U.S. efforts to reclaim its climate change leadership, as demonstrated at COP26 in Glasgow, will be undermined if the country does not also step up and accelerate action on reducing plastic waste. Plastic is packing a serious carbon punch along its entire supply chain, from oil extraction and manufacturing to disposal. According to Beyond Plastic’s new report, The New Coal: Plastics and Climate Change, the U.S. plastic industry’s contribution to climate change will exceed that of coal by the year 2030.

The planet is awash in plastic waste, from the plastic bags that litter our oceans to the microplastics seeping into our drinking water and food supply. While studies have long pointed to China and Southeast Asia as the top sources of this plastic leakage, a recent congressionally mandated report reveals that the United States actually generates the most plastic waste. 

Since plastic production is not aligned with global efforts to keep the earth from warming beyond the 1.5ºC target, “the key will be to figure out what the plastic sector needs to do, beginning with stopping its expansion,” said Carroll Muffett, President of the Center for International Environmental Law, at a recent Wilson Center event on the climate and plastic linkage.

Plastic production is accelerating the climate crisis 

Plastic production is one of the most greenhouse gas intensive industries—99 percent of all plastics produced are derived from fossil fuel feedstocks. Between now and 2040, plastics and petrochemicals are set to become the largest drivers of oil demand growth. The Center for International Environmental Law estimates that without drastic steps to reign in plastic, by 2050, up to 13 percent of the total remaining carbon budget will be consumed by plastics. By 2030, at the current rate of production and consumption, carbon emissions from plastic will reach the equivalent of 295 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants. In effect, emissions from the petrochemical industry will spoil much of the climate progress achieved through pledges to phase down coal plants—hailed as one of the key outcomes of the last COP summit. 

Plastics are threatening immediate human security

Not only are plastics warming the planet, but they are impairing our physical health. As plastics are discarded into the environment, they eventually break down into microplastics that can leach toxic additives. Microplastics are accumulating in commercially harvested fish, entering drinking water supplies, and seeping into agricultural soils and taken up into food crops. The physical impacts of these exposures are the subject of emerging research, with evidence that they are penetrating human organs and serving as a vector for toxic chemicals linked to devastating illnesses. 

Environmental and human rights groups are becoming more vocal about how communities that live near petrochemical plants are some of the most vulnerable to toxic pollution from plastic production. In the United States, Louisiana’s cancer alley is one the most notorious examples of fenceline communities getting sickened by plastic chemical manufacturing, yet the state government continues to encourage more such plants. At the Wilson Center event Alice Mah, professor of sociology at the University of Warwick and author of Plastic Unlimited, talked about the accumulated environmental injustices linked to the Chinese petrochemical industry—the world’s largest. Her research uncovered how contaminated drinking water contributed to “cancer villages” and higher levels of social inequality surrounding the petrochemical industrial parks of Nanjing. 

Waste management is not the silver bullet for plastic

Blaming this plastic waste crisis on irresponsible consumer behavior and the lack of recycling infrastructure ignores the fact that less than 10 percent of plastics ever produced have been recycled, said Von Hernandez, Global Coordinator of Break Free From Plastic Movement. The true plastic waste culprits are corporations such as Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Unilever, and Nestlé who are producing the vast majority of plastics and then subsequently offering up “false solutions” of recycling and waste-collection programs destined for failure, said Hernandez. In the Philippines, Nestlé advertises its “plastic neutrality” by collecting the equivalent amount of plastic from the environment that it puts on the market; however, Hernandez’s team found that the plastic Nestlé collects is then burned in cement kilns, releasing toxic ash and GHG emissions. 

Breaking the silence on plastic and climate linkage

Real solutions must focus further upstream, beyond waste collection, to hold plastics producers accountable for their damaging contributions to human and environmental health, agreed the panelists. Leveraging domestic and international legal frameworks to litigate against corporations for hiding the true costs of their plastic production is one method that is gaining traction, said Rosa Prichard, a lawyer at ClientEarth. Climate litigation cases against companies around the globe have more than doubled since 2015. Comprehensive European Union plastic packaging and waste laws have helped empower ClientEarth and other environmental groups to bring successful climate litigation against major petrochemical polluters in Europe. Although the climate-plastic linkage does not stop at international borders, laws and regulations often do. A mandated global agreement to phase down plastic and petrochemical production will be needed before more substantive action to reduce pollution and climate emissions from plastic can happen, said Mah.