More
plastic than fish in the sea by 2050, says Ellen MacArthur
One
refuse truck’s-worth of plastic is dumped into the sea every
minute, and the situation is getting worse
Graeme Wearden
Tuesday 19 January
2016 14.23 GMT
As a record-breaking
sailor, Dame Ellen MacArthur has seen more of the world’s oceans
than almost anyone else. Now she is warning that there will be more
waste plastic in the sea than fish by 2050, unless the industry
cleans up its act.
According to a new
Ellen MacArthur Foundation report launched at the World Economic
Forum on Tuesday, new plastics will consume 20% of all oil production
within 35 years, up from an estimated 5% today.
Plastics production
has increased twentyfold since 1964, reaching 311m tonnes in 2014,
the report says. It is expected to double again in the next 20 years
and almost quadruple by 2050.
Despite the growing
demand, just 5% of plastics are recycled effectively, while 40% end
up in landfill and a third in fragile ecosystems such as the world’s
oceans.
Much of the
remainder is burned, generating energy, but causing more fossil fuels
to be consumed in order to make new plastic bags, cups, tubs and
consumer devices demanded by the economy.
The report says that
every year “at least 8m tonnes of plastics leak into the ocean –
which is equivalent to dumping the contents of one garbage truck into
the ocean every minute. If no action is taken, this is expected to
increase to two per minute by 2030 and four per minute by 2050
“In a
business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain one
tonne of plastic for every three tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050,
more plastics than fish [by weight].”
A carelessly
discarded plastic bag can break down in the sea, especially in warmer
waters, but the process releases toxic chemicals that may be digested
by fish and end up in the human food chain.
Research released a
year ago found there were more than 5tn pieces of plastic floating in
the seas, many just 5mm across. Larger items can be a threat to sea
life such as turtles and seals, which swallow them.
Scientists have also
found that countless tiny fragments drift to the bottom of the
oceans, carpeting the sea bed. The environmental and health impact of
this is unknown.
The report concludes
that the plastics industry is comprehensively failing to address
these issues.
Dr Martin R Stuchtey
of the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, who helped
produce the report, said a wave of innovation could be
transformative.
“Plastics are the
workhorse material of the modern economy, with unbeaten properties,”
he said. “However they are also the ultimate single-use material.
Growing volumes of end-of-use plastics are generating costs and
destroying value to the industry. After-use plastics could, with
circular economy thinking, be turned into valuable feedstock.”
The plastics
recycling industry is also reeling from the recent plunge in the
price of oil. At $30 (£21) a barrel, it is more expensive to recover
plastics and process their hydrocarbons to recycle them than to use
virgin crude.
Solving the problem
will not be easy, especially as the industry is under pressure to
produce more to meet growing demand from emerging markets.
Bioplastics are currently more expensive to make than the
petro-alternative, and recycling systems are inefficient.
MacArthur, who broke
the record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe in
2005, says fundamental reform is needed. Her vision is for a “new
plastics economy” in which the industry, governments and citizens
work together to ensure that plastics never become waste and cut the
leakage into natural systems.
“Linear models of
production and consumption are increasingly challenged by the context
within which they operate, and this is particularly true for
high-volume, low-value materials such as plastic packaging,” she
said.
One part of the
solution is to rethink the way goods are packaged, cutting the demand
for plastic. Water-soluble film, for example, can be used to wrap
small items. Hard-to-recycle plastics such as PVC and expandable
polystyrene could be phased out.
Manufacturers could
redesign plastic items so they can be reused better, and rethink
their production methods to make recycling easier. More products
could be made out of plastics which can be composted on an industrial
scale, including rubbish bags for organic waste and food packaging
for outdoor events, canteens and fast food outlets.
The report admits,
however, that a “moonshot” approach is also needed, to create
plastics that can be both recycled and composted. Currently it is one
or the other. Other options are to develop “bio-benign” plastics,
or chemical tagging to stop used plastics slipping through the system
and into the sea.
MacArthur will be
outlining the issues on Friday at the WEF’s annual meeting in
Davos.
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