Rabat – A new report by US-based NGO Beyond Plastics claims that plastics production will soon have a worse climate impact than the use of coal. The climate change debate has long revolved around the emissions from energy production, in particular related to the extraction and use of coal, gas and oil, ignoring the role of the plastics industry.
Citizens in Morocco are of course well aware of the impact of lingering plastic waste, visible in many streets, beaches, landfills and ditches across the country. Discarded plastics commonly end up in our oceans, with 8 million tons of waste ending up in our seas every year.
Plastic production has seen little attention from climate activists and has experienced exponential growth, from 2.3 million tonnes in 1950, to 448 million tons in 2015.Half of all plastics in existence has been produced in the last 15 years, showing the continuous growth in plastics use. It is estimated that much of this plastic will take 400 years to break down.
Yet despite the known impact of plastic waste, Beyond Plastics’s new report is urging for a deeper look into the climate impact of plastics production itself. The NGO highlights that the US plastics industry alone is “responsible for at least 232 million tons of CO2 gas emissions per year.”
The continued growth in plastics production means that the US industry is “on track” to contribute to climate change more than domestic coal-fired power plants.
With reports that 42 new plastics factories have opened or been planned to open since 2019, the alarming reality is that plastics production has continued to expand in blatant disregard for the multiple warnings about the product’s devastating impact on the environment.
The new report labels plastics as “the new coal” as it tries to bring attention to the fact that less than 9% of plastics are recycled, while much of the remainder is turned into a highly polluting burnable fuel that emits “15 million tons of greenhouse gases each year.”
