Report: U.S. should make less plastic to save world’s oceans

North America needs to rethink and reduce the way it generates plastics because so much of the material is littering the oceans and other waters, the National Academy of Sciences says in a new report.

The United States, the world’s top plastics waste producer, generates more than 42 million metric tons a year, and about one million metric tons ends up in the world’s oceans, according to the academy’s report.

If the current rise in plastics pollution continues, the world by 2030 will be putting 53 million metric tons into the oceans each year, or about half the weight of the fish caught in seas, the report said.

Recycling and proper disposal alone aren’t enough and can’t handle the problem, so the “United States should substantially reduce solid waste generation (absolute and per person) to reduce plastic waste in the environment,” said the report by the independent body of scientists set up by President Abraham Lincoln to advise the federal government on big research issues.

The plastics issue can’t be solved unless the country makes less plastic, designs it differently, keeps better track of it and cleans up more waste, and “that’s why our number one recommendation is to reduce solid waste generation,” said report chair Margaret Spring, chief conservation and science officer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“We suggest that one way to reduce plastic waste would be to make less plastic,” said oceanographer Kara Lavender Law, a report co-author who has conducted numerous studies about plastic waste.

“Recycling cannot manage the vast majority of the plastic waste that we generate.”

The panel provided a menu of potential ways to fix the plastics problem, starting with “national goals and strategies to cap or reduce virgin plastic production.”

Virgin plastic is plastic that starts from feedstock that hasn’t been used — namely, non-recycled material. The problem, the report said, is that “virgin plastic prices are artificially low due to fossil fuel subsidies, therefore virgin plastics are more profitable to produce” — and U.S. manufacturing of them continues to increase.

“More than 90% of plastics are made from virgin fossil feedstocks, which utilizes roughly 6% of global oil consumption,” the report said. And this makes virgin plastic a climate issue as well as a pollution problem, said study co-author Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia researcher who focuses on waste issues.

While recycling “is technically possible for some plastics, little plastic waste is recycled in the United States,” the report said, noting that materials put in plastics to change hardness or colour make them too complex to recycle cheaply, compared to making new virgin plastic.

“One of the major barriers for recycling is the economics of virgin plastic and subsidization of the fossil fuel industry,” Spring said.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents plastics manufacturers, lauded most of the academy’s report, but it blasted the idea of limiting plastics production.

“This is misguided and would lead to supply chain disruptions, economic and inflationary pressure on already hurt consumers and worse environmental outcomes, particularly related to climate change,” American Chemistry Council Vice President Joshua Baca said in a statement.

The organization, which touted $7.5 billion in advanced recycling projects since 2017, called for a study on greenhouse gas implications of raw materials used in packaging and plastic products.