How Did Plastic Become Such a Problem?
From the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, to the slums of Mumbai, to the shores of Lake Ontario, plastic has become a major component of climatic and environmental strife over the last 80 years.
Ottawa 2024, INC-4 | Photo by Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press via AP
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So far, 2024 has been a pivotal year for plastic negotiations as the global community bears the weight of the current plastic pollution crisis. From April 23–29, 2024, delegates from around the world gathered in Ottawa for the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution–INC-4, otherwise known as the global plastic treaty negotiations (ecojustice 2024). From the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, to the slums of Mumbai, to the shores of Lake Ontario, plastic has become a major component of climatic and environmental strife over the last 80 years.
Plastic has become ubiquitous. It's challenging to go through an entire day without coming in contact with plastic. But how did it become like this? Well, we have John Wesley Hyatt to thank for making the initial discovery in 1869.
First produced to serve as a substitute for ivory, it was considered revolutionary for its ability to give humans the opportunity to manufacture beyond the constraints of nature (Science History Institute 2024). Celluloid as it was known then, was touted to be a “saviour of the elephant and the tortoise” (Science History Institute 2024).
Plastics could protect the natural world from the destructive forces of human need.
This thinking led to the crisis we’re now facing, as plastic has proven to be incredibly destructive to our environments, wildlife, and human health. This article outlines how we made the transition from plastic as a revolutionary solution to a global crisis. Addressing how plastic has become implicit within the realm of human-made, challenging the notion of buyer’s discernment or consumer choice. Finally, we’ll address some of the real numbers that outline the breadth of the crisis and underline the challenges we’ll collectively face as we imagine a new way forward.
World War II necessitated a great expansion of the plastics industry in the United States, as industrial capacity proved to be just as important to victory as military success (Science History Institute 2024). Plastic in various forms made its way into everything from parachutes, to body armour, to aircraft windows. During World War II plastic production in the US increased by 300% (Science History Institute 2024). Following the end of the war, plastic remained readily available in the market and quickly became a standard used in packaging and shipping. Presently, the packaging sector is one of the largest producers of plastic — approximately 36% of all plastics produced (United Nations 2023).This is important as it outlines how plastic has gone on to integrate itself into brand identity and marketing policy. “Packaging creates the distinction between the same type of products sitting side by side on shelves” (Packaging Manufacturers Association 2020). Though many of us understand that coloured plastics are not recyclable, when it comes to products like skincare for example, those colours are used to lure our attention and encourage particular impressions of a brand’s identity and offerings.
The capitalistic evolution of our global economy necessitated and relied on the proliferation of plastic as a material to both package and identify consumer goods. Additionally, plastic has been a vehicle for encouraging and ensuring our collective dependence on convenience culture and our addiction to the fossil fuel industry. Beyond the transportation industry, the production of plastic is one of the most energy-intensive industries in the world (United Nations 2023). Notably, 99% of plastics are produced from petrochemicals that are sourced from fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, and coal — none of which are biodegradable (Nagtzaam, G. et al. 2023, p.3). Transforming fossil fuels into polymers requires heat and a variety of other additives. According to the UNEP (2023), “in 2019, plastics generated 1.8 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions–3.4% of the global total.”
What makes this reality especially bleak is the fact that a large proportion of the plastic created is for single-use. PPE, utensils, vape cartridges — all of these end up in landfills, generally difficult to or un-recyclable. There’s also an increasing trend in favour of producing things with disposability as a feature of their lifespan. This has everything to do with “industry practices in pursuit of profit, not consumer demand, as the industry asserts today” (Nagtzaam, G. et al. 2023, p. 14). The take-make-dispose model has taken over, encouraging increasingly rapid consumption and turnover. The growth of population and rising standards of living means that the consumption of goods and energy is increasing, leading to an increase in the generation of waste (Nagtzaam, G. et al. 2023, p.53).
“Garbage in the Himalayas” | Photo by Sylwia Bartyzel via Unsplash
Of course, there have been movements and efforts geared towards combating this crisis. With knowledge and awareness raising through media and reflection, many have joined the zero-waste movement, seeking to remove as much unnecessary waste from their day-to-day lives as possible, often educating themselves about the ways that plastic can be eliminated by making certain decisions about what to buy and from where. However, on a number of levels, it’s become challenging to compete against plastic’s imposition on our everyday lives.
Photo by Ace Maxwell via Unsplash
When it comes to fighting this fight, it’s not just about single-use plastic. Plastics make their way into products we may not even think of, such as car tires. Plastics are also being reinvented into a huge variety of man-made materials used for garments, some of the most common being polyester, nylon, acrylic, spandex, fleece, and rayon. About 60% of materials made into clothing is plastic (United Nations 2023). Though consumers of these items may hold onto and use them for many years, each time these garments are washed or these tires hit the road, they produce microplastics. Laundry alone produces around 500,000 tonnes of plastic microfibres that are then released into the ocean every year — that’s equivalent to almost 3 billion polyester shirts (United Nations 2023).
Importantly, microplastics and nanoplastics fall into two distinct categories — primary and secondary microplastics. Primary refers to micro- and nanoplastics deliberately manufactured into ultra-small sizes for specific purposes (ex. nurdles). Secondary refers to micro- and nanoplastic fragments or fibres that are caused by normal wear and tear or through the degradation of larger plastic products, such as tires. Importantly, these secondary micro- and nanoplastics are the predominant type of plastic pollution (Nagtzaam, G. et al. 2023, p.9).
It has been said that “plastic is a problem that gets bigger the smaller it becomes” — Simon, N. & Fuhr, L. 2017 (as cited in Nagtzaam, G. et al. 2023, p. 7).
When we are thinking about the nature of plastic’s evolution through an economic lens, we understand that the primary motivation for its widely accepted use is profit. Plastic is inexpensive to produce relative to other materials, making it more suitable and convenient to produce higher volumes of a product. Plastic has almost become a cheat code to produce more for less, but the tradeoff is higher pollution and lower quality goods overall. The reality is that economic accessibility serves as a barrier for many people to be able to spend their money on higher quality, plastic-free goods.
At this point, I’m sure we’ve made you feel a bit overwhelmed by the problem. However, putting it into numbers adds an additional and important perspective to this discussion. According to the UNEP (2022), we currently produce 400 million tonnes of plastic globally each year. Overall, we’re looking at estimates between 7–9.2 billion tonnes of plastic generated globally since its invention, respectively. And guess what, less than 10% of it has ever been successfully recycled. Of the plastic produced globally, only about 30% is still in use. Beyond the fraction that has been recycled, the rest has been discarded; about 14% incinerated, and the remaining either disposed of in landfills and dumps, or mismanaged (Nagtzaam, G. et al. 2023, p. 12).
We realise, we haven’t painted a very positive picture. But, the reality is not positive if we don’t collectively make decisions, sacrifices, and investments toward a better future for our planet. Prior to the commencement of INC-4 in April, UN Secretary General, António Guterres said:
via Twitter
We encourage you to take time to learn more about the Global Plastic Treaty Negotiations, as well as your domestic plastic legislation. Canada stood at centre of a lot of discussions during INC-4 as a High Ambition Coalition (HAC) Member and the host of the event. Here’s an important petition to sign as we prepare for INC-5, November 25 — December 1, 2024 in Busan, South Korea.
In the meantime, we at A Greener Future offer a variety of programs targeted at tackling this plastic waste problem in Ontario communities within and around the Great Lakes Region. We’ve just launched our Love Your Lakes program for Spring/Summer 2024. To learn more about our events and about our organisation, check out our website and social media: @agreenerfuture on every platform.
Written by: Mara Mahmud | Communications Assistant (2024)