I have been reading an interview with Jim Fitterling, CEO of Dow, in Forbes Magazine.
He says that plastic is “easy to use. It’s a material you can do a lot with from a product standpoint. There’s a lot of convenience to it. There’s a lot economically to it. Plastics continue to grow well above GDP levels and have for decades.”
He is right about this. The plastics market is growing because it is the best material in every respect for a wide range of applications.
He continued “Plastics have allowed the packaging industry to make strong, small, lightweight packages. That’s a waste reduction.” …. “If you’re shipping plastic packages versus glass or metal or some other alternative, you really have tremendous greenhouse gas” emissions reductions …. “It makes plastic the lowest CO2 footprint per pound of product that’s out there. That’s important.”
Yes. It is. Most other materials are heavier and take up much more space in transportation.
He also wants to expand alternatives to traditional oil and gas feedstock to create plastics. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with that, even though the oil and gas are extracted principally as fuels, and plastics are made from a by-product which used to be wasted. Until we no longer need fossil fuels it makes sense to use the by-product to make plastics.
The problem with alternative bio-based materials has always been that they compete with food-production for land and water resources, and they are not necessarily biodegradable. However, Dow signed a deal last year to convert the leftover parts of corn plants after harvest into second-generation ethanol and clean lignin, and nearly half of the ethanol will be converted into bio-based ethylene feedstock for Dow plastic products.
This is good, and they should also consider making plastic from marine algae, as a French company called Eranova are already doing.
Emissions from plastics manufacturing are low as compared with other materials, but Fitterling wants to reduce them even further, which is also good.
He said that Dow is building the first net-zero hydrogen-powered plastic facility in the world, which is set to begin operations in 2027, “So we’ll be able to make virgin plastics with zero CO2 emissions. That’s huge. If you can do that and you can recycle a material at end of life, there’s no other packaging material that can come close to that kind of environmental footprint and that kind of life-cycle analysis. It will reduce a million tons a year of CO2 emissions,”
However, Fitterling acknowledges that although there’s a growing demand for plastic there is also global outrage over plastic waste. But what does he plan to do about that?
He thinks that Governments must mandate recycling and provide more access to waste management. Yes, but even in the developed world there will for the foreseeable future be significant quantities of plastic escaping into the open environment, and the only way to prevent it accumulating there for decades is to make it biodegradable by using a d2w masterbatch. Dow should be recommending that its PE and PP resins be used with d2w for all short-life applications. See www.d2w.net
Jim Fitterling concludes his interview by saying “Innovation is critical. In the UN treaty you don’t want to say no to anything.” I agree.
UN TREATY
A polymer scientist called Chris de Armitt was interviewed at the UN Conference in Ottawa. He explained how the NGOs are making demands scientifically certain to increase waste, GHG, fossil fuel use, litter and overall impact. The NGO’s complain about lobbying by the plastics industry but it seems to me that lobbying by NGOs could be very damaging. I agree with de Armitt when he says “Let’s make policies that actually help the environment, based on science!” For the interview see:
Plastic – Fact over Fiction
AMAZON
I have been reading that one of the NGO’s called Oceana have been trying to push the Amazon retail giant away from plastic packaging. This campaign will do more harm than good because paper and cardboard packaging have a greater impact on the environment. See Paper Bags
Amazon should retain its plastic packaging, but it should be made with a d2w masterbatch so that if it gets into the oceans it won’t accumulate there for decades. Why Biodegradable? However, the NGO’s have pushed Amazon away from that too. Amazon should stop listening to bad advice from campaigners.
COMPOSTING
I see that an organisation in the US called The Composting Consortium has released a new study analyzing the disintegration of over 23,000 units of compostable packaging in what it says is the largest known field test of certified, food-contact compostable packaging conducted in North America.
I agree that food waste from homes and restaurants should be sent for processing, but you don’t need to buy a plastic bag advertised as “compostable” to do this.
I agree with the UK Environment Minister who said on 2nd December 2022 that plastic marketed as compostable “must be treated in industrial composting facilities to be broken down and, when processed incorrectly, can be a source of microplastics and contaminate recycling streams.” Also, “This packaging does not contribute to a circular economy in the same way as packaging that can be reused or recycled into new packaging or products do, as compostable plastic packaging is generally intended to be used only once.”
In my view the best option is to incinerate the plastic bags, provided the incineration is done in a modern incinerator such as the one in Zurich. This way the calorific value of the plastic can be recovered and used to generate electricity, instead of allowing it to be wasted, and to increase GHG emissions, by conversion into CO2 in a compost facility.
Michael Stephen
Michael Stephen is a lawyer and was a member of the United Kingdom Parliament, where he served on the Environment Select Committee. When he left Parliament Symphony Environmental Technologies Plc. attracted his attention because of his interest in the environment. He is now Deputy Chairman of Symphony, which is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, and is the founder and Chairman of the Biodegradable Plastics Association.
Earlier Postings in this Column
All articles from Michael Stephen
Interview with Michael Stephen
Questions and Answers on OXO-Biodegradability
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed here by Michael Stephen and other columnists are their own, not those of Bioplasticsnews.com