The fight over the future of plastics
Earlier this week in Ottawa, the Vinyl Institute, a major plastic industry group, hosted a reception for delegates who are negotiating what would be the first global treaty to tackle the world’s mounting plastic waste problem.
There were cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. And signs with the message that plastics save lives.
Scientists have increasingly raised the alarm over the risks that the chemicals used in plastic pose to human health and the environment. Ahead of the latest round of talks, European researchers published a database of more than 16,000 chemicals plastics can contain, many of which have been linked to cancer risks and damage to the human immune system.
The plastics industry urgently needed to combat the image of the industry as “the enemy, this faceless industry that is there to kill people,” Domenic DeCaria, the Vinyl Institute’s technical director, told an industry gathering ahead of the latest round of talks, according to a recording of the remarks, which DeCaria confirmed in a conversation with the Times Thursday.
In particular, the industry is pushing back against the possible inclusion in the treaty of caps on global plastic production, an approach favored by a broad coalition of nations at the talks, which resumed on Tuesday in Ottawa.
Spearheading that effort are African nations that have blazed a trail in phasing out single-use plastics, which make up the bulk of plastic pollution. Almost three dozen countries on the African continent have banned various forms of single-use plastics and packaging.
Targeting plastics production
Plastic production has also come under heightened scrutiny because of the emissions of planet-warming gases it causes. Recycling has failed to stem the flow of plastic waste that is piling up in landfills, entering the world’s rivers and oceans, and breaking down into tiny particles that have made their way into drinking water supplies and are detectable in human blood. The fiery derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, last year of a train carrying vinyl chloride also underscored the hazards of some of the chemicals used to make plastics.