Plastics Industry Needs To Have United Voice
But the industry and the NGOs lobbying against it should unite for actual change.
Plastics Today had an interesting article come out recently about how the plastics industry needs to present a united voice to the public and it needs to push back against those who are trying to take it down. These concerns were voiced by the Plastics Industry Association President and CEO Tony Radoszewski and I would tend to agree with him in part because what the article does not discuss is that the plastics industry has made promises before and never delivered. I’ve written about this at length here if anyone is interested in reading it.
The problem that is occuring now is one of framing where it is the plastics industry on one side and NGOs such as Greenpeace is on the other. The plastics industry knows that the world needs plastics and specialty polymers for modern technologies to work such as cellphones, car tires, paint, food packaging, diapers, reusable bags, clothing and a litany of things that no one thinks about. In reality the NGOs need plastics, and the plastics industry needs to change how they do business to get the target off their back. This opposing issue is represented in the North Face versus the Oil and Gas industry:
The whole problem occured when The North Face refused an order for 400 jackets from a Texas oil and gas company over the issue of climate change. This was a bad move by North Face since they use quite a bit of material both derived from oil and transported by oil on container ships from low cost labor countries such as Vietnam. If you want to know more about our clothing waste problem I wrote a two part series here and here.
The truth is that plastics and chemical manufacturing jobs are some of the only jobs to have stayed in North America over the last fifty years while offshoring has decimated light manufacturing and heavy industry. The goods produced by the chemical and plastics industry in North America are employing a lot of skilled labor that is being squeezed in most directions. Can the chemical industry do more to make their plants operate with better environmental standards, better safety, and better air quality? Yes, if they invest profits and shareholder money back into their infrastructure and improvements in manufacturing capabilities.
The truth is the chemical industry is also a large source of pollution, emissions, and wastewater. Is this a problem for climate change? Yes. The solutions to our problems are with scientists (like myself) and engineers working together towards doing things in a better way. The solution to Sars-Covid-2 was a vaccine developed by scientists and engineers. The solution to our plastics and pollution problem will also be solved by scientists and engineers who also typically work in the chemical industry.
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) are excellent at raising money, communication of specific messages, and building a force behind policy aimed at trying to make the world a better place. They should employ more chemists (plenty of them out there that need jobs) to better craft their policy initiatives. Ideally, NGOs should recruit chemists from the chemical industry (seriously, layoffs happen all the time, there are plenty out there) to work on policy initiatives that could actually work to bring about change. I wrote a policy position on a plastics ban initiative that I thought was misguided. As long as NGOs propose policies that are easy to shut down by trade organizations they will never succeed in their mission. The more that NGOs fail to achieve their mission the easier it is to dismiss them as ineffectual organizations that just make a lot of noise.
Not all NGOs are ineffective though and actually and some have gotten better over the past few decades. One thing that stood out to me recently was the World Wildlife Fund working with Novozymes to develop better frameworks around clean water. This is the model that I want to see across the chemical industry. No one benefits except short term shareholders when it comes to pollution and with current ESG metrics being a key metric for many long term capitalists this is perfect timing for change.
There are also positions for scientists and engineers to work directly with lawmakers via AAAS and associated organizations which I’ve written about here and it's stunning how few positions are available. I’d like to see the total number of positions double or triple and ideally bring in people with established careers from the chemical industry for the issues I’m writing about here. There is an amazing wealth of knowledge that is gained by working as a professional chemist when it comes to supply chains, raw materials, and the actual regulations governing how chemicals are made that would be useful in all levels of government.
NGOs and the chemical and plastics industry should unite to figure out a path forward that benefits both sides otherwise nothing changes. The regulations largely stay unchanged and business is conducted as it's always been conducted. We are at a point in time where we could see real change, but I am afraid that “winning” the argument is more important than fixing problems. In part, I’m writing this newsletter to try and communicate things the way I see them as a scientist. I’m not sure there is a right or wrong here, only that what is currently being done does no one any good.
Tony
Sources
https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/plastics-industry-must-speak-united-voice-counter-anti-plastics-messaging
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/app5.134
https://www.novozymes.com/en/news/news-archive/2020/10/wwf-and-novozymes-partner-to-safeguard-water-resources
In addition to the above narrative it is common knowledge that large oil companies that produce polyolefins do not have the correct people in their communication departments to properly articulate the problem. They are high paid marketing types from college that rarely return calls and have little field experience or experience with the issues at large. These same oil companies hire consultants that know their subject inside and out but end us working with incompetence within the same organizations by handing the consultant over to people that are in their communication department and are fearful of having others do their job!! Remember big oil companies produce oil and other intermediates and the plastics side is just another business that has become a burden on their system from environmental and activist and special interest that are paid to subject the population at large that know very little of another false narrative and alternative facts. To compound this nonsense social media and politicians contribute to the nonsense by being paid from "dark money". Each component of this overall issue requires a coordinated effort and the elimination of fuel that big oil companies and their plastic plants generate by adding to the narrative with deliberate pollution of the water systems and the local community from pellets from railroad cars and poor management with no accountability. This alone could be avoided but adds to the fuel the opposition needs to feed their arguments.
Furthermore, and last but not least is the issue of proper long term fortification and end of life cycles that could be controlled by the polyolefin manufacturers if they wanted to alter their current and past practices of relying on MB providers to supplement for their lack of control of the final products leaving their plant!! It is time for big oil and their plastic divisions to revisit the full and proper fortification of products for direct use by fiber, tape, film ,molded plastics that do not require post addition of masterbatches that only add to the problems. Note: In 1967 Shell Development Woodbury NJ fortified their PP from the plant including colorant to avoid MB for years and it worked to their advantage.
I would say that the solutions *start* with scientists and engineers -- they are a "necessary but not sufficient" part of the solution. The other part that is needed is customer or shareholder will.
I think COVID-19 vaccines are actually a good case in point -- science made them possible in a very short time (an incredible achievement) but in the US, which is swimming with vaccines, politically driven low uptake in certain places means that there are going to be a lot of big COVID outbreaks in the very near future. The science is not enough.