Plastics companies blocked mitigation efforts and may have broken US laws – study. Paper outlines different legal theories that could help governments pursue accountability for harms. Guardian Dharna Noor Wed 26 Jun 2024 Companies have spent decades obstructing efforts to take on the plastics crisis and may have breached a host of US laws, a new report argues.
The research from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) details the widespread burdens that plastic pollution places on US cities and states, and argues that plastic producers may be breaking public-nuisance, product-liability and consumer-protection laws.It comes as cities such as Baltimore have begun to file claims against plastic manufacturers, but the authors write that existing cases “are likely only the beginning, as more states and municipalities grapple with the challenges of accumulating plastic waste and microplastics contamination.” Taxpayers foot the bill to clean plastic pollution from streets and waterways, and research shows people could ingest the equivalent of one credit card’s worth of plastic per week.“We’re in the midst of a population-scale human experiment on the impacts of multigenerational toxic exposures,” said Carroll Muffett, president of CIEL and a report co-author. “Plastics are at the epicenter of that.” Drawing on newly revealed internal documents and previous investigations, the authors write that producers knew of these risks and produced and marketed plastics anyway Petrochemical producers such as ExxonMobil Chemical and Shell Polymers, and disposable plastic goods producers like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Unilever, should be held responsible, they say. Global plastics production exploded shortly after the second world war, when “an industry that had been producing plastics primarily for military purposes needed new markets”, said Muffett.
From 1950 to 2000, global plastic production soared from 2m tons to 234m tons annually. And over the next 20 years, production more than doubled to 460m tons in 2019, the authors write, citing data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But plastics producers knew in the 1950s that their products don’t break down and in 1969, documents show, industry interests discussed plastics accumulating in the environment but kept marketing them. As the public grew concerned about plastic pollution, the industry responded with “sophisticated marketing campaigns” to shift blame from producers to consumers – for instance, by popularizing the term litterbug. In the 1980s, the industry “misled the public” by lobbying states to adopt a plastic-packaging numbering system that resembled the “chasing arrows” recycling symbol and therefore appeared to indicate recyclability. (The Federal Trade Commission is currently re-evaluating the use of the symbols.) Around that same time, some municipalities began attempting to curb plastic pollution.
Coordinated pushback.....In 1989, Massachusetts considered banning all single-use packaging. The ballot initiative, proposed by the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, “had teeth to ensure compliance” including potential fines, jail time and the possibility of civil-enforcement actions. The ban was set to appear on the 1990 ballot, but the industry devised a “highly coordinated and sophisticated campaign” to kill it, the authors write based on internal documents. “Despite being local in its scope, the Massachusetts ban represented a serious threat to plastics producers and a host of other industry interests,” the report says. Tobacco lawyers, whose industry had come under fire for littered plastic cigarette butts, lobbied the Massachusetts attorney general to shut down the measure. And consumer goods producers like Procter & Gamble, petrochemical trade groups like the Chemical Manufacturers Association (which later became the American Chemistry Council), and tobacco lobby group the Tobacco Institute, created a taskforce to direct opposition. The Council for Solid Waste Solutions (CSWS), an industry group funded by major petrochemical producers such as Exxon, Dow, DuPont and Chevron, hired consultants to develop a plan for opposing legislative bans.....read on- there's much more https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/26/plastics-companies-blocking-mitigation-efforts AND.......................
Time-Lapse Video Shows Trash Interceptor Halting Flow of Garbage Into the Ocean Juan Hernandez Monday August 12, 2024 The Ocean Cleanup may be the world’s largest single effort to rid our oceans of plastic pollution. While there are obviously numerous projects around the world operated by different organizations, Boyan Slat’s endeavor includes tracking down and removing plastic from the ocean itself as well as stopping a great deal of trash flow at the source: rivers. According to the non-profit organization, as much as 80 percent of the world’s river plastic flows through just 1,000 rivers. A quick Google search will tell you there are as many as 150,000 rivers around the globe, so concentrating its cleanup efforts at these waterways represents a textbook case of working smarter rather than harder.The organization designed an Interceptor system which can be engineered to each river’s unique layout and have installed a handful of them in locations around the world over the past couple of years. “When you actually see all that trash together, that huge patch, and you think wow, that’s what was on our beaches? That’s what all the wildlife was playing in? It’s crazy,” says Danny Devaldenebro, a Los Angeles local living near System 007,which was installed near his Marina del Rey home in 2023. “I can’t believe we actually figured out something that can help this.” System 006 was installed thousands of miles away in Rio Las Vacas, which is approximately 16 km north of Guatemala’s capital, Guatemala City. The interceptor system hinges on a set of two strategically located floating booms which capture plastic flowing through the river while water passes by. The booms are chained to foundations dug into the riverside, giving Interceptor 006 enough strength and stability to stop enormous quantities of trash throughout the rainy season. The system was put to the test after an April storm that caused flash floods in the area and eventually led to the system’s largest ever river catch. A time lapse video of the whole operation in motion just weeks later shows a full month of trash flowing through the river before it’s stopped by Interceptor 006. It’s mind blowing to see absolutely no water at certain points in the time lapse, and like Devaldenebro said back in California, it puts into perspective that all this trash would end up on beaches and in the ocean otherwise.....watch a segment of this long video and you'll get the idea! https://www.theinertia.com/