Plastic pollution is the most publicized environmental crisis of our time. While the consumers are faulted for this problem, there are underlying factors such as large-scale industrialization and rampant application of greenwashing on the part of large corporations. Adding large-scale production of plastic to false reporting about sustainability has resulted in a systemic as well as global crisis.
The Facts
At the center of the issue is the industrial overproduction of plastic on a mass scale.
Companies like Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola utilize single-use plastic packaging to minimize costs and deliver products to overseas markets. Break Free from Plastic brand audits in the period 2018-2022 have discovered that over 2.1 million pieces of plastic litter were collected and traced back to some multinational corporations. Coca-Cola alone donated over 31,000 pieces in 2022 — a 63% increase over the previous year. Those statistics clearly indicate that the problem is not careless consumers, but an industrial culture built around disposability.
The documentary The Story of Plastic also shows to what degree the fossil fuel industry is propelling this crisis. As the demand for oil as a fuel is declining, companies are turning to plastics production as the next source of money. Entire petrochemical complexes are being built to supply increasing plastic demand, especially in underdeveloped nations because regulations are less stringent. Mass industrialization at its best: a system that prioritizes growth and profit over people and the planet.
Greenwashing
As production rises, companies hide behind greenwashing, using it secretly as a benefit. The practice of misleading the public about their green efforts. Coca-Cola, for example, has been the planet’s top plastic polluter annually, yet it was a sponsor at the COP27 climate summit. This is not an isolated incident. Most business behemoths publicly pledge to use less plastic with initiatives like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Commitment, but they’re shortchanging themselves. Instead of reducing plastic use, they promote recycling, even though less than 10% of plastics are recycled. These measures shift blame to consumers and avoid real accountability.
We can stop this!!!
This disconnect between rhetoric and reality is also apparent on the ground. Volunteers in Thicker Than Water report beach cleans in which microplastics come back time and again. However much they scrub, the plastic keeps arriving. This is because production hasn’t stopped. These little fragments of plastic, untraceable and beyond cleanup, serve to remind us that cleanup can never tackle a problem created on an industrial scale.
To resolve the crisis of plastic, we must do more than just apply cosmetics to the issue. Real change requires us to identify corporate plastic pathways, limiting manufacture, to reimagine systems of packaging, and to regulate the industry using tough, actionable laws. Cosmetic tweaks and recycling campaigns will not work. The world requires international treaties like the Global Plastic Treaty, which commit the world and obligate companies to reverse decades of unchecked industrialization.
Closing
In short, the plastic crisis is not just a matter of pollution, the big issue is mass production mechanisms and corporate greenwashing. It is only by addressing the root causes that we can begin to build a cleaner, fairer world.