The answer to plastic pollution is to not create waste in
the first place
Monica Wilson
With China refusing foreign waste under its new policy,
countries are forced to handle their own plastic pollution
Wed 26 Dec 2018 11.00 GMT Last modified on Wed 26 Dec 2018
13.32 GMT
As holiday shopping ramps up, so do the dizzying varieties
of plastic packaging tossed in recycling bins. And while we wish a Christmas
miracle would transform this old garbage into something new, the reality is the
waste left over from the holiday shopping frenzy is more likely than ever to
end up in a landfill or incinerator. Until January of this year, the United
States and other Western countries were foisting their low-value plastic waste
on to China, with little concern for the environmental degradation this caused.
To protect its citizens from the burden of foreign pollution, in the beginning
of this year, China refused to be the world’s dumping ground and effectively
closed its doors to plastic waste imports.
China’s new National Sword policy of refusing foreign waste
has brought a long-overdue moment of reckoning for the recycling industry, and
by proxy, for manufacturers. It’s clear recycling alone cannot come close to
addressing the ballooning amounts of plastic waste piling up all over the
country. Even before China’s waste ban took effect,only 9% of plastic in the US
was actually recycled. No matter how diligently Americans sort their plastic
waste, there is just too much of it for the US, or any other country, to
handle.
On the bright side, the ban sparked a much needed
conversation about improving domestic recycling infrastructure and recycling
markets, and has forced both companies and the public to re-evaluate the
products and packaging that were previously assumed to be recyclable. But the ban
has also been used as a wrongful justification for burning trash in
incinerators.
Waste incinerators became popular in the US in the late 80s,
until harmful emissions of mercury and dioxins, toxic ash, technical failures,
and prohibitive costs soured the public on the industry. However, there are
still more than 70 relics left over from that failed experiment which continue
to pollute surrounding communities and drain city coffers.
Producers should
focus on preventing plastic from being made in such large quantities
One of the most notorious cases is in Detroit. The city’s
incinerator, perversely named Detroit Renewable Power, exceeded emissions
limits more than 750 times over the last five years, contributing to one of the
highest rates of asthma in the country. Not only is the incinerator criminally
polluting, it cost the city nearly $1.2bn in debt. According to US Energy
Information Administration data, incinerators are the most expensive way to
produce energy – costing twice that of nuclear and solar and three times the
cost of wind.
In some cases, recent incineration schemes are even
disguised as recycling programs. For example, the city of Boise, Idaho, which
was rocked by China’s waste ban, is directing residents to “recycle” their
plastic by putting it in a special orange bag called the Hefty Energy Bag. The
plastic is then melted to make fossil fuels to burn.
This method, called pyrolysis, or “plastic-to-fuel”, is
being pushed by the American Chemistry Council, Dow Chemical, Unilever, and
others who are invested in continuing the status quo of churning out massive
amounts of single-use plastic. Not only is this form of incineration the
opposite of recycling, it gives people a false sense of security that
single-use plastic is acceptable to continue making and using. Instead of
coming up with increasingly complicated and expensive ways to deal with plastic
waste, why not focus on preventing it from being made in such large quantities
in the first place? We simply need less plastic in the world.
Notably, many North American cities are cracking down on
nonsense single-use plastic and resisting short-sighted, false solutions like
plastic-to-fuel. Plastic bag bans or fees are underway in cities such as
Seattle, Boston, San Francisco (leading to a statewide ban), and Washington,
DC. Some cities are going even further: Vancouver is introducing a city-wide
ban on single-use straws, foam cups, and containers starting June 2019. In
addition to bans and fees on problematic products and packaging, several cities
are also pursuing legislation that would force companies to pay for managing
the waste created by their products instead of foisting disposal costs onto the
consumer, thereby motivating them to change their manufacturing and delivery
systems to eliminate or drastically minimize waste.
This holiday season, the greatest gift manufacturers can
give consumers is the option to buy their products without ending up with a
recycling bin full of single-use plastic packaging destined for the burner or
the dump. As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”. China’s
National Sword policy gives us the opportunity to kick our society’s plastic
habit once and for all and to put pressure on those most responsible for it:
not consumers, not cities, but producers.
Monica Wilson is policy and research coordinator and the
associate director of the Global Alliance for Incinerators Alternatives (Gaia)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário