In 2018, China effectively stopped recycling most of the world’s discarded plastic. The United States, like many other advanced economies, has since struggled to find ways to profitably recycle the mountains of plastic products that its consumers dumped on a daily basis. Suffice it to say that the challenge has not been met. But while plastics manufacturers say they are on their way to a greener future, a much more environmentally friendly replacement remains untapped.
The correction of the course of China followed a 2016 documentary entitled China plastic, in which director Jiuliang Wang exposed the numerous shortcomings in the way the country had been recycling plastic, most of which had been imported from other parts of the world. The large volume of plastic being imported had caused it to accumulate much more than the country’s recycling centers, which were largely unregulated at the time, could handle properly.
As a technology, plastic has been a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has made the components of countless products lighter and less expensive for consumers. For any type of vehicle that uses fossil fuels, this lighter weight means a lower carbon footprint and when it replaces a metal that needs to be extracted and processed in a way that is not normally environmentally friendly, there is a additional compensation. However, its generalization, especially with regard to disposable items, has created a much higher ecological cost.
Of all the plastic that has ever been produced, less than 10% has been recycled. Every year, 8 million tons (or one truck per minute) end up in our oceans. We also use a staggering amount of oil in the manufacture of plastics, which accounts for about 10 percent of all oil used worldwide each year, or about as much as the entire aviation industry. A 2020 NPR / PBS Frontline survey found internal documents from the plastics industry dating back to the 1970s that showed that the industry had serious doubts about whether plastic waste could be collected, sorted and recycled effectively. But as the public reaction to plastic waste problems increased, the industry adopted the proven and true method of satisfying public opinion and potential regulation with advertising and lobbying money.
As a result, American consumers were reassured by the recycling bins that were supposedly taking away their plastic trash to make new products, and politicians were content with their hands, despite the problems associated with the inability to recycle much more effectively than assembled plastic milk jugs and soda bottles. The recent pandemic has exacerbated the problem, as packaged food and mail containers have seen much more plastic being dumped in landfills and bodies of water and there is no indication that the use of plastic is declining in the short term. time limit. In fact, plastic production is expected to triple in 2050.
As public pressure increases, the plastics industry is once again calling for investment in solutions and says new technologies will allow it. Chevron Phillips has even said that they will recycle all the plastic the company makes in 2040, and the industry is re-funding advertising campaigns to try to influence public opinion. However, in reality, oil companies and plastic manufacturers are simply getting much higher profit margins with “virgin oil” products and that doesn’t seem likely to change.
In the meantime, we have had a product that can replace a wide range of disposable plastic products (including water bottles and food packaging) that is environmentally friendly to produce and biodegradable: hemp. I wrote a 2019 column on the many wonders of hemp that you can read here. Once the most prolific crop in the world, the story of its demise is truly astounding. And while bans on hemp have been largely eradicated, the highly profitable market for CBD oil that can be extracted from it has dominated its commercial use.
Overall, it would be very difficult to argue that plastic has been a net positive at the moment and impossible if compared to the absurd bans that took its obvious replacement out of the competition. But all we can do now is plan for a more sustainable future than we have to leave behind. And in that sense, there is no room for plastic as long as hemp can be used instead.
Dennis “Mitch” Maley is the editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With more than two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered the Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his biography. Her 2016 collection of short stories, Casting Shadows, was recently reissued and is available here.
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