https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/big-plastic-s-trash-plan-is-just-a-drop-in-the-polluted-ocean
[video in online article]
climate changed
Big Plastic Trash Plan Is Just a Drop in the Polluted Ocean
By Jack Kaskey
January 16, 2019, 1:59 PM EST
With all those plastic-trash haters filling the Internet with images of
garbage-choked oceans and demanding bans on everything from drinking
straws to grocery bags, chemical companies are beginning to get alarmed.
Their solution: A public pledge by the new Alliance to End Plastic Waste
to spend $1 billion over five years to clean up marine debris, improve
recycling and develop new technologies to reduce pollution. That may
sound like a lot of green, but the Alliance is made up of 28 companies
that make plastics, packaging and consumer products, which averages out
to each company spending just over $7 million on the effort each year.
That’s pocket change for alliance members like LyondellBasell Industries
NV, which sells about $20 billion a year in plastics and related
chemicals, and for Procter & Gamble Co., the biggest consumer-products
company in the alliance, whose $67 billion in sales depend on disposable
plastic packaging. Meanwhile, Dow Chemical, now a unit of DowDuPont
Inc., is ramping up plastics production with a recently completed $6
billion U.S. investment.
The alliance represents groundbreaking collaboration to solve the
pollution problem, said Lyondell Chief Executive Officer Bob Patel, one
of the leaders of the project. They’re just getting started, he says,
with recruiting underway for more members that would boost funding to as
much as $1.5 billion, as well as plans for growing their investments.
‘Powerful’ Collaboration
“This approach is unique because it brings together and focuses the
efforts and knowledge of plastics producers, consumer goods companies
and retailers, as well as waste management companies,” Patel said.
“Having the resources and knowledge of the entire global value chain
under one umbrella with the same goal is really very powerful.”
So is $1.5 billion over five years likely to fulfill Patel’s goal to
“end plastic waste”? Not even close, according to an Ocean Conservancy
report that estimated it would cost $5 billion a year for a package of
initiatives to reduce the global leakage of plastics into the ocean by
45 percent in the next six years. Even that plan wouldn’t see the trash
flow ending until 2035.
Oceana, another U.S.-based conservancy group, said the alliance is
trying to justify ever-increasing plastics production rather than
committing to cut output.
“Plastic-filled bellies of marine birds, sea turtles and fish tell us
that this has gone way too far,” Jacqueline Savitz, Oceana’s chief
policy officer, said in a statement. “It’s time for those responsible
for the problem to stop dreaming and start reducing.”
[For another take, have a look at RESTCo's pages on plastic pollution
(https://www.restco.ca/Plastic_Pollution.shtml).]