percent of emissions coming from primary plastic production alone. If production continues, it will consume the global carbon budget as early as 2060. Many organizations now recognize that plastic pollution is a major climate problem.
While the extent of the plastic crisis is becoming clearer, there are conflicting views on how to address it. Many believe plastic pollution can be solved by increasing recycling rates – and that recycled plastic can replace virgin plastics and provide a viable job-creation boom, particularly in the Global South. So far, only around 9 percent of all plastic ever produced has been recycled while around 12 percent of plastics are incinerated, and the remaining 79 percent accumulate in landfills or the environment. Although plastic recycling efforts have increased over the years in some countries, the vast majority of plastic produced remains unprocessed and continues to pose environmental challenges.
Given the failures of recycling to solve the plastic crisis, it is imperative to phase out plastic production, particularly virgin plastic production, with the view of elimination.
Conflicting views are prominently on display at the Global Plastic Treaty negotiations, where countries such as Rwanda, Senegal, Peru, Fiji, Cook Islands, Samoa, the Philippines, and more, supported legally binding provisions on primary plastic polymers (PPP). Conversely, oil and plastic-producing countries have so far vehemently opposed any production controls, and instead restrict focus on downstream actions.
Can we recycle more plastic, more often? Maybe. However, there are many obstacles to the effective recycling of plastic, including the fact that plastic production is cheap due to various subsidies and so far, unregulated. Fluctuating market prices for recycled materials and limited policy support works as a disincentive for recycling. Thus, the recycling solution will only really work if the overall production of plastics is capped and financial support to polymer producers and the petrochemical industry are removed, to make way for recycled plastics. In this sense, a plastic recycling solution to the plastic pollution problem can only exist alongside addressing primary plastic polymer production.
Of course, there are also many other challenges with plastic recycling, such as limitations on the number of times plastic can be recycled. Quality degrades rapidly with each cycle. Besides, many plastic types are unrecyclable. Most plastic recycling is open-loop, which means they are recycled for a different use than the original product and often, the process involved is “downcycling” in which plastic is processed into lower-quality material with more toxic chemicals than virgin plastic. Additionally, the processing of recycled plastics releases toxic substances and consumes a significant amount of energy. And given low plastic recycling rates so far, it is well beyond economic realities to build the number of recycling facilities it would take to recycle all plastics.
Recycling provides a false sense of responsibility and accountability: the notion that recycling can solve plastic pollution makes consumers blind to the impacts of their consumption of plastics.
For recycling to be truly meaningful, it needs to exist in an overall Zero Waste system that prioritizes prevention through reducing plastic production and consumption first and foremost. Key measures for such a system would include (1) bans and restrictions on single-use plastics including those hardest to recycle and most likely to end up as waste, such as plastic straws, bags, and cutlery, PVC, Styrofoam cups; and (2) ending plastic production-related subsidies while implementing taxes and levies on the production and use of plastics to make recycled plastics more competitive and reduce the overall demand for new plastic. Such measures might include imposing a levy on virgin plastic resins (plastic pollution fees), creating a tiered tax system favoring products with higher recycled content, and reinvesting tax revenues into recycling infrastructure.
Ultimately, we need to recognize that solving plastic pollution requires strategic intervention by the state. Experience in the plastic movement has taught us how challenging it is to convince consumers and producers to phase out plastics. Consumers use plastics because they have become more accessible, convenient, and cheaper. Plastic production is Plan B for the petrochemical industry and plastic producers as fossil fuels become economically nonviable and publicly unacceptable. Only through state intervention can we unlock system change for a future free of plastic pollution. Otherwise, the ecological damage from the triple planetary crisis of plastic pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change will continue to pollute our bodies and undermine our human rights and that of future generations.
As countries from over 175 nations approach the last round of negotiations for a legally binding international instrument to address plastic pollution, the time is ripe for our leaders to find the common goal of a just, Zero Waste world for all. This would require them to step outside of their roles to meet the interests of their own country alone. We urge member states to prioritize upstream solutions: reducing plastic production to essential and non-avoidable use alone, scaling up reuse, and finally when other measures fail, safe recycling.
Promoting recycling without a systems change that unlocks drastic reduction of plastics is merely greenwashing. We must commit to reducing plastic production to stay below the climate planetary boundary of 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature rise. Anything less will only worsen plastic pollution impacts, accelerate the climate crisis, and exacerbate extreme weather events like Yagi.