Industry effort commits more than $1B to curb plastic pollution
Several of the world’s biggest chemical manufacturers are launching a global effort to curb plastic waste as more plastic pollutes rivers and oceans and environmentalists increasingly target the industry and its practices.
A group of nearly 30 chemical makers have committed more than $1 billion to develop programs and technologies to minimize, manage and prevent plastic waste. LyondellBasell of Houston, Chevron Phillips Chemical of The Woodlands, and Exxon Mobil of Irving are among companies forming a nonprofit called Alliance to End Plastic Waste.
The companies said Monday that the nonprofit’s initial set of investments and projects include:
• Supporting an incubator network with Circulate Capital, an investment management firm, and SecondMuse, a New York consultancy, to develop and promote plastic recycling technologies, particularly in Southeast Asia.
• Collaborating with United Nations Environment, a UN agency, to train government officials and community leaders to identify and pursue local waste prevention.
• Supporting the Renew Oceans program, run by the Salt Lake City recycling company Renewology, to capture plastics entering the oceans from 10 major rivers carrying most of the waste to the ocean.
Over the next few months, the alliance said it will make additional investments in education technological innovation and cleanup of highly-polluted areas.
“Everyone agrees that plastic waste does not belong in our oceans or anywhere in the environment,” said David Taylor, CEO of the Cincinnati consumer products company Procter & Gamble and chairman of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. “This is a complex and serious global challenge that calls for swift action and strong leadership. This new alliance is the most comprehensive effort to date to end plastic waste in the environment.”
Increasing concern
Plastic waste has become an increasing concern of environmentalists, regulators, policymakers and corporations as discarded plastics choke oceans, contaminate soil and threaten wildlife and marine life. Beached whales have been found with hundred of pieces of plastic in their stomachs.
The mounting waste also poses a threat to the petrochemical industry as state, local and national governments consider bans on single-use plastic items and companies, including restaurants, coffee shops and supermarkets, find alternatives to plastic straws and bags. Houston is one the biggest petrochemical hubs in the country, accounting for about 42 percent of the nation’s petrochemical manufacturing capacity, according to the Greater Partnership of Houston.
Chemical companies are beginning to feel pressure from shareholders to account for their environmental practices, much as oil companies have felt the pressure from investors to account
for efforts to address climate change and its impact on impact of their businesses.
Last week, shareholders with the advocacy group As You Sow filed proposals with four of the world’s biggest manufacturers of plastic resins: Chevron, DowDupont, ExxonMobil and the Houston company Phillips 66. Resins are made in the form of tiny pellets, about the size of lentils.
The proposals ask for annual reports disclosing plastic pellet spills and measures taken to prevent and clean up spills. The pellets are estimated to be the second largest direct source of microplastic pollution to the ocean by weight, according to the United Kingdom environmental consultancy group Fauna and Flora.
The shareholder proposals will likely be voted on during spring annual meetings. A Phillips 66 spokesperson said the company has offered to engage with proponents of the pellet reporting initiative. A DowDupony spokesperson said the company is “collaborating across the plastics value chain to develop solutions that keep plastic out of our environment.”
‘Desperate attempt’
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste will focus on Southeast Asia, where plastic pollution is the worst. About 55 to 60 percent of the world’s plastic pollution originates in five emerging markets — China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, according to research from the Washington nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. About 80 percent of the world’s plastic waste starts on land and is carried out to ocean in rivers, including eight in Asia and two in Africa, according to the Ocean Conservancy and research from the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
The alliance includes energy companies that make plastics, consumer companies that use plastics, and firms that collect and manage plastic waste.
“Plastics are extremely efficient materials and in packaging applications plastics have a lower environmental impact compared to alternative materials,” said Bob Patel, CEO of LyondellBasell, and a vice chairman of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. “But we need to do a better job of recovering, reusing, and recycling plastics after they are used.”
Environmentalists were quick to criticize the new nonprofit as a Band-Aid solution for the real problem - the growing use of single-use plastics.
“This is a desperate attempt from corporate polluters to maintain the status quo on plastics,” said Graham Forbes, global plastics project leader for Greenpeace, a global environmental organization.
Forbes noted that just 9 percent of plastics ever made have actually been recycled, according to research in the journal Science Advances, “but corporations love to use recycling as a crutch to continue production of cheap plastics.”
Jacqueline Savitz with Oceana, an ocean conservation organization in Washington argued that reducing single use plastic is the only way to combat pollution. “Companies like Procter and Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola must take responsibility … by adopting alternative packaging for their products,” Savitz said in a statement.