Plastic in Polar Regions: Keeping plastic from trashing people and at risk places
It’s no surprise to find a plastic candy wrapper frozen in an iceberg. You can’t watch trillions of bits of plastic, large and small, leave our communities globally and not expect the wind and waves to take it far and wide. Most plastics exist in a linear economy, a one-way journey from production to consumption, with systemic failure in getting it back to where it came from to “Close the Loop.” The result is a dump in every village, where trash gets buried, burned, or lost to the environment. The linear economy for plastics is failing people in remote communities and hampering the conservation of pristine places but there’s a way out. When industry takes responsibility for the return ticket of discarded plastic is when the harm ceases. It is imperative that countries pass stronger Extended Producer Responsibility bills so that accountability is shared by all to solve the problem.
Photo of a candy wrapper in sea ice in the region 81 36N, 18 09E in the Arctic Ocean taken from the High North 2018 expedition led by the Italian Hydrographic Institute.
In June 2020 the 5 Gyres Institute published “Mitigation Strategies to Reverse the Rising Trend of Plastics in Polar Regions.” This research finds that plastic enters the Arctic and Antarctic by drifting on air or ocean currents, lost by shipping and fishing activities, tourism, and from communities that live there. Near Pond Inlet, a village of 1,200 people in the Canadian Arctic, 5 Gyres scientists and explorers dragged a microplastic net along the coast, sublime wilderness all around, with a plume of smoke rising above the indigenous village. Their landfill was aflame and when we asked their waste manager about it she said, “We sort our trash and bale it but the companies that import goods don’t want to export waste. It’s too expensive and our community already pays a premium for goods in the first place. Are we expected to pay to haul the packaging away?”
During the 5 Gyres Institute 2016 expedition to the Canadian Arctic, while deploying the manta trawl to collect microplastics near the community of Pond Inlet (Nunavut territory, Canadian Arctic 72°70’ N, 77°95’ W), the local landfill was burning (photo center).
Cities and taxpayers cannot afford to fund a circular economy, especially in the world today where a global pandemic, resource scarcity, population growth, infrastructure costs, and basic human services consume the lion’s share of available tax dollars. In an economic and political system where plastic producers and product manufacturers win battles to push costs of managing waste onto consumers and cities, the big losers are the people living in remote, rural and pristine places on the planet.
It is a form of environmental racism based on socioeconomic class whereby a combination of corporate practice and trade policy knowingly export goods through a linear economy to communities that do not have systems or financial resources to manage waste. Everyone deserves access to goods that meet their basic and modern technology needs yet to burden those communities with a legacy of toxic materials too expensive to manage is unethical and inconsistent with the Environment, Society, Governance goals stated by most large corporations about eliminating harm to people and planet.
One of many examples of the failure of the linear economy. During the 5 Gyres expedition to Indonesia in 2018, seeing the burning landfill behind the village on Gili Trawangan is a common example of the failure of the linear economy, and the harm done to communities that cannot afford waste management of plastic.
Historically, environmental racism represents social and environmental injustices that occur in a racial context, like the intentional placement of harmful industrial or petrochemical activities in poor and minority communities that are least able to challenge those actions on legal grounds or through political influence. Often, leadership in companies and government agencies making these decisions typically do not represent the communities on the receiving end. The global trade of trash to countries with insufficient or non-existent labor laws and environmental standards is another form of environmental racism as the intended recipients are typically rural and indigenous communities.
The linear economy arrives overly packaged and poorly designed when it comes to managing materials so that the dismantling and recyclability of materials becomes cost prohibitive. Just think of a multi-layered plastic pouch for a beverage, or foam polystyrene packaging, or cheap electronics and appliances, they are all worthless as waste, un-repairable and un-recyclable, and therefore never leave the poorest communities. The system fails them.
However, there are solutions gaining traction worldwide. First, we need to recognize that beneficial plastics are very different from those single-use plastics that top the lists of the biggest polluters to the environment. When billions of cell phones and computer parts are made with plastic, it means the world gets connected (similar to the billions of syringes providing a potential COVID-19 vaccine.) These types of plastic help millions of people, delivering basic needs and access to modernity. Many kinds of packaging of consumer goods fall into this category of “acceptable plastic,” and industry leaders are taking a new look at Extended Producer Responsibility to fund the circular economy so that the plastic consumption chain completes its life cycle in a responsible manner.
Major consumer brands are endorsing a fee on virgin resin to boost plastic recovery. Through the Consumer Brands Association trade group a surcharge would be placed on virgin resin to correct the disparity with recycled materials. If waste plastic had value, then the economics of the round-trip would make sense. This is partially in response to China’s 2018 National Sword policy, which ended the import of waste plastic from other countries. With the U.S. exporting more than half of its plastic waste to China this left U.S. cities struggling under their collected recycled items with nowhere to send them. Domestic markets for recycled content are few because virgin plastic is cheaper to use than recycled materials.
Andrew Forrest, an Australian philanthropist, has contributed $300 million to move plastic to a circular economy system through the work of the Mindaroo Foundation. In a recent peer-reviewed research article he writes, “The $2.2 trillion annual external cost of plastic pollution is not captured in the production costs of our linear plastics economy, representing a major market failure,” and suggests a similar surcharge to virgin resin adding, “applied at the resin production level, there is great potential to drive global manufacturing toward a circular economy.” There is a growing consensus that the industry that made the plastic must pay for its recapturing, hence a circular model.
Then there’s single-use plastic, also known as “Stupid Stuff,” which dominates the lists of plastic trash found polluting the environment and communities worldwide. In our publication Better Alternatives Now 2.0, we gathered top 10 lists from International Cleanup Day, NOAA, Marine Debris Tracker, and others to find consistency everywhere we looked. Food wrappers, plastic bags, bottles and caps, straws, lids, utensils, take-out containers, cups and cigarette butts – these topped the list of “Stupid Stuff.” There is no circular economic solution for these items because they are low-value, expensive to recycle, and are the “escape artists” that leak from even the cleanest cities. They must go and there’s no shortage of innovative solutions.
Biodegradable materials (the natural and truly sustainable circular economy) are replacing the “Stupid Stuff.” Ecovative produces packaging made from mycelium to replace foam polystyrene and is 100% biodegradable in your backyard compost bin. Reuse and repair business models are working to meet public needs without the legacy of waste. Companies like RePak makes reusable shipping boxes while Vessel collects, cleans and reuses cups in restaurants. There are hundreds of companies innovating the way away from waste.
Based on our recent research of the ever growing problem of plastic disbursement to every corner of the world, it is our strong suggestion that industries that make and utilize plastic be regulated to invest in managing the plastic waste resulting from use of their products while simultaneously eliminating the need for, and innovating, single-use plastic products. As companies increasingly boast their corporate values, the idea that business can operate in a linear economy goes against who they claim to be.