Plastic production ‘will have disastrous consequences’

  • Plastic production is expected to grow by 40 per cent over the next ten years 
  • The growth is being fuelled by fracking boom in the US, with cheaper oil and gas
  • Experts warn that plastic use needs to be cut drastically because of pollution
  • They say that plastic ending up in the oceans would have a catastrophic impact

A massive increase in plastic production in the US will have disastrous consequences for the world’s oceans, campaigners said yesterday.

Experts warn that plastic use needs to be cut drastically as the sea becomes increasingly polluted by millions of tons of waste.

But plastic production is expected to grow by 40 per cent over the next ten years. 

Experts warn that plastic use needs to be cut drastically as the sea becomes increasingly polluted by millions of tons of waste

Around £135billion has been spent on new American plastic plants, with much of the investment bankrolled by oil firms.

The growth is being fuelled by the fracking boom in the US, with cheaper oil and gas from fracking wells being used to make plastic.

Firms such as Exxon Mobil and Shell are behind the 318 plastics plants since 2010 that have either been built, are in construction or are at the planning stage. 

Louise Edge, of Greenpeace UK, said any rise in the amount of plastic ending up in the oceans would have a catastrophic impact.

Louise Edge, of Greenpeace UK, said any rise in the amount of plastic ending up in the oceans would have a catastrophic impact

Louise Edge, of Greenpeace UK, said any rise in the amount of plastic ending up in the oceans would have a catastrophic impact

She added: ‘We are already producing more disposable plastic than we can deal with – more in the last decade than in the entire 20th century – and millions of tons of it are ending up in our oceans.’ 

Matthew Thoelke, of research group IHS Markit, said the US expansion was a crucial part of the expected 40 per cent growth in global plastics production.

Carroll Muffett, of the US Center for International Environmental Law, told The Guardian: ‘We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realising we should use far less of it.

‘Around 99 per cent of the feedstock for plastics is fossil fuels, so we are looking at the same companies, like Exxon and Shell, that have helped create the climate crisis.

‘There is a deep, pervasive relationship between oil and gas companies and plastics.’

INDESTRUCTIBLE! CARD’S 40 YEARS IN THE SEA

Slightly bent and faded, this Barclaycard looks as if it’s spent a few days at the bottom of a binbag.

But it has actually spent around 40 years in the sea, proving how indestructible plastics are and why they are a threat to the environment.

With an expiry date of October 1979, it was found on Aldwick beach in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, on Thursday.

It belonged to Rene Vignon, who died at 89 in 2003, and is thought to have been lost on a beach and swept out to sea. 

It then bobbed around for years before being washed ashore.

A Barclaycard as found washed up on the beach more than 40 years after it was swept out to sea

A Barclaycard as found washed up on the beach more than 40 years after it was swept out to sea

 



Read more at DailyMail.co.uk