The nightmare story behind the explosive growth of single-use plastics and the petrochemical industry...
Fossil fuel companies are staring down a time when their signature product will no longer be so critical in our lives. As the world transitions slowly but surely away from fuel-guzzling cars, gas-powered buildings, and coal-fired power plants, industry execs must count on growth that comes from somewhere else — and they see their savior as plastics.
In the last decade, petrochemicals have moved from a sideshow for the oil and gas industry to a major profit machine, and the trend is expected to accelerate: The International Energy Agency predicts that plastics’ consumption of oil will outpace that of cars by 2050. In a recent report about its 20-year growth, ExxonMobil executives assured shareholders that the company could offset losses from the transition to electric cars with growth in petrochemicals.
There are climate impacts at every point of the lifecycle of plastics. The production process consumes fossil fuels both to make the plastics and maintain the high temperatures for refining and manufacturing. Methane, which is both a fuel and a potent greenhouse gas, tends to leak during drilling, transport, and refining, making it an underestimated source of pollution from the oil and gas industry.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) estimated that last year alone, plastic production contributed the equivalent emissions of 189 large coal plants. If plastics production continues apace, the sector is on track to reach the equivalent annual pollution of 295 large coal plants in the next 10 years, and double that by 2050, according to CIEL.
An International Energy Agency report from 2018 indicated that carbon pollution from the petrochemical sector will increase 30% by 2050 over the sector’s current rate.
@breadandcircuses
Interesting in this context:
When the first machines for the production of #hemp fibers and paper were developed in the 1930s, the petrochemical company #DuPont was one of the most important financiers of the #cannabis disinformation campaign that led to cannabis prohibition in the USA and almost worldwide - alongside companies in the timber and paper industries (Hearst).
At the time, DuPont had just patented processes for producing plastic from oil and coal. #plasticpollution