Thesis:
The threat of bans and regulatory EPR expenses passed to Petrochemical Companies can be bargained to improve ocean plastic outcomes if the Industry is allowed to "offset" plastic sales (e.g. plastic bags, straws, scrap exports) by paying very low wage countries to pick up plastic litter before seasonal rain washes gutters and canals into the sea.
photo of city of Douala urban canal by Dr. Asi Quiggle, U of Cameroun Yaounde
Every day I see new proposals to ban plastic bags, ban plastic straws, tax plastic packaging... efforts for which this blog re-coined the phrase "grasping at straws" a few years ago.
Here's a few recent articles about the heated discussion of "single use" plastic packaging. Most of it is bereft of science (food spoilage and transportation carbon reduced by film plastic for example), or mis-uses the science (9% of plastics ever made was recycled - but numerator includes durables like underground plastic pipe) to rile up legislators to buy us moral licensing with multi-billion dollar policy schemes intended to interfere with the free market, too often the "first solution" to problems which are associated with poverty, not corporate greed.
(African Offset Paper here, Academia.edu)
- What to Know About N.Y.’s Plastic Bag Ban, NYT 2020
- Future of recycling policy in California could be decided soon - Resource Recycling 2022
- Plastic Recycling Is Working, So Ignore the Cynics - Adam Minter / Bloomberg
- The Atlas of Plastic Waste - Basel Action Network and Matthew Gordon (Yale University) and Anna Papp (Columbia University)
- US Government Bans Single Use Plastic at National Parks - Guardian
The last article explicitly links the ban on single use plastic at places like Wyoming's Yellowstone Park and Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada Mountains as a solution to the "ocean plastic" problem (World Ocean's Day). That seems like a geography puzzle that even Memorial University (@Rubbishmaker) could not solve.
First, the good news about the growing problem of ocean bound single use plastic packaging.
- There's a real solution to ocean plastic pollution.
- It's easy and affordable.
- Implementing it is a direct benefit to the poorest people in emerging markets.
- It's easily accounted for.
I'm speaking of course about the so called "Fair Trade Recycling Offset" program, which I first proposed in 2014. We want to update you in the coming weeks on the enormous and impressive dividends of the $1500 pilot in Cameroon*.
Look at this tweet from @PierrePlastic of Douala, Cameroun.
And see the offset pilot in Action (photo by Dr. Asi Quiggle, U of Cameroon)
