5 Frequently Asked Questions about Plastic Pollution

FAQs from Recent 5 Gyres Webinar
June 15, 2016 -for better reading quality, go directly to the 5 Gyres blog.

On June 2nd 5 Gyres held our most recent Webinar. Founders Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen spoke about plastic pollution in our oceans and focused on the latest research and policy on the issue, the importance of having a circular economy, and how community is essential to this problem as they have the power to demand change. The Webinar ended with a 15-minute Q/A session where audience members asked some very thoughtful questions and received passionate and insightful answers.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to address all of the questions, so Marcus has answered a few below that seem to be popular questions that we hope will clarify some doubts you might have.

WHY IS PLASTIC SO CHEAP? IS IT BECAUSE OIL COMPANIES ARE SUBSIDIZED?

Plastic is coupled with the price of oil, so it fluctuates equally. Right now, recycled plastic is too expensive, so virgin plastic is what's dominating the market. So, as suggested, subsidizing oil doesn't help recycling efforts.

CALIFORNIA WAS THE FIRST STATE TO PASS A LAW THAT BANS SINGLE-USE PLASTIC BAGS…BUT THE PLASTICS INDUSTRY AND BAG MANUFACTURERS HAVE COLLECTED ENOUGH SIGNATURES TO PUT THE BAN TO A REFERENDUM IN NOVEMBER 2016. HOW CAN WE EFFECTIVELY FIGHT THIS? 

Good question. It takes constant pressure over time, and alignment of organizations toward a common goal. That's how we won on microbeads. The bag ban took 10 years to win, and industry hired outside signature gatherers to make it a referendum. You can join Californians Against Waste, Surfrider Foundation, and other NGO's to fight the referendum in CA and get the word out.

HOW MANY TIMES CAN PLASTICS BE RECYCLED AS A TECHNICAL INGREDIENT IN THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY? IS IT POSSIBLE FOR IT TO BE CONTINUALLY RECYCLED?

From what I know, the polymer gets continually degraded over time, so you don't typically see products with 100% PRC (Post-consumer recycled content). So, technically you can't reused the same plastic material perpetually, as you can with Aluminum, which is a single element (Al). Plastic is made of 100 or 1000's of molecular bonds, and they don't last forever.

WHAT IS THE ORGANIZATION'S POSITION IS ON BIOPLASTICS, ESPECIALLY WHEN CONSIDERING THEIR LIFECYCLE IMPACTS? IS THERE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT OR CERTIFY THEM AS "MARINE DEGRADABLE?"

It depends on the polymer. Here's something I wrote recently on bioplastic:

Bioplastic has been around a while. Henry Ford produced the first soybean car in the 1930s, with bioplastic fenders and door panels made from soy-based phenolic resin. He demonstrated its resilience by bashing it with a sledgehammer without a dent. Petroleum plastics were cheaper and better performing and eventually edged bioplastic out.

But today, with the inconsistency of the fossil fuel market, companies like Proctor & Gamble, CocaCola and PepsiCo have explored plant-based plastics as a means to create a more reliable and consistently valued resource. In September 2015 the Brazilian company Braskem began production of polyethylene, the exact same chemical structure as polyethylene made from fossil fuels, but derived entirely from sugar cane fiber, called ‘bagasse’..

Poly-lactic Acid (PLA) is another common plant-based polymer, the one you see advertised as ‘corn cups’ or utensils called ‘spud ware’. Or Poly-hydroxy-alkanoate (PHA), made from the off-gassing of bacteria. Soy, bagasse, PLA or PHA, are all very different and create confusion, sometimes intentionally, over their actual biodegradability. PLA needs a large industrial composting facility that’s hot, wet, and full of compost-eating microbes. If you put a bunch of paper plates, napkins and PLA utensils in your backyard compost for a year, you’ll end up with rich soil and a bunch of forks and knives. On the JUNKraft we filled a nylon mesh laundry bag with 20 different PLA products. The result after the voyage was a laundry bag filled with unscathed products. PHA is the only marine degradable bioplastic, with ASTM standards that describe a 30% loss of material in the ocean in 6 months, but only in warm tropic waters, not higher latitudes or deeper waters.

There’s plenty of confusion and green-washing in advertising the value of bioplastic. While the label “biodegradable” has a relatively strict definition called ASTM standards, and strict guidelines for usage in advertising, the terms bioplastic, plant-based, bio-based do not. Bioplastic is the loosely-defined catch-all phrase that describes plastic from recent biological materials, which includes true biodegradable materials and non-biodegradable polymers that are plant-based. These definitions leave a lot of room for advertisers to manipulate public perception.

When CocaCola unveiled the PET PlantBottle a week before the 2009 Sustainability Summit in Copenhagen (COP15), with green leaves and circular arrows on labels, many NGOs and government agencies, like the Danish Consumer Ombudsman, took CocaCola to court for greenwashing, resulting in label modifications. Despite all of the leafy greenery, it’s the same PET bottle you’ll find floating across the ocean, despite being “plant-based”. The saving grace is the withdrawal from fossil fuels, but otherwise the same bottle.

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH PEOPLE FROM YOUR OWN SOCIAL CIRCLE WHO ARE DEEPLY INGRAINED INTO THE DISPOSABLE CULTURE, BUT ARE UNINTERESTED OR UNWILLING TO CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR?

Keep pushing. Continuous pressure over time. We love the people in our social circle, so we keep sharing our values. I have family that still haven't kicked the plastic habit. I just keep pushing without compromising my values.

BUT, if they are jerks about it and want to criticize your choices, then you have to decide for yourself if you're compatible. It's like any other relationship, i suppose. Breaking up is hard to do.

WE HOPE THESE RESPONSES WERE HELPFUL. IF YOU HAVE ANY MORE QUESTIONS, FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US AT INFO@5GYRES.ORG. IF YOU WANT TO JOIN OUR NEXT WEBINAR, PLEASE SIGN FOR OUR UPDATES ON OUR WEBSITE.

Dutch inventor harnessing waves to clean up the seas

Published in Yahoo News by Sophie Mignon - June 22, 2016

Scheveningen (Netherlands) (AFP) - The Dutch inventor behind a ground-breaking project to remove millions of tonnes of plastics floating in vast ocean "garbage patches" unveiled Wednesday the first prototype of his ambitious sea-cleaning device.

Boyan Slat's innovative idea -- first drawn on a paper napkin when he was still in high school -- seeks to use ocean currents to gather up the masses of bottles, plastic bags, flip-flops and other detritus that sully the planet's waters, eliminating the need for an army of boats to haul them in.

According to the Ocean Cleanup project, eight million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans every year, much of which has accumulated in five giant garbage patches, with the largest in the Pacific between California and Hawaii.

The plastic soup is created when the rubbish gets caught up in five main "gyres" -- or rotating oceanic currents.

But 21-year-old Slat believes he can harness the power of the currents to help the great cleanup.

"Why move through the ocean if the ocean can move through you?" Slat asked at a press conference in the harbour in the port of Scheveningen, on the outskirts of The Hague.

Slat's idea is to use a 100-kilometre (60-mile) long V-shaped barrier made up of large, rubber pillow-shaped buoys which float on the ocean surface, trailing a three-metre (nine-foot) long curtain from its arms into the water.

A smaller 100-metre (feet) prototype unveiled Wednesday will now be taken onto the North Sea Thursday for a year-long series of tests some 23 kilometres (12 nautical miles) off the Dutch coast.

The aim is to stop the plastic as it bobs along, gathering it into one place so it can be gathered up into a container and taken for recycling.

"All those plastic objects, big things like bottles, crates... will be cut down to micro pieces over the next few decades if we don’t do anything about it," he told reporters as he explained his project, The Ocean Cleanup.

"The question is: is this a future we accept will happen or do you want to create a future where the oceans become clean again?"

- 'Crucial to prevent permanent damage' -

The micro pieces released as the plastics break down are dispersed through the seas, entering the food chain with harmful effects for all marine life. Turtles, fish, dolphins and others can also become entangled in the rubbish, or swallow pieces believing it is food which they then cannot digest.

The prototype has been built at a cost of 1.5 million euros ($1.69 million), financed through crowd-funding as well as donations, including from the Dutch government.

Slat hopes is to fully roll out the system in 2020 once the tests have been evaluated and necessary modifications made.

He says his system could capture up to 3,000 cubic metres in its arms -- enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

"With a single one of those systems deployed for 10 years, we should be able to clean up about half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or more if we would deploy more systems," he told reporters.

Dutch Environment Minister Sharon Dijksma said it was "an inspiring example of how we can tackle the growing problem of ocean pollution".

The project was "crucial to prevent permanent damage to the environment and marine life," she added.

The project's most conservative estimate says that in the first 10 years, 70 million kilos (154 million pounds) of plastic would be removed.

The youngest ever winner of the Champion of the Earth award -- the UN's highest environmental honour -- Slat gave up his studies in aeronautical engineering to pursue his project.

Now the Ocean Cleanup has more than 40 staff backed by dozens of volunteers.

Miami-Dade County joins list of South Florida communities enacting eco-friendly Styrofoam ban

Published July 1, 2016 by Kevin Byrne on AccuWeather.com

The Miami-Dade County Commissioners recently passed an ordinance that would ban disposable Styrofoam products from county parks and beaches, joining a host of other South Florida communities striving to reduce one of the most common and harmful forms of litter.

Styrofoam, also known as polystyrene, can have numerous health and environmental impacts. The problems occur when Styrofoam, which is non-biodegradable, breaks into smaller pieces and gets scattered throughout public spaces and neighboring bodies of water.

The petroleum-based plastic is made up of a harmful monomer called styrene, which is used extensively in the manufacture of plastics, rubber and resins, according to the Earth Resource Foundation. Styrene has also been classified as a possible human carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.



Lakeside litter (Photo/DWalker44/iStock/Thinkstock)Pieces of broken up Styrofoam debris litters the ground along Biscayne Bay. (Photo/Dave Doebler)

More than 20 environmental groups wrote a joint letter to the county commissioners outlining the necessities for the ban, which include the potential for more street flooding, the cost of removing the debris and wildlife fatalities.

"Most marine-based foam debris comes from land-based litter that degraded into small pieces, traveled down the storm drain, and ended up in the ocean," the letter reads. "Storm drains clogged by debris also contribute to flooding and can cause infrastructure damage that require costly maintenance and repairs."

Sea birds, fish and sea turtles can often mistake the floating white particles as food. Sea birds have been found dying of starvation with plastic particles in their stomachs.

Additionally, the ordinance cites Miami-Dade County's tourism-dependent economy and how the pollution can create an "unsightly nuisance."

"[Styrofoam] is a huge problem," said Dave Doebler, founder of Volunteercleanup.org, one of the organizations to sign the letter. "In fact, every cleanup we do, we find a tremendous amount of Styrofoam. It's one of the top items that we find floating in the bay, trapped in the mangroves and along the shoreline."

Doebler said his website has coordinated about 400 cleanups in the last year, amounting to over 27,000 volunteer hours and 50 tons of plastic trash debris removed from the South Florida shorelines.

"Styrofoam is absolutely littered everywhere," Doebler said, adding that it's incredibly difficult to clean up.

There are roughly 10 variations of Styrofoam bans in South Florida, with Miami-Dade County's being the most recent, according to Doebler. The most stringent belongs to the city of Miami Beach, which is in the middle of enforcing a city wide ban scheduled to be fully implemented in September.



The ban in Miami-Dade County will go into effect by July 2017. After that, any first-time offender who violates the ordinance will have to pay a $50 fine. Over the next year, officials plan to educate the public through public service announcements, social media and other public media.

As part of outreach efforts, the City of Miami has hosted cooler swaps where, rather than hand out violations, the city offers beachgoers a reusable cooler in exchange for a Styrofoam one.

While Doebler said it's a little early to say if existing restrictions have produced positive results, one of the benefits has been increased awareness throughout the public that plastic marine debris is a significant problem in South Florida.

There have already been some instances where coffee shops and restaurants have switched from Styrofoam to paper cups and are exploring biodegradable and compostable solutions for other materials, according to Doebler.

Styrofoam bans have been steadily increasing across the county and are already in effect in Minneapolis, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. The New York Supreme Courtoverturned New York City's ban in September 2015.

For those interested in volunteering to help fight ocean pollution, Doebler recommended taking part in International Coastal Cleanup day, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 17.

More than 18 million pounds of trash were collected with the help of nearly 800,000 volunteers during the 2015 event.

Have questions, comments, or a story to share? Email Kevin Byrne atKevin.Byrne@accuweather.com, follow him on Twitter at @Accu_Kevin. Follow us@breakingweather, or on Facebook

San Francisco Bans Polystyrene aka Styrofoam, New Ordinance to Take Effect in 2017

Published June 30th, 2016 By CB Condez in Nature World News

See how many pieces of plastic you can find in this small sample of stuff that washed ashore after a storm. This is all over Ocean Beach in San Francisco. For more on plastic in the ocean and what it does to our food chain (and ultimately us humans), just Google or Bing "plastic ocean" or "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "North Pacific Gyre"  (Photo : Flickr/Kevin Krejci)

The city of San Francisco in California will no longer allow food packaging and other products made of polystyrene starting next year. The news came after the SF Board of Supervisors unanimously voted on Tuesday, June 28, to restrict its use in the city.  

According to Time, the ban, which will become effective starting Jan. 1, 2017, includes foam items like coffee cups, coolers, packaging for food, disposable dishware, toys for swimming, and other foam items. Trays used for meat and fish will have an additional six months to be phased out, until July 1, 2017.  

This new ordinance, Mother Jones reports, is part of San Francisco's "zero waste" goal by the year 2020.  The city already forbade to-go food containers made of polystyrene in 2007. And while other cities in the United States also have similar regulations, San Francisco's latest ordinance is considered as the toughest ban on foam products thus far.  

Polystyrene foam, a synthetic aromatic polymer, is non-biodegradable and is deemed as a pollutant. The sponsors of the new bill reportedly reasoned that foam pollutes waterways and are harmful to animals.  

Environmentalists have been trying to make such a point for a long time.  The ocean is accumulating plastic debris, which fish, birds, and other marine animals end up eating.  

"Plastics biodegrade exceptionally slowly, breaking into tiny fragments in a centuries-long process," reads the post by non-profit organization Algalita, which focuses on plastic pollution. "It entangles and slowly kills millions of sea creatures; that hundreds of species mistake plastics for their natural food, ingesting toxicants that cause liver and stomach abnormalities in fish and birds, often choking them to death."  

Polystyrene is commonly called Styrofoam, although the latter is a trademarked brand for a material produced by the Dow Chemical Company. According to Time, Styrofoam products like those used in construction and insulation are not included in the outlawed items.  

More Plastic Than Fish in the Ocean by 2050

Published by Cole Mellino, January 20, 2016 in EcoWatch.com

There will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050, warned the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in a report published Tuesday. The report, The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics, was produced by the foundation and the World Economic Forum with analytical support from McKinsey & Company.

There will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050, according to a new report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Photo credit: Plastic Pollution

Every year “at least 8 million tons of plastics leak into the ocean—which is equivalent to dumping the contents of one garbage truck into the ocean every minute,” the report finds. “If no action is taken, this is expected to increase to two per minute by 2030 and four per minute by 2050.

“In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain one ton of plastic for every three tons of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight).”

Plastic production has increased 20-fold since 1964, reaching 311 million tons in 2014, the report says. It is expected to double again in the next 20 years and almost quadruple by 2050. New plastics will consume 20 percent of all oil production within 35 years, up from an estimated 5 percent today.

Plastic production has increased dramatically in the last 50 years. Photo credit: Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The vast majority of plastics is not effectively recycled, either, according to the report. Only 5 percent is properly recycled, while 40 percent is sent to a landfill and a third ends up in the environment, including in the world’s oceans. Much of the rest is burned, which generates energy, The Guardian noted, but also causes “more fossil fuels to be consumed in order to make new plastic bags, cups, tubs and consumer devices demanded by the economy.”

The report provides a first-ever “vision of a global economy in which plastics never become waste, and outlines concrete steps towards achieving the systemic shift needed,” the Ellen MacArthur Foundation said.

Our current economic model is largely linear. Photo credit: Ellen MacArthur Foundation

This vision is built on applying “circular economy principles” to global plastic packaging flows, which could “transform the plastics economy and drastically reduce negative externalities such as leakage into oceans,” the foundation explained. The report calls for a transition away from “today’s linear ‘take, make, dispose’ economic model” and towards an economy that is “restorative and regenerative by design” and which altogether eliminates the concept of waste (just as there is no concept of waste in natural systems).

The report concludes that the plastics industry is not doing nearly enough to address plastic pollution.

“Plastics are the workhorse material of the modern economy, with unbeaten properties,” Dr. Martin Stuchtey of the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, who helped produce the report, said. “However they are also the ultimate single-use material. Growing volumes of end-of-use plastics are generating costs and destroying value to the industry. After-use plastics could, with circular economy thinking, be turned into valuable feedstock.”

The report calls for a transition to a circular economy. Photo credit: Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The report calls for smarter packaging, such as phasing out hard-to-recycle plastics like polyvinyl chloride and expandable polystyrene, redesigning plastic items so they can be reused better, rethinking their production methods to make recycling easier and developing compostable packing on a larger scale.

More Plastic, Fewer Oysters?

Posted by Carl Safina of The Safina Center on February 23, 2016
published on NationalGeographic.com , Co-authored by Erica Cirino

2016 started off with a dire prediction for the world’s oceans: By 2050, the seas will contain more plastic—by weight—than fish. There’s an estimated 8 -12 million metric tons of plastic making its way into the oceans each year. And as the plastic mess in the oceans grows, so do concerns over the health of the marine creatures living in it.

While it’s known that plastic bags and bottles pose a risk to sea creatures, a lesser-known threat is now coming to light, one that’s created when ocean waves and wind pulverize the plastic bags, bottles and other trash that ends up in the seas: “microplastics.”

These tiny plastic pieces are about the same size and shape as the algae eaten by some marine animals. How microplastics affect marine animals is not well understood.

Microplastic poses a growing concern in oceans and other aquatic habitats. (Image by 5Gyres, courtesy of Oregon State University)

But in recent years scientists have found that crustaceans that consume microplastics have a hard time reproducing. Going off a hunch that microplastics may affect the fertility of other filter feeders, researchers at the French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea started feeding oysters microplastics.

The researchers observed two groups of oysters: one fed a normal diet of algae and another fed a mix of algae and microplastics. The oysters fed the mixed diet swiftly sucked up the microplastics as easily as they did algae. After two months the researchers have found microplastics take a toll on both oyster digestion and reproduction.

Oysters that consume microplastics eat more algae and absorb it more efficiently, says Arnaud Huvet, marine physiologist at the French research center and lead author of the study. This is because oysters expend extra energy to pass plastic through their digestive systems, increasing the rate at which they digest algae.

While the digestion of microplastics diverts some energy away from reproduction, oysters’ ability to reproduce is almost halved: Female oysters produce fewer and smaller eggs while male oysters produce slower-swimming sperm. Offspring produce more slowly. The cause? Blame the chemicals that make up microplastics.

During digestion microplastics appear to leach hormone-disrupting chemicals into oysters’ bodies, says Huvet. These chemicals, also called “endocrine disruptors,” are known to lead to diminished fertility and an increased cancer rate in laboratory animals, wildlife and humans. They’re found in all kinds of everyday products, including cosmetics, pesticides and plastics.

Can the microplastics accumulating in oysters’ bodies harm the animals or humans that eat them? Right now, Huvet says, that’s unclear. But he points out his study adds to a slowly growing body of evidence highlighting the health impacts of plastic pollution in the oceans.

Safina Center Sustainable Seafood Program Director Elizabeth Brown-Hornstein agrees: “This study provides further evidence that plastic litter has far-reaching effects on the oceans and that there is an urgent need to take meaningful action to tackle this issue.”

Learn more about plastic and other marine pollution, and what you can do to help, here.

To rethink the future of plastics, start with packaging

Published February 23, 2016 in Greenbiz by Conrad MacKerron

More plastic than fish in the ocean (by weight) by 2050. 95 percent of plastic packaging’s potential value lost after its first use. Only 14 percent of plastic packaging collected for recycling. Global waste disposal systems so challenged that nearly a third of plastic waste doesn’t even make it to the landfill, and instead is littered on land or swept into the ocean.
 
These are some sobering findings of "The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics," a report released last month by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in partnership with the World Economic Forum intended to move the circular economy a step closer from theory to practice.
The enormous waste of embedded value in plastic packaging has been going on for generations with scant attention often paid as landfills overflowed with discarded single use bottles, bags, plates and wrappers. 

The emerging awareness of the scope of ocean plastic debris and the potential for plastics to concentrate and transfer toxic chemicals into the marine food web and human diets finally may provoke enough concern from companies and policy makers to make ubiquitous plastic packaging a pilot program for the circular economy where it never becomes waste, but serves as nutrients for new products.

Brands need to step up and pay their fair share to cover the added costs of processing their materials.

The report charts a path for transition to a circular path by first focusing on fostering a robust after-use economy through improving the economics and yield of recycling, reuse and composting. Reducing the dumping of waste onto land and oceans and decoupling plastics from fossil fuels are also important factors, but the report emphasizes that drastically improving the quality and economics of recycling, reuse and composting, is the cornerstone and first priority for a new plastics economy.

A five-point plan is proposed: engaging value chain players; forming a global plastics protocol to agree on design guidelines for optimal material use and processing systems; focusing technological innovation on projects with the most potential to improve materials sorting and processing at scale; promoting stronger secondary markets for collected materials; and exploring "the enabling role of policy" such as material, landfill or incineration bans and producer responsibility laws.

This effort by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and its allies has a number of encouraging elements going for it, but the path is also fraught with challenges. Much of this has been proposed before in various forms. 

On the hopeful side, Europe seems primed to move. In December, the European Commission approved a circular economy package including $6.08 billion for improved waste management.

Greenhouse gas emissions by the plastics sector are expected to grow to 15 percent of the global annual carbon budget by 2050 so recycling can play a key role helping governments and global brands with GHG reduction. Increased recycling can reduce GHG emissions. Incineration and energy recovery, often promoted as alternatives to recycling, release the carbon embedded in plastics. 

The new data showing far more plastic waste is eluding collection and being swept into oceans than previously believed is elevating public concern about it from nuisance to potential global threat. About 8 million metric tons of plastic are estimated end up in the ocean each year, much of it packaging. Without significant intervention, that will result in a ton of plastic for every three tons of fish by 2025, and more plastic than fish by weight by 2050. 

A few big consumer brands and value chain players are beginning to show interest. Ikea, Kimberly Clark, Marks & Spencer and Unilever were involved in the New Plastic Economy report, as were other critical parts of the packaging life cycle, such as Dow and Dupont, who make polymer packaging resins; packaging producer Amcor; and Suez and Veolia, which provide waste collection and recycling services.

It’s an appealing vision of potential new business opportunities for companies that could unlock job growth through advanced repair and manufacturing, and enhanced waste management and secondary materials production.

However, there are just as many challenges. The apparent energy seems centered mostly around European governments and retailers so far. In the U.S. there’s no evidence of strong promotion of a circular agenda by the EPA or federal policy makers equivalent to the EU’s action. U.S. retailers outside of the beverage sector remain largely silent on responsibility for the ocean debris mess, packaging waste and low recycling rates. 

The report’s proposed answer is ambitious — a global plastics protocol, where business and governments align around the best materials and practices. But is it realistic? It’s hard enough to get cities in the same county to collect and process the same materials, let along most countries.
But beneath polite phrases such as "alignment" lie hard choices such as banning certain plastic materials, which the plastics industry has opposed. 

While some municipalities and nations have banned various plastics, reaching global agreement on preferred materials is likely too much to expect. Many developing nations are preoccupied with providing basics such as food and shelter and lack post-consumer collection and recycling systems, or the resources to carry out existing laws.

Beneath polite phrases such as 'alignment' lie hard choices such as banning certain plastic materials, which the plastics industry has opposed.

A better approach might be one track for developed nations willing to move now and finance workable regional circular economy models; and a separate urgent effort aimed at using multilateral aid and producer fees to help developing nations build basic waste collection systems to stem the ocean plastics tide.  

This is where the big global brands need to step up on both accounts. Unilever, Procter & Gamble and others are using increasing amounts of non-recyclable plastic packaging in developing markets, much of which ends up in waterways. They need to acknowledge the impacts of their products as negative environmental externalities and factor those costs into future operations. Then need to start paying fees or providing significant aid, likely billions of dollars, aid to help developing countries where they sell products build recycling and waste collection systems.

Even developed nations are struggling with the economics of packaging recycling. These recommendations come at an especially challenging time for the U.S. recycling industry, where plummeting commodity prices for packaging materials such as plastic, glass and metals have slashed and often erased recyclers’ profits.

Yet there’s a silver lining — this crisis could force a much needed reality check for brands that commodity prices will continue to be volatile and that recyclers cannot build a business model based primarily on the value of recovered materials. Brands need to step up and pay their fair share to cover the added costs of processing their materials.

U.S. citizens historically have sent a strong message that recycling is a social good they want pursued and they are paying the cost for recycling not covered by commodities, not the big producer brands. In recent years, big U.S. consumer brands have avoided acknowledging responsibility, or taken only baby steps. The Closed Loop Fund makes more capital available for fixing infrastructure and market development, but avoids the key question of what ongoing financial commitment brands should be responsible for to relieve the costs of recycling and landfilling for taxpayers who have shouldered it for generations. 

There is room for optimism that the prospect of wise conservation of resources, job growth and reduction of GHG emissions afforded by the new plastics economy vision will attract a critical mass of global brands to support efforts to optimize the value of the materials they place on the market. This effort is badly needed to develop 21st-century caliber systems that will move plastic packaging from a one-way trip to the landfill to many useful round-trips protecting consumer goods.