How to rid the world of plastic waste

The production of plastic has doubled in the past 20 years worldwide.

"The research field is coming to a point where we can start to say yes, there are risks in the environment and probably for human health," Bethanie Carney Amroth says.

Plastic waste in the environment has grown, too.

Can a new global treaty help?

Today, On Point: How to rid the world of plastic waste.

John Hocevar, oceans Campaign Director for Greenpeace U.S.

Dr. Charlotte Lloyd, environmental Chemist at the University of Bristol.

David Clement, North American Affairs Manager for the Consumer Choice Center.

Dr. Bethanie Carney Almroth, professor of ecotoxicology and environmental sciences at the University of Gothenburg.

Dr. Ted Schettler, science advisor for Health Care Without Harm and Science Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network.

Part I

WION NEWS BRIEF: Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is situated on the banks of the river Buriganga. The immense beauty of this river can only be seen through the eyes of a bird. Because as soon as you put your feet on the ground, thick layers of polythene and plastic waste emerge from the dirt.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: That report of entire neighborhoods in Bangladesh where the ground is made of plastic is from WION News. And it's not just in Bangladesh. Plastic waste is everywhere on planet Earth, because the amount of plastic humans have produced now outweighs all of the world's animals by a factor of two. As WION reports from the other side of the world.

WION NEWS BRIEF: The once pristine beaches of Rio de Janeiro have been engulfed in a tsunami of plastic waste, everything from plastic bags and bottles to children's toys and dead fish.

CHAKRABARTI: Of course, fish are not the only victims. Plastics, through their manufacturing use and breakdown, are linked to cancers, lung disease and birth defects.

A study published this year in the journal Annals of Global Health concluded, quote, "The main driver of these worsening harms is an almost exponential and still accelerating increase in global plastic production." Plastics harms are further magnified by low rates of recovery and recycling and by the long persistence of plastic waste in the environment," end quote.

Perhaps nothing illustrates that persistence better than this report from Africa News. It's about the ever-growing 30-acre open air Dandora dump in Nairobi, Kenya.

AFRICA NEWS REPORT: Smoke billows from the mountain of waste at the Dandora dump in Nairobi. People scavenge for recyclable materials. (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) We usually look for plastic bottles, carton boxes, gunny bags, bones and food. Yet we do this without protective gear or gum boots so we sometimes get cuts from glass. We’re really suffering. A UN report has condemned the site as a public health threat that can cause skin cancers and blood disorders.

CHAKRABARTI: That's a public health threat from a smoking mountain of largely plastic waste.

Just a few miles away from that dump, world leaders will gather this month to attempt to come to an agreement on how to reduce global plastic waste. So today we'll go inside the debate over a new UN treaty to control plastic pollution. What might it look like? Is that even a realistic goal at this point, given how much human beings rely on plastics products?

John Hocevar joins us today. He's the Ocean's Campaigns Director for Greenpeace, and he will be heading to Kenya to take place, or to take part in these talks. John, welcome to On Point.

JOHN HOCEVAR: Hi, Meghna.

CHAKRABARTI: So you're the Oceans Campaign Director for Greenpeace. I imagine that has taken you to places on land and at sea around the world, yes?

HOCEVAR: It has indeed. I do spend a fair bit of time on ships and airplanes.

CHAKRABARTI: Has there been a place at sea, for example, where you didn't at some point in time in that journey encounter a piece of plastic waste?

HOCEVAR: Unfortunately, there is nowhere left to go where we won't find plastic on our planet. I was in Antarctica a couple of years ago and we saw plastic in the snow. It didn't come from anyone that was visiting in Antarctica. It is just a problem that we have put so much plastic into our world. It is circulating in the ocean currents, in the air currents, and it is settling literally everywhere.

CHAKRABARTI: So this was a piece of plastic that may have come from, I don't know, where I am, Boston, Massachusetts, and floated through ocean currents all the way down to Antarctica?

HOCEVAR: That is a possibility. Absolutely.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, wow. I wish I could go there and find one of those pieces of plastic and do a story about where did it come from.

But what you're saying is that there's no place left on Earth. We've even seen, I'm sure folks have seen, pictures from Mount Everest at various base camps, even though I think the custom is to try to keep it as clean as possible. There's just plastic everywhere, even at the highest altitudes of planet Earth.

HOCEVAR: That's right. I think, a lot of people first started to understand that we had a plastic problem when they were seeing pictures of sea turtles with straws in their noses, or whales choked to death on plastic bags, or maybe seabirds feeding lighters and bottle caps to their chicks, but it's much bigger than an ocean problem.

It is truly everywhere, and it is a human problem. It's a climate problem. It's an environmental justice problem.

CHAKRABARTI: A little bit later, we'll talk about the effects of the plastics we don't see. Right? All those microplastics and the chemicals within the plastic products themselves. But John, so obviously the urgency of the problem is real and recognized. So tell me what is the UN and this gathering trying to accomplish?

HOCEVAR: The United Nations, meaning all of the governments in the world, have agreed to negotiate a global plastic treaty for the first time, and that is in itself really powerful. There's a lot that can come from that. And they have decided that this is urgent enough that they've committed to completing this treaty by the end of next year.

And whether that's going to be possible or not, I'm not ready to bet on that, but still, they are setting themselves an ambitious timeline. And that's important, because as you said, we have some real urgency here.

CHAKRABARTI: The timeline, if I understand correctly, is to create a workable treaty by next year, 2024.

HOCEVAR: Yes, that's right.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, that does seem quite ambitious. Especially given the fact, as I mentioned earlier, it's not just that plastic pollution is growing and bad and environmental and health threat, but there's also the flip side to that. And that is, we rely on plastics for many products tools from the industrial scale, down to the consumer scale.

So this is asking for quite a change in a very basic reality about modern life. Would the treaty aim to reduce the amount of plastic waste or reduce the amount of plastic production or both?

HOCEVAR: That is the million-dollar question, or I should say the trillion-dollar question. It is to be determined.

The goal is to deal with plastic pollution. And what that means is so far very different to different governments. Greenpeace's hope and expectation is that the treaty addresses plastic production, that we cap production, and that we set ambitious reduction targets every year, so we end up reducing plastic production by at least 75% by 2030 or 2040.

CHAKRABARTI: We reached out to several groups that represent plastics manufacturers in this country, and we heard back specifically from the American Chemistry Council, which represents obviously many of the plastics makers, they sent us a lengthy statement. I'll read from parts of it throughout the show, but first and foremost, they said, "Society and modern life rely on plastic, as does our progress towards achieving the UN's sustainable development goals."

First of all, respond to that, John.

HOCEVAR: I'm not surprised to hear them say that. The largest plastic producer in the world is ExxonMobil. And so we're really talking, we're talking about petrochemical companies. We're talking about Exxon and Dow and some of the biggest oil and gas companies on the planet.

And they've never particularly worried about climate change, as we all know. And so here they are saying, look we can't get rid of plastic. We need it because it's important for the climate. And conveniently, they are not mentioning that 99% of the plastic that we use is made from fossil fuels, especially oil and gas, and some places, even coal.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, sometimes I tell my kids when they're drinking out of a water bottle, that bottle is made out of dead dinosaurs and ancient plants. But just to note, we did reach out to Exxon, Dow, and other major manufacturers as well. They did not respond to our requests for interviews, but we have this statement from the American Chemistry Council.

Let me just tell you a little bit more about what they said, John, regarding those sustainable development goals. They point out things like plastic make up critical components in solar panels and wind turbines. They make cars and vehicles lighter so that there can be more fuel efficiency from a gallon of gas.

They even help, they're the pipes through which clean water flow. It's important to quickly manufacture such pipes to get that kind of infrastructure to places that have been suffering under infrastructure neglect, sanitation, all of these things. You don't dispute that plastic is quite essential to development, to improving life in critical ways.

HOCEVAR: What I will say is that it's everywhere. You're absolutely right about that. When the petrochemical lobby points to these examples, it's really a distraction. The real conversation in these treaty negotiations is not so much about plastic in wind turbines or health care.

It's in the trillions of throwaway plastic packaging items that we go through every year, for example. In fishing gear that's casually discarded and continues to pollute our oceans and entangle whales and other marine life for decades and even centuries. What we're really wanting to focus on here is the stuff that's absolutely unnecessary.

And that is the bulk of the plastic that we're using.

CHAKRABARTI: By the way, for all the listeners who are about to jump on their computers and send me an email about how can I possibly let my children drink out of plastic bottles given the amount of plastic waste in the world, they almost never have their drinks out of plastic bottles.

I just want to say, we've got reusable stainless-steel bottles. Please don't send me that email today.

CHAKRABARTI: John, one last question before we have to take our first break here. What are your UN goals? What are Greenpeace U.S.'s goals for what they'd like to see come out of these treaty negotiations? Because I think yours is quite ambitious regarding how much plastic reduction in plastic production you'd like to see.

HOCEVAR: This round of negotiations is an important one. Because at this point, all of the good things are still on the table. And we want to make sure that they stay there.

So that means that we have to make sure that this treaty is going to be talking about reduction of plastic production. It needs to be talking about phasing out and eliminating dangerous chemicals and particular uses and types of plastic.

CHAKRABARTI: To be more specific, if I understand correctly, you want to see, you, meaning Greenpeace, wants to see a 75% reduction in plastic production by 2040 around the world. We'll have a lot more about that when we come back.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Today we're talking about a UN meeting coming up this month in Kenya, where nations will begin the process of hashing out a treaty to reduce plastics around the world. I'm joined today by John Hocevar, he's Ocean's Campaign director for Greenpeace U.S.

And a couple of days ago we asked you listeners what you think about all the plastic in this world, if you've reduced your use of plastic, and oh boy, did we get a lot of messages. Here's just a taste of some of them.

LORIN: On September 1st, 2022, I took a look around at all of the bags that I had. Lots of bags. All different sizes. And lots of wine bags. And I decided on that day that I would not take another bag from any business. And I haven’t taken a bag since.

KIM: My husband and I took on a mission of using less plastic, so our shampoo is now bar soap. We buy our bar soap, not wrapped in shrink wrap. We’re using powdered dishwasher soap, powdered laundry soap. So we've been able to reduce our plastics greatly.

KATE: I try very hard to keep all petroleum products out of my house, that includes polyester that includes those little plastic dental floss holders, that includes plastic bags. I go to great lengths to recycle what plastic does come home. I'm able to recycle Numbers 2,4, 5, 6 and Styrofoam but no one will take the Number 1's. The berry boxes, the salad green containers. The plastic cups. It’s mindboggling the amount of plastic in our landfills. Manufacturers have to be made responsible for their products, from their birth to the end of their usefulness.

So that was just a few of the listeners we heard from. That was Lorin in Thousand Oaks, California, Kim in Natick, Massachusetts, and Kate in North Bend, Oregon. Okay, so we talked a little bit about the amount of plastics out there in the world. There's also the question of what's in them. Dr. Bethanie Carney Almroth is an ecotoxicologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and she's advising national delegations at these early treaty negotiations.

She told us that plastics today include more than 16,000 compounds. Those are chemical additives. So it's hard for science to keep up and determine what's safe and what isn't. Dr. Almroth told us she wants to see a treaty that bans chemicals and polymers that are known to be harmful for humans. And she wants to reduce the number of compounds.

BETHANIE CARNEY ALMROTH: To keep track of in the first place, one thing that I would really like to see is chemical simplification, where we don't have this same kind of proliferation of chemical diversity that we see now, but really pare it down to which ones we need in the products that are deemed essential and then just allow those, which would make it so much easier to regulate and understand and mitigate harm.

CHAKRABARTI: That was Dr. Bethanie Carney Almroth at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. John Hocevar, hang on here for just a second, because I want to bring in Charlotte Lloyd into the conversation. She's an environmental chemist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Charlotte Lloyd, welcome to you.

CHARLOTTE LLOYD: Thanks very much.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so tell us a little bit more about the question of not just the plastics, but what's in them. 16, 000 compounds. That seems like a mind-boggling amount. Why are they needed?

LLOYD: So there are various reasons why these chemicals are added to plastic and there's a different recipe for every plastic that's being made.

So that's why that complicates the issue even further. So these chemicals include things like what we call plasticizers. And these are added to make plastic more or less rigid. Depending on what it is you're trying to make, there are also things such as UV stabilizers. So these are sun cream for plastics, if you like, so they are compounds that will stop the plastic from fragmenting too quickly.

Antioxidants, again, to stop the, ironically stop the breakdown of plastic into microplastics too quickly during its use. There's dyes, fillers, there's a huge number of different compounds that go into these plastics.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so the visual waste is impossible to ignore, and that's one of the things that's galvanized many people.

But the health effects come from what we can't see in the plastics, is that correct?

LLOYD: Very possibly. That was my concern. So my work has focused not on the microplastics, but on the, what I was calling the invisible plastic pollution, because that's what really worried me. There are some elements of the microplastics, the polymers themselves, that could be dangerous and toxic.

But there is a huge amount of potential for acute toxicity in the chemicals that are in the plastics.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so you said that's your concern, but my understanding was there have been many studies that do show some relationship between the chemical additive or the chemicals in plastics and negative human health effects.

LLOYD: Absolutely. Yeah. There's a growing body of evidence that is the case. And I think the evidence there is stronger if you compare it with the evidence we have for the microplastic particles, that's not to say that they're not important to think about. They definitely are. But yeah, there's growing evidence.

So some of these compounds are known endocrine disruptors. That means that they can mimic what our hormones do in our bodies. And we've seen from the release of hormones from sewage works, for example, into rivers, how we've got fish changing sex and that kind of thing. So some of these same chemicals or the same action of these chemicals are within plastics.

We heard a little bit earlier from that cut from Bethanie Carney Almroth and she also mentioned that it's hard for science to determine what's safe and what isn't. And yet these compounds are still in plastics around the world. I suppose it matters what country the plastic technology is being developed in, but it does seem to me that's a place of major disconnect.

Do you think it might be possible to, I don't know, slow down the process a little so that there's a regimen put in that new chemicals are tested for safety before they're put into plastics that are then sent out for consumer or industrial use.

LLOYD: Yeah, absolutely. If you look at the pharmaceutical industry, we don't give anything to people unless it's been thoroughly tested. But that's not the case in terms of plastic additives. We wait until we see that there's a problem. And then we think, "Oh, hang on, we need to do something about that."

One of the biggest problems for me studying these compounds is that there is no obligation for the manufacturers to actually tell you what is in those plastics. And when I've tried to find out what is in plastics that I've been investigating, I've got no information at all.

I've got to forensically dissect the product to understand what's in there before I can go on and answer the important science questions.

CHAKRABARTI: No obligation for manufacturers to say what's in the plastics.

LLOYD: No.

CHAKRABARTI: Anywhere in the world?

LLOYD: No, not as far as I'm aware.

CHAKRABARTI: Wow, I wonder, oh wow, I wonder how that aligns or conflicts with like EPA toxicology rules in this country.

I don't actually have the answer on the top of my head to that. John, do you have an answer to that?

HOCEVAR: What I can say is that The American Chemistry Council and the petrochemical lobby has worked really hard to make sure that they are not required to report these chemicals and that a lot of problems follow from that.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Charlotte, tell us a little bit more about, there's different ways to measure the ubiquity of these chemicals and the plastics. I had read some studies from quite some time ago, many years ago that said that they're so deeply part of the environment that after a child is born, it's almost no time before there's evidence of plastics or chemicals from plastics in a child's body.

Does that ring true to you?

LLOYD: That doesn't surprise me at all. So as I think John already mentioned plastic is airborne, so we are breathing it in all of the time. We very frequently do tests in our laboratory to see what the background levels of both microplastics and also chemicals from plastic are, because we obviously need to be very careful about cross-contamination.

When we're analyzing for these things, we want to make sure what we're seeing is a real signal. So we keep track of this, and we always see microplastics and some of these chemical additives just within our lab environment, whether they're coming from clothes. So my team wear all cotton lab coats and we dye them bright colors as well, so that they're very recognizable if there were to be any kind of cross contamination.

So it's something that we take really seriously. So yeah, it's everywhere. And the chemicals, you can't really avoid them. And that's the problem. The public don't really have a choice as to whether they're going to cut plastic from their lives because it's all around us.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. And therefore, the chemicals through various processes that you talked about earlier reach from those plastics and into people's bodies. But also, it seems clear to me though, that because of, in part, because of the challenges of understanding what the additives even are, that the science is still developing in regarding how we understand what the impacts of those chemicals are, Charlotte.

In that case, is it potentially too early, is it premature to come up with some kind of global treaty that either, that limits the production of plastics, if we don't have a really deep understanding yet of the potential toxic effects?

LLOYD: I think we don't have all the information. I think one of the facets of this treaty is that it will be, we need a starting point, that we can then, when the science does develop further, it could be updated. But I don't think it's a good idea to say we shouldn't do anything. That's part of the problem.

Waiting until you see that there's definitely a problem. And then it's too late. I think we know enough to know that that we need to limit our plastic usage. And there are so many products that are just unnecessary. There's no harm in getting rid of those.

CHAKRABARTI: One more question, Charlotte. Because you had mentioned that in the pharmaceutical industry, it's the opposite of what we see in the chemical industry, right? That pharmaceutical companies have to spend quite a bit of time proving no harm, right? In terms of the drugs they put out. And it doesn't, that process doesn't exist in the chemical industry to the same degree.

Can we think of examples in which that has led to what you might consider delayed responses to products that ended up proving harmful to human health coming out of the chemical industry.

LLOYD: A good example I think I'd give is, so my work has been focusing a lot on the use of plastic in agriculture.

So the mulch films that you may see laying across the soil and plants growing through. Now in those plastics, there is currently no regulation, at least in the EU and in the UK that I know of, which says which chemicals can go into those plastics. Of course, food packaging has a lot more stringent regulation about what can go into there.

But that leaves you in a situation where these mulch films where you're growing food through for a whole growing seasons, that could be months, in a kind of nice warm wet environment, where these chemicals could leach into the soil and potentially get taken up into plants. Once you had taken say those courgettes, or something that you've been growing on that plastic, or strawberries. You couldn't wrap those food stuffs in that same plastic because it would be against food packaging regulations.

So there's a huge disconnect between where we do have regulation for chemicals and where we currently don't. And, when I asked kind of policy makers in the UK about this, at least, they said, "Oh, yeah, I can see that could be a problem." I think there are loads of little holes that need plugging to make sure we're really thinking about the impacts of these chemicals and where they could be going.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Okay. John Hocevar, let me turn back to you briefly because as you mentioned earlier, the crux of the conversation as you see it, that should be happening this month, as the UN, as member nations gather, is plastic reduction, or plastic production reduction or increase in recycling or other forms of waste management.

Now, and I had asked you how much red plastic reduction would you like to see? Maybe it was because we were coming up against that break, but you didn't say this specific number. I mentioned it. 75%. Was there a reason why you were a little sheepish about saying that you wanted to see a 75% reduction in production?

HOCEVAR: No, we do indeed want to see a 75% reduction in plastic production overall.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, good. I just wanted to double check that. So John and Charlotte, hang on here for a second, because I now want to bring in David Clement into the conversation. He's North American affairs manager for the Consumer Choice Center.

David, welcome to On Point.

DAVID CLEMENT: Thank you very much for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: I just want to maybe help paint a little visual picture for listeners right now. Because obviously they, all they have to do is look around their environments, they'll see plastic everywhere. In the studio that I'm in, I'm holding a pen.

That's definitely got a plastic housing. The computer, keyboard, totally plastic. The casing around my headphone, even the headphone jack, plastic knobs, plastic computer monitor, plastic. I'm pretty sure there's plastic pieces on my shoes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's undeniable that I don't want to say need, but modern life is reliant on all the things that plastics can do.

So do you see a reduction in production as a better goal or some other way to manage the deleterious impacts that all of these plastics have on the world?

CLEMENT: Yeah, I think it's an important distinction. I think it's a valid effort to reduce plastic waste and to talk about how we can expand things like advanced recycling or chemical depolymerization, so that none of, all of the things you listed, end up in landfills or anything like that.

I'm not so certain that a 75% reduction in plastic production benefits Americans or the environment. And there are a couple very interesting case studies, whether it be food packaging or medical devices, where that type of reduction in those spaces would be far worse for the environment and far worse for patient safety.

CHAKRABARTI: So tell me about one of those examples.

CLEMENT: Yeah, so if I'm looking at food packaging, two examples. So if we look at something as trivial as cucumbers, which can often come wrapped in some sort of plastic. 1.5 grams of plastic. Wrapped around a cucumber extends the shelf life of that item for about 14 days.

CHAKRABARTI: And why does that matter?

CLEMENT: It matters because if that food spoils, you have to redo the entire production cycle for that item. And there are emissions associated with that. The tractors that are required, the gas to transport these items. It's the same for things like berries and berry containers. I know that was mentioned earlier.

It's true for baby food. The reason why baby food is in plastic is yes, because it's less expensive. But according to researchers in Switzerland, it's also 33% better from an emission standpoint, mostly just because it's lighter and easier to transport.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: David, you discussed very briefly the examples of potential positive uses of or essential uses of plastics in food, wrapping and transportation and also in the medical environment on that latter one. We spoke with Dr. Ted Schettler. He's science director of the science and environmental health network and an advisor with Health Care Without Harm, and he said, yes, it can be hard to cut back on plastic use for certain medical devices like I.V. Bags.

But scientists have also said that a kind of plastic used in many I.V. Bags, specifically polyvinyl chloride, can actually potentially harm patients.

SCHETTLER: The Food and Drug Administration issued a public health warning back in 2002 about excessive exposures to a particular phthalate, DEHP, that could leach out in unsafe amounts, but they didn't ban the use of polyvinyl chloride.

So it continues to be used by a number of the large medical device manufacturers. But there are alternatives on the market.

CHAKRABARTI: David Clement, what's your response to that?

CLEMENT: It's an important conversation, but I think you have to lean on the FDA here in terms of what's approved and what's not, because when it comes to these questions, more often than not, they're looking at this from a cost benefit perspective in terms of what the value is.

They almost, in terms of patient safety, I can't speak to the specific example he's using, because I'm not as familiar with it, obviously, as he is. It's a question of yes. Alternatives may exist. What are those costs and do those alternatives also have externalities. And what are those? And that is, I think what is often missing in this debate about plastics.

And I'll give you an example. The environment ministry of Denmark did a life cycle analysis comparing single use plastic bags, the type that you would otherwise get at a grocery store. And when they look at it, I think 15, 17 different environmental factors. You have to reuse something like a paper bag 40 times in order for it to be equal to a single use plastic bag.

And if we're looking at cloth bags or even worse, organic cotton, the use rate on it is in many instances beyond what a human being is capable of doing. So that kind of organic cotton bag would need to be reused 7,000 times. And that's more than one human's lifetime trip to any store.

CHAKRABARTI: 7,000 times in order to what?

CLEMENT: In order to be as environmentally advantageous as a single use plastic bag and that's taking in --

CHAKRABARTI: When considering those externalities you were talking about.

CLEMENT: Yeah. Yeah. Everything from how it's produced, the energy required, ocean acidification. It's essentially like a full scope life cycle analysis.

And this is from Denmark. They're not, they are not considered one of the countries who doesn't take this seriously. And that doesn't mean that if you want to reduce plastic you should avoid alternatives. Ultimately that's up to consumers, but in terms of government policy, when we mandate that, it isn't necessarily better from an environmental standpoint.

Whether you're looking at emissions or other aspects of the things that we care about, right? Wanting a cleaner environment.

CHAKRABARTI: John Hocevar, you've been listening along with us here. What's your response to the point of view that David Clement's offering?

HOCEVAR: There are really extensive critiques of that Denmark study and others.

Life cycle analysis can be a helpful tool, but ultimately, it's only as good as the questions that we ask. The parameters that we set, the data that we use, the assumptions that we make. And, I think pretty much anyone, if you said a plastic bag is the best environmental alternative, is going to find that a little bit suspect.

CLEMENT: Sure. Just as a one aside, the major critique on that study is it depends on the energy source used in production. You would have a point if the energy source used in production was nuclear energy. But historically speaking, that hasn't been something that Greenpeace has advocated for.

And it's been something that Greenpeace has advocated against. So the critique isn't that it's wrong. The critique is that if you're using cleaner, greener energy like nuclear, which is consistent and steady, then some of those numbers decrease in terms of how often an item needs to be reused to equal that of a plastic bag, but I'm not sure that's quite the critique Greenpeace would be going for.

Because that would require a massive expansion of nuclear energy. And as a Canadian who lives in Ontario in a province that has completely shifted away from a lot of ugly types of energy production in favor of nuclear. I think that's a huge net positive for the environment. But you might have caught yourself in a Catch-22 here.

CHAKRABARTI: Let me get, let me allow John to answer that. Go ahead, John.

HOCEVAR: No, that wasn't our critique, but thanks for putting that in my mouth. Look, the bigger point is that David thinks that this should be left to the consumers. And we heard some really inspiring stories from your listeners who are doing what they can to reduce the amount of plastic that they bring into their homes that they use in their lives.

And I think that's true for many of us, all around the world, but the fact is, if you walk into a supermarket, you walk into a restaurant, really almost anywhere, you're going to find it very difficult at the moment to find options that enable you to avoid plastic. And our governments have really failed us in this regard, and we heard from Charlotte that there are 16,000 chemicals that are commonly used as additives in plastic.

The vast majority of them are unregulated. There's no transparency. We know that many of them are deeply problematic from a health standpoint. And here we are. And so this is the role of government is to protect its citizens, and we are not seeing that. So that's what this treaty is about, is the governments of the world coming together and saying, "Alright, mistakes were made. We let this go too far. We actually need to have some serious course correction," right?

CHAKRABARTI: So David, on that point, there's one more question I have for you before we've got to let you go, because John is clearly advocating for a role for government here. And I heard you say, equally, clearly, beforehand that you don't think government has a role that it should lay in the hands of consumers.

CLEMENT: It depends. In mandating the packaging options available, I'm not sure that's the best route because, as we've seen in Canada, the mandate on banning a variety of single use plastics has pushed consumers to alternatives that are far worse.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Okay. So point taken. But what I want to get to is that you're the North American Affairs Manager for the Consumer Choice Center.

And I believe, according to some research done by the University of Bath, that the Consumer Choice Center's parent organization is a group called Students for Liberty, which is --

CLEMENT: That is not correct.

CHAKRABARTI: So who is your parent organization then?

CLEMENT: There is no parent organization.

It was started as a project. With some folks affiliated with Students for Liberty at the time.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay.

CLEMENT: But no, it's not our parent organization. There's no affiliation with Students for Liberty at all beyond what would have been that original inception years ago. We've reached out to them several times to try and correct this.

They don't seem particularly interested, but I didn't mean to interrupt your question. It's just that the premise of it was repeating a falsehood that we see quite a bit.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. The consumer choice center though, has received funding, as again, according to this report, from Japan Tobacco International, Philip Morris International, Altria, British American Tobacco. So clearly seems as if part of what the consumer choice center is about is advancing the interests of the tobacco industry, including, new forms of tobacco consumption, e-cigarettes, vaping, and the like.

What I'm curious about is how does that part of what the CCC does connect with the point of view or the stance it has on plastics?

CLEMENT: I couldn't tell you. I don't, I have no idea what their view on plastics is. I have no idea. We don't operate that way with anyone who's ever given us funding, in terms of caring about their stance.

And on that subject, just for clarification, we talk about harm reduction across the board, whether it be safe injection sites or vaping. We're rather strident in our approach to harm reduction, and that may be where some interests align. But I couldn't tell you what their position is on plastics.

Our position, my position is how do these policies, how would a 75% reduction in plastic production overall impact consumers from a choice perspective, from an inflationary perspective and from an environmental one? And I think that there are some big holes there that often get missed. And when we talk about plastics, for example, if you want to approach it with the horse blinders on and say, our only goal needs to be reducing plastic, then, of course, some of these policies would reduce plastic.

But if your question is broader than that, in terms of how does this impact the environment? Which I think is a more important concern, that's where things get complicated. And that's really the point on this.

CHAKRABARTI: David Clement from the Consumer Choice Center, thank you so much for joining us today.

CLEMENT: No, not a problem.

CHAKRABARTI: Charlotte Lloyd, you've been listening patiently, and I much appreciate that. I just wanted to give you a chance to respond to some of what you heard David say.

LLOYD: Yeah, there were definitely elements of what he said that rings true. There are some areas where plastic is, you know, become essential.

If I go back to my example of the agricultural mulch films, they create a big increase in crop yields if you're using plastic mulch. And there are some areas of the world where because of climate change, they'll become more and more reliant on the use of those products.

So I agree that it's very difficult to say, "We should just stop making plastic." But I think it's also a very dangerous game. I think we need to be thinking very carefully about the chemicals that are in the plastic. So where we really need to use plastic, we need to design the best product possible with the least environmental harm.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. I want to come back to something that one of our listeners did say a bit earlier when she said that there are types of plastics. This was Kate, who called us from North Bend, Oregon. She can recycle plastics Number 2, 4, 5 and 6 and Styrofoam, but no one will take the Nmber 1's in her area.

I think a lot of people have experienced that. I can't speak for the UK, Charlotte, but in the United States in the past several years, the types of plastics that various municipalities will accept has changed dramatically. dropped. To that point again, the American Chemistry Council said in a statement to us that the UN's global agreement on plastics should focus on ending plastic pollution, not production.

They say the primary culprit of plastic pollution is inadequate waste management. Instead of reducing the supply of material used in so many essential products, the focus should be on, excuse me, on preventing pollution. John what do you think about that?  Shouldn't that also be, they're saying it should be the focus, but shouldn't it also be part of the efforts here?

HOCEVAR: We did a very comprehensive assessment of plastic recycling in the United States. We looked at every material recovery facility that we have and what they accept and what they do with that material. And what we found is that only bottles and jugs, the ones and twos that are bottles and jugs are widely recycled in the United States.

So there may be places where you can recycle Styrofoam, for example, but that is very much the exception. Almost everywhere in the country, that is going to a landfill or an incinerator. That's a big part of the issue here, when people start talking about recycling. We need to understand the limitations of that.

The vast majority of plastic is never going to be recycled. It doesn't make sense economically or environmentally.

CHAKRABARTI: Is that because, I believe, I'm recalling reporting from the past that said China at one point in time was taking a great deal of U.S. plastics and doing the recycling and they're no longer doing that?

HOCEVAR: That is true that China is no longer accepting plastic waste imports. It doesn't really mean that they were recycling a lot of it either.

CHAKRABARTI: But can it be recycled though? I take your point about it's not. Maybe a lot of it is not right now. It's being incinerated. But that doesn't mean the technology doesn't exist to do the recycling, right?

Is this an economics question?

HOCEVAR: If you throw enough carbon and money and time at it, you can recycle almost anything. But that doesn't mean that it makes sense to do that.

CHAKRABARTI: I'm not clear on what you're saying, because I'm just thinking there, that little rounded triangle with the number in it, it's so ubiquitous, it implies that it can be recycled.

HOCEVAR: Yeah, I think that's one of the problems we have is that it has really been misleading for consumers. Most of us maybe not feel good about it, but feel better about all this plastic in our lives because we see those symbols and we assume that it can be or even will be recycled. And in the vast majority of cases, it will not be.

CHAKRABARTI: It will not be, because of the cost of it or the technology does not exist to recycle it?

I really feel like we need clarity on this.

HOCEVAR: Sure. It's primarily the cost and the time and the Carbon that it takes to do that. So it is far cheaper for companies to produce new items out of virgin plastic resin than recycled.

CHAKRABARTI: I got it.

HOCEVAR: For almost everything.

CHAKRABARTI: I got it. Okay. That makes me wonder then if part of this treaty should include some kind of, I don't know, financial or economic incentives, to make recyclable plastic a more attractive material. But you know what? As far as I understand, the process is just at its beginning. So as the UN nations meet and try to hash something out, we'll definitely keep on top of developments there.