The figures speak volumes: global plastic production doubled between 2000 and 2020 to reach 460 million tonnes per year. Overpackaging is one of the main vectors, defended tooth and nail by the petrochemical industry. And it is an economy in which single-use items — packaging, utensils, glasses, wipes, etc. — are experiencing the strongest growth, now constituting 40% of global production which will triple by 2060 if nothing is done.
Result: the catastrophe fills our dustbins, spreads out under our eyes far from being scandalized enough on the shelves of our supermarkets. At the other end of the chain, this results in 350 million plastic waste per year or “the equivalent of a truck full of plastic waste thrown into the ocean every minute”, to use the image used by the Program of the United Nations for the Environment (UNEP). Globally, barely 10% of this waste is recycled. The proportion is about the same in Quebec, where waste management everywhere suffers from major shortcomings.
The plastics industry is in fact behaving as if the evidence that the planet is going to waste ecologically does not concern it, while the pollution it causes has environmental, climatic , food, sanitation… It behaves as if its business plan were tantamount to wanting to pack the planet hygienically in a garbage bag.
The conference being held this week in Paris under the aegis of UNESCO, bringing together 2,500 delegates from 175 countries, is trying to tackle the problem. The effort is unprecedented for what the international community is finally trying to take the bull by the horns. On paper, the objective is very ambitious: to reach the conclusion of a binding international treaty before the end of 2024, allowing, in the best of all possible worlds, to “end plastic pollution” by 2040.
Everything necessarily involves a reduction in the production of plastic and, therefore, a reduction in the use of the exploitation of fossil fuels on which this production is based. Developing the circular economy, stopping the sneaky poison of microplastics that pollute the air, water and soil… Everything is covered in this conference, including tackling the 7 billion challenge. tonnes of waste piled up since the 1950s. Applying the 4R rule (reduce, reuse, repair and recycle), argues UNEP, plastic pollution could be reduced by 80% within 25 years.
Good luck ! Because, here again inevitably, the plastic lobby is mounting the barricades everywhere. On the one hand, the United States, the world’s largest consumer of plastic, and China, the largest producer, are united in their opposition to a binding treaty, sticking to the voluntary approach. On the other hand, in these times of “ecological transition”, the production of plastic opens the possibility for oil and gas producing countries to start with Saudi Arabia, new business prospects to which they won’t want to give up. And so it was that, at the end of 2022, the Saudi multinational Saudi Aramco announced an investment of US$11 billion for the construction of two factories to produce polyethylene, the most common plastic.
In France, in the United States, in Canada, in Quebec and in Montreal, we are making efforts, with variable geometry, to fight against this part of the problem which is the scourge of single-use plastic. But these are very insufficient efforts in view of the fundamental questions raised this week in Paris. Claiming, moreover, to be committed to the fight against plastic pollution in all its aspects, Ottawa faces stiff resistance from petrochemical companies, such as Dow Chemical, and an oil province, such as Alberta. , which he can hope less than ever for the collaboration with the election, Monday evening, of the pure and hard conservative Danielle Smith as Prime Minister.
Obviously, the fight against global warming, of which the all-out growth of plastic pollution is an essential dimension, involves categorical changes in consumer behavior at the individual level. Day to day, we negotiate with ourselves negligence which often amounts to “greenwashing” in small doses. However, nothing can really change without political, state and collective will that is less ambivalent and more assertive. Of all the lies to be deconstructed in the fight against climate change, there is none more blatant than this: imagining that this existential struggle can do without questioning logic profit and capitalist growth.