Single-Use Plastic Is Wreaking Havoc on the Planet. Here’s What You Can Do to Minimize Your Impact.
Rachel Ramirez | September 16, 2022 | CNN
The plastic industry is responsible for at least 232 million tons of planet-warming emissions each year, according to the Beyond Plastics report.
That's the same amount as the average emissions released by 116 coal-fired power plants in 2020, according to the report's authors. It's also the same annual emissions as around 50 million cars, according to the EPA. And more plastic-making facilities continue to come online.
"Remember that when you're making plastic, there's the greenhouse gas emissions, but these facilities also emit massive amounts of air toxins and particulates," Enck added. "It's really a health threat."
Refineries and production facilities also tend to set up shop in marginalized communities of color, Enck said.
"If you look at where more than 90% of the climate pollution is released by the plastic industry, it's in 18 communities in the whole country, and they're all low-income communities and the residents are more likely to be people of color," Enck said, outlining other findings in the report. "Plastic production is an environmental justice issue."
And plastic recycling doesn't work, Enck said, because most of what we think we're recycling just ends up in the landfill. It also doesn't address the planet-warming emissions that comes from making it in the first place.
Jacqueline Savitz, chief policy officer for Oceana in North America, said people should think of the plastic crisis as an overflowing bathtub.
"When the bathtub is overflowing, you don't want to just run for the mop; first, you want to turn off the faucet," Savitz said. "Recycling is the mop. You're not going to get very far, if the faucet is still on. So what we have to do is reduce the amount of plastics that we're producing at the source, and that's turning off the faucet."
What you can do about it
Recycling alone will not solve this massive problem, Enck said, but we should still do it — bearing in mind what can and cannot be recycled.
The number system on the bottom of plastic items are not a guarantee they will be recycled. Only things marked 1 and 2 — and on rare occasion, 5 — are sure bets, depending on what your municipality can handle.
