Pollution alert as plastic production to soar 40%

A MASSIVE increase in plastic production in the US will have disastrous consequences for the world’s oceans, campaigners said yesterday.

Experts warn that plastic use needs to be cut drastically as the sea becomes increasingly polluted by millions of tons of waste.

But plastic production is expected to grow by 40 per cent over the next ten years. Around £135billion has been spent on new American plastic plants, with much of the investment bankrolled by oil firms.

The growth is being fuelled by the fracking boom in the US, with cheaper oil and gas from fracking wells being used to make plastic.

Firms such as Exxon Mobile and Shell are behind the 318 plastics plants since 2010 that have either been built, are in construction or are at the planning stage. Louise Edge, of Greenpeace UK, said any rise in the amount of plastic ending up in the oceans would have a catastrophic impact.

She added: ‘We are already producing more disposable plastic than we can deal with – more in the last decade than in the entire 20th century – and millions of tons of it are ending up in our oceans.’ Matthew Thoelke, of research group IHS Markit, said the US expansion was a crucial part of the expected 40 per cent growth in global plastics production.

Carroll Muffett, of the US Center for International Environmental Law, told The Guardian: ‘We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realising we should use far less of it.

‘Around 99 per cent of the feedstock for plastics is fossil fuels, so we are looking at the same companies, like Exxon and Shell, that have helped create the climate crisis.

‘There is a deep, pervasive relationship between oil and gas companies and plastics.’