Ruminations

Trashing the Environment

"In an effort to clean up its own backyard, China stopped importing plastic waste in 2017. There's still a long way to go before the flow of plastic into the ocean is stopped, however."
"Bans on drinking straws or grocery bags in Canada won't stop it; economic development and improved waste-management systems in low-income countries will."
"The best way for us to make sure our waste doesn't end up in the ocean is to send it to the landfill rather than trying to sell it on the international recycling market."
"Meanwhile, for those who have lamented our use of plastic packaging over the years, it's understandable, especially since the marketers sometimes make excessive use of the stuff."
"But the coronavirus shows that public hygiene was, and remains, an important priority, and we downplay it at our peril."
Ross McKitrick, professor of economics, University of Guelph, senior fellow, Fraser Institute

A man collects plastic waste at a garbage dump in Bali (Getty Images)

On the other hand, burying plastic waste in landfills doesn't solve the problem of ridding it once it has served its purpose. Plastic is derived from petroleum products. As such, gathering waste plastics to destroy it by burning it through a process that would produce energy, just as gas and oil do, would most certainly produce a desired effect; ridding the world of the waste, and transforming it to usable energy. A process that may even now be in the developing stages, and if not, research into a method whereby this can be achieved, should proceed.

Banning the use of plastics for packaging certainly isn't the answer, since for strictly hygienic reasons, plastic services us well. There was a time in the not-too-distant past when not only at outdoor markets once popular in inner-cities, but also in supermarkets to a degree, all manner of food products were simply piled up for people to riffle through and select what they wanted. Meat and meat products were set out on open shelving, uncovered until shoppers selected portions to take home.

A man sits among massive piles of plastic and other waste on a beach in Munbai, India. (Photo by Akira Kodaka)

For the most part, fruits and vegetables continue to be sold in bulk, unpackaged, to be selected by the purchaser, running their hands along items to ascertain freshness. In a time of care being taken to avoid contamination and cross-contamination where the very real fear of contracting a deadly virus like COVID-19 haunts us all, it has become verboten to handle food that others will eventually acquire for themselves. Public hygiene is now uppermost in everyone's mind, hoping to avoid a nasty infectious pathogen.

Wrapping perishable foods in plastic serves a double purpose; keeping it clean, avoidance of being handled by other than the purchaser, and maintaining a degree of freshness. At the same time, it is also true that packaging can be overdone, and this is another matter to be separately discussed, bringing in packagers to agree to reduce packaging as required. Even wrapping commodities other than food can be useful, done to a minimum degree, to avoid picking up germs.

Society is concerned over environmentalists' messages of garbage-filled oceans, and of bits of plastic being found in the most inaccessible and remote places on Earth. We're right to be concerned. But the issue requires a closer examination. It is not from the developed world and the West that waste plastic has been littering the environment, since for the most part, there recycling of waste plastic has become an absolute requirement.

Plastic and other waste clog a river in Cambodia. (Photo by Akira Kodaka)

In reality, single-use plastics, singled out as the source of environmental degradation and contamination is not the real culprit. Merely a minuscule fraction (about three percent) of the world's plastic production ends up annually as ocean waste, very little of that tiny amount emanating from high-income countries with their effective waste-management systems. Over 50 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is comprised of abandoned fishing nets and fishing gear.

And the simple fact of the matter is, that most plastic waste that enters the ocean from land -- fully 86 percent of it -- arrives through rivers in Asia, about ten percent of it imported plastic waste that was once gathered by China from recyclers in Europe and North America, to be processed for re-use. The type that proved not to be reusable, was discarded. Which answers to Dr.McKitrick's contention that it would be better off buried in stable landfills away from lakes and rivers.