UN Plastic Conference Bows to Lobby

By FRANK LINGO

OMG, not another essay on plastic poisoning the planet! nnAfraid so. Back in March 2022, 175 countries including the United States, signed an agreement at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi to end plastic pollution and forge an international legally binding agreement by 2024.

Guess what, they didn’t do either one.

The United Nations just ended its latest conference on the issue in Ottawa, Canada and an April 30, 2024 headline in The Guardian says it all: “Developed countries accused of bowing to lobbyists at plastic pollution talks.”

The US did not support a conference proposal to cut plastic production. In fact, we are on track to build 42 new plastic manufacturing plants, 24 of them in Texas alone. Would that have any connection to Texas being a huge producer of petroleum, which plastic is made from?

Let’s do a quick review of the reasons to stop producing plastic. There is the disgusting Great Pacific Garbage Patch (primarily plastic), that is twice the size of Texas and causes the death of many fish and aquatic mammals, such as whales and dolphins. There is the degradation of plastic into micro-particles which have insidiously spread into the bloodstream of every animal on Earth, including humans. There is the extraction and production of oil which produces poisonous pollution and is a cause of the climate crisis. And there is the extreme fraudulence of plastic recycling. Of the 7 billion tons of plastic that humans have produced so far, under 10% has been recycled, according to the UN.

The petrochemical companies knew all along that plastic recycling wouldn’t work. A February 2024 article on CommonDreams.org detailed a report by the Center for Climate Integrity entitled “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the Plastic Industry Deceived the Public for Decades and Caused the Plastic Waste Crisis.”

Still, the plastic industry doubles down their defense. In Sept. 2023, they launched an expensive public relations greenwashing campaign called “Recycling is Real.” Only problem is it’s not and they’ve known it doesn’t work since at least the 1980s.

The pity of it is that plastic alternatives made from biodegradable vegetation, including hemp, have been available for years, yet are only sparingly used. Instead, plastic bottles are used around the world at the rate of ONE MILLION PER MINUTE!

The failure to find an agreement in Ottawa coincided with a record number of petrochemical lobbyists attending. As the conference ended, the frustration of participants was palpable. “The United States needs to stop pretending to be a leader and own the failure it has created here,” said Carroll Muffett, president of Center for International Environmental Law.

But as usual, money talks and protection of the planet gets silenced. The plastic industry’s revenue exceeds $700 billion per year.

CNBC reports that only 20 companies are responsible for over half of single-use plastic items thrown away globally. If our government represented the people and not the profiteers, we could crack down on these titans of trash and force them to switch to sustainable packaging.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2024

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