Origin of plastics and the direction its taking.
In this Our Changing Climate, I look at an aspect of plastic pollution that often is ignored in the face of plastic pollution in the ocean. While ocean plastic pollution is an important issue and the most rampant and nuisance, plastic is actually a fossil fuel production. This means that the emissions from plastic creation are massive. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry sees plastic as a plan B in the face of a renewables transition . This means that plastic pollution in the ocean and the atmosphere will only rise as fossil fuel industries seek to cover their losses as the world is working overtime to reduce carbon emission. Oil companies are investing billions into plastic because that's the only escape plan they have because carbon market has greatly suffered due to the transition from using fuels and also the impact of the pandemic after people were forced to stay indoors.
Unfortunately, recycling plastic is not a viable solution. Recycling plastic is actually an industry-backed tool to get people to buy more plastic without actually recycling most of the plastic, leading to lots of plastic pollution.
Recycling is also a blind spot so that consumers buy more plastic in the name that they will be recycled and in truth only a third or less of plastic is actually recycled. At the end of the day, only bans and a transition away from plastic can halt plastic pollution both in terms of emissions and ocean plastic pollution.
A side note is that production of plastics affects air due to emissions by the industries when polymerizing the fossil fuels to solid matter.
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